Reassessing the conceptual–procedural distinction

•Comparing procedural and use-conditional approaches to semantics.•Considering whether procedural meaning is best seen as semantic or pragmatic.•Assessing the truth-conditional status of conceptual and procedural meaning.•Considering some possible extensions to current accounts of procedural meaning.•Reassessing procedural meaning in the light of evolutionary accounts of cognition.

My aim in this paper is to reassess the conceptual–procedural distinction as drawn in relevance theory in the light of almost thirty years of research. In Section 1, I make some comparisons between approaches to semantics based on a conceptual–procedural distinction and those based on a distinction between truth conditions and conditions for appropriate use. In Section 2, I present a brief history of the conceptual–procedural distinction as drawn in relevance theory. In Section 3, I consider the nature of procedural encoding and discuss whether it is best seen as semantic or pragmatic. In Section 4, I outline some parallels and differences between procedural and use-conditional accounts of interjections. In Section 5, I discuss the implications of the conceptual–procedural distinction for lexical pragmatics and consider some recent proposals about how it might be extended. In Section 6, I reassess the conceptual–procedural distinction in the light of current evolutionary approaches to cognition and point out some future directions for research.