Editors' Preface

Abstract

It is evident that, in theory, researchers in the cognitive sciences and semantics have nothing to lose and a lot to gain from working together. In practice, however, contacts have for a long time been lukewarm, at best. A few decades ago, this could have been blamed on the fact that semantics was viewed, by many of its practitioners and outsiders alike, as being concerned with a formal characterisation of language rather than what goes on in the minds and/or brains of speakers and hearers. But this has changed: since the late 1970s, theoretical semantics has become increasingly “cognitivist” in its orientation, and notions like information states, speakers' beliefs, and (mental) discourse representations have come to play a key role in many semantic theories. Although there may still be an anti-mentalist undercurrent, it has weakened dramatically, and is surely not the prevailing trend anymore. The true reason why there has...