The idea that interpreting a lexeme typically involves a context-dependent process of meaning construction has in recent years become common ground in linguistic theory. One’s exact stance on the matter mostly depends on one’s theoretical and empirical commitments. In relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1995), it is argued that the creation of context-specific senses (called ‘ad hoc concepts’) mostly consists in an inferential process of conceptual adjustment triggered and guided by the search for optimal relevance (Carston 2002). This view is originally rooted in the assumption that lexical concepts never fully correspond to the speaker’s intended meaning (Sperber and Wilson 1998). Consider the examples in (1) to (3). In Example (1), the noun human being is not used to communicate the literal concept human being (i.e. ‘a homo sapiens’), since it is mutually manifest that the hearer already belongs to that category, and the latter must therefore infer a more specific ad hoc concept human being* (e.g. ‘a well-mannered person’). In Example (2), the verb bankrupt can be understood literally of course, but there might also be contexts in which it is loosely used to say that farmers will grow poor as a result of this policy (without necessarily going insolvent). Likewise, in Example (3), while the noun princess may be used literally (in the case Caroline turns out to be the member of a royal family), it can also be used metaphorically to credit Caroline with properties stereotypically attributed to princesses, such as good physical features.

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