Abstract

Compared to the logical operator of conjunction which conjoins two propositions symmetrically, the natural linguistic connective and has a wider scope of meaning aspects including the asymmetric ones, where the order of the conjuncts has an impact on the meaning of the coordinated sentence. The current theoretical debate mainly concerns the sources of the asymmetric meanings in regard to the interaction of semantics and pragmatics, as these extra meaning components present typical traits of a pragmatic inference, but they may also influence the truth-conditional meaning in embedded sentences. This article summarizes the most important approaches addressing this issue. The meaning-minimalist accounts assume that the semantics of the conjunctive coordinator is equal to the logical conjunction, and attribute further meaning components to pragmatic factors. The meaning-non-minimalists, on the other hand, assign a richer semantic content to the connective that restricts or favours certain semantic relations between the conjuncts. Although the current approaches confront challenges, they provide the basis for an integrated model for asymmetric conjunction that combines multifaceted factors.