Semantics Vs Pragmatics

👉Semantics studies the meaning of language -- Pragmatics studies the language use.

👉Semantics includes conventional meaning-- Pragmatics includes a natural meaning.

👉Semantics works in an explicit level -- Pragmatics works on an implicit level.

👉Semantics influences the relation between words and language --Pragmatics influences the relation between language and communication.

👉Semantics is discourse linguistics --Pragmatics is not discourse linguistics.

👉Semantics gives a context-independent meaning-- Pragmatics offers a context-dependent meaning.

👉Semantics elucidates the syntactic meaning of a sentence-- Pragmatics discusses the semantic interpretation of a sentence.

👉Syntax is the input of Semantics --Semantics is the input of pragmatics.

👉Semantics addresses the denotative meaning of a sentence- -Pragmatics covers the connotative meaning of the sentence.

👉Semantics provides only a surface interpretation of a sentence utterance --Pragmatics provides a complete interpretation of a sentence utterance.

👉Syntax-semantics interface can be exemplified by ambiguity and interpretation of anaphora-- syntax-semantics interface can be concerned mainly disambiguation and clarity. 

👉Semantics deals with two basic topics, which are closely related: lexical semantics and compositional semantics--Pragmatics includes implicature, presupposition, metaphor, associations. 

Semantics Vs Pragmatics explain

The distinction between Semantics and Pragmatics, therefore, tends to go with the distinction between meaning and use, or more generally, that between competence and performance.

Semantics is the level of linguistics that has largely been affected by pragmatics, but the relation between semantics and pragmatics has remained a matter for fundamental disagreements. The central issue is whether or not it's valid to separate pragmatics from semantics in the least. Three logically distinct positions in this debate can be distinguished:

1. Pragmatics should be subsumed under semantics, that's semanticism.

2. Semantics should be subsumed under pragmatics, that's pragmaticism.

3. Semantics and pragmatics are distinct and complementary course of study, that is, complementarianism.

Though all the three positions have some reasons behind them, complementarianism enjoys the foremost solid position. At a very simple level, contention between the three positions can be traced in ambivalence in the everyday use of the verb “mean” of major usages of this verb, one is bivalent, and one is trivalent:

1. Donkey means “ass”.
2. When Miss Trotwood said Janet!

Donkeys! She means by this remark that Janet was to drive the donkeys off the lawn.

The second example is clearly concerned meaning not just as a property of language, but as a particular speaker's use of language in a particular context. It is the latter use of meaning which is pragmatic. The question is whether meaning (1) is to be assimilated to meaning (2), or whether meaning (2) is to be assimilated to meaning (1), or whether each meaning is distinct from the other. We may consider meaning (2):

(i) It involves the speaker's intention to convey a particular meaning which can, or might not, be evident from the message itself

(ii) Consequently, interpretation by the hearer of this meaning is probably going to depend upon context; and

(iii) Meaning, during this sense, are some things which is performed, instead of something that exists during a static way. It involves action and interaction.

Then the subsequent are outward criteria for judging whether a specific discussion of meaning takes us into the realm of Pragmatics:

1. Is reference made to addressers or addressees, or speakers or hearers?

2. Is reference made to the interpretation of the hearer or the intention of the speaker?

3. Is reference made to context?

4. Is reference made to the type of act or action performed by means of or by virtue of using language?
If the answer to one or more of these questions is affirmative, there is reason to suppose that we are dealing with pragmatics. 

Concluding, to interpret meaning, semantics is found to depend upon pragmatics, and vice versa.