Pragmatics: modeling language use.

Harvard FAS

Meaning is highly context dependent, and this class will help you learn to make sense of it. Take for example a simple, basic word like "or." “We will hire either Sue or Mary” strongly conveys that we won’t be hiring both Sue and Mary. But in “Joan is smarter than either Sue or Mary” that same little word or means the opposite: it means that Joan is smarter than both Mary and Sue. How is it possible that the same word sometimes means ’not both’ and sometimes ‘both'? Similarly, "Can you open…