Spontaneous Linguistic Understanding: a few Introductory Remarks

Abstract

Let me try to explain from the outset what I mean by “spontaneous linguistic understanding” (SLU). As a first approximation, it is the non-reflexive, fluent, direct and mostly non-inferential process by which a speaker-hearer dynamically, by considering usually stretches of discourse rather than isolated sentences, determines the intuitive truth conditions (or, in general, the satisfaction conditions) of the utterances performed in a specific context of use. Most people on Earth enjoy that kind of experience all the time in their mother tongue. The view of SLU I shall try to develop here takes actions and plans as a starting point, that is, utterances usually performed as part of bigger plans. Rarely do we perform isolated actions; our actions, as a rule, are parts of plans, steps towards the achievement of a project. This, of course, holds for sequences of speech acts in a discourse or conversation. As there are always different ways to perform the same act-type, it is no surprise that there may be different ways to perform any speech act-type. 1 Utterances are actions, and SLU, as we shall see, is tied to occurrent understanding of utterances. SLU is also a dynamic process that considers a topic that can be developed in different ways. However, it is obvious that what has been said in a discourse or a conversation smoothly restricts what can be relevantly said soon afterwards. In this process, truth conditions are grasped, especially those actually grasped and considered by the