A distinction is drawn between pragmatic and semantic meaning and a supporting discussion is presented. The hypothesis is then stated, that there are cases where semantic meaning of an utterance is learned as an abstraction from pragmatic meaning. Data from two experiments on a group of 63 preschool children are presented which provide empirical support for the hypothesis in the case of the spatial prepositions "under,""underneath," and "below." The implication of these data is that the competence which distinguishes the competent native hearer-speaker of a language from others has as much to do with pragmatics as with syntactics. (Author)