- The Semantics-Pragmatics Distinction: What It Is and Why It Matters KENT BACH Department of Philosophy San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA 94132 USA kbach@sfsu.edu The distinction between semantics and pragmatics is easier to apply than to explain. Explaining it is complicated by the fact that many conflicting formulations have been proposed over the past sixty years. This might ...userwww.sfsu.edu/~kbach/semprag.html