pragmatics
/præɡˈmætɪks/
how context influences the interpretation of meaning
pragmatics in a sentence
“Pragmatically, 'Can you pass the salt?' is a request, not a question.”
Origin of pragmatics
Greek pragmatikos (practical), from pragma (deed)
Related Words
morphology
the study of word formation and internal structure
deixis
words whose meaning depends on context (I, here, now, this)
anaphora
using a word to refer back to something mentioned earlier
polysemy
a single word having multiple related meanings
disambiguation
resolving which meaning is intended when multiple are possible
compositionality
the meaning of a whole derived from its parts and their arrangement