Edited by Piotr Cap and Marta Dynel
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 276] 2017
► pp. 15–36
Linguists sometimes assume that the readings associated with linguistic utterance, both explicit and implicit, are self-evident. I here problematize the concept of a reading associated with linguistic expressions, and restrict it to interpretations systematically intended by the speaker using the utterance. This is a stronger condition than is sometimes adopted, namely, meshing the utterance with the objective reality that must lie behind the utterance (according to the speaker). I reanalyze assumptions commonly considered part of the reading associated with and, or and scalar quantifiers as Background or as Truth-Compatible inferences. On this account, these assumptions do not fall under the speaker’s communicative intention, and therefore do not constitute readings.