Context in dynamic interpretation

The linguistic sub-fields of semantics and pragmatics are both concerned with the study of meaning. We might say that semantics studies what Grice (1967) (Chapter 5) called the timeless meaning of a linguistic expression φ—the basic meanings of the words in φ composed as a function of the syntactic structure of φ. Formal semantics, especially since the seminal work of Montague (1973), attempts to develop an empirically adequate theory of semantics for a given language by developing rules which are clear and unambiguous in their application and effect, hence making clear predictions about the possible meanings for a given expression. We assume that words do have basic meanings, and that a given syntactic structure corresponds to a determinate way of composing the meanings of its sub-parts.1 Pragmatics, on the other hand, studies utterances of expressions like φ, attempting to explain what someone meant by saying φ on a particular occasion. It is clear that there is quite often a difference between the timeless meaning of φ and what someone meant by uttering φ on a given occasion. It is a truism among native speakers that this difference arises because of the way that the context of utterance influences interpretation. We complain if someone cites what we sa