Chapter 4 examines how the direct linguistic environment of a lexeme affects its interpretation. In keeping with the constructionist approach, this means looking into the interaction between lexemes and the various types of constructions in which they are found. First, examples of coercion are considered. Though semantically triggered, it is argued that such examples are pragmatically resolved and do not require a process distinct from lexically regulated saturation (Leclercq, 2019). The pragmatic roots of coercion are related to the “procedural function” of the “grammatical constructions” involved, two concepts whose definitions are carefully reviewed. It is argued that grammatical constructions serve only to assist the interpretation process. Second, attention is given to more idiomatic constructions in which lexemes are also found. The interpretation of these constructions is said to follow from a parallel, context-sensitive process guided by considerations of relevance that may suspend lexically regulated saturation. Overall, Chapter 4 sheds light on the complex ways in which lexical meaning comes about.

Chapter 5 presents a fully procedural analysis of personal pronouns in English. Pronouns, it is argued encode procedures which operate at a sub-personal level. Features including gender, number and person features function purely syntactically and do not contribute directly to the semantics of the overall message. That is, they are not conceptual. Rather, the cognitive processes triggered by use of a pronoun function to constrain potential referents to a sub-personally identifiable set. The differences in interpretation that arise when a speaker chooses to place contrastive prosodic stress on a pronoun are discussed, along with examples where the choice of pronoun does not play a role in reference resolution but contributes to other aspects of the speaker’s overall meaning. The discussion focuses specifically on the communication of expressive effects and has significance not just for our understanding of pronouns, but for our understanding of procedural meaning more generally.

Chapter 4 outlines a procedural relevance-based analysis of the definite determiner the. The definite article, it is argued, signals to the hearer that he should seek out an existing conceptual file on which to resolve reference. The indefinite article, on the other hand, instructs the hearer to open a new conceptual file. As interpretation proceeds, the hearer seeks to align the conceptual content within the nominal of the definite description with that in the target conceptual file. This approach to the contribution that definite descriptions make to speaker meaning is then applied to cases of misdescription and, it is claimed, it also offers fresh perspective on the referential–attributive distinction. Finally, stylistic effects which may arise from the choice and content of definite descriptions are discussed.

Chapter 2 provides an overview of the main ideas and principles of relevance theory. The cognitive and communicative principles of relevance are introduced, along with the notion of procedural meaning. The roles that these principles and concepts play in utterance interpretation are discussed. Attention then turns to reference with an overview of Wilson’s (1992) relevance-based account. The importance of the role of accessibility of context and referents in understanding the process of reference resolution is highlighted. Focus then turns to the cognitive process of referring itself. The act of resolving reference is presented as the process of mapping argument slots in the logical form of an utterance onto conceptual files. Referring expressions are a means by which a speaker can guide a hearer in this process. That is, they are procedural in nature. As with other interpretive processes, reference resolution is driven by the presumption of optimal relevance. The processes of mapping an argument slot onto a conceptual file and enriching that conceptual file are driven from the bottom-up by the semantics of the verb and constrained from the top-down by considerations of relevance.

Chapter 6 applies the relevance-based account of referring expressions to the phenomenon of null subjects in non-pro-drop languages. So-called diary-style nulls, it is argued, are ultimately driven by the interaction of effects and effort and therefore by the speaker’s aim of achieving optimal relevance. Three broad categories of null subject use in English are identified: an informal null subject where the omission leads to extra cognitive effects, a pressurized null subject where the speaker’s abilities are the crucial factor, and finally, an ostensively vague null subject, which is driven by the speaker’s preferences. These three categories are not presented as an exhaustive taxonomy of English null subjects, or as theoretically distinct. Rather they emerge as a result of a speaker aiming at optimal relevance in different discourse contexts, and they represent occasions where different elements in the overall equation of optimal relevance drive lexical omissions.

Chapter 7 presents a context-based unitary analysis of demonstratives in English. Existing work reveals a wide and disparate range of effects associated with choice of demonstrative, and in this chapter, it is argued that these various and wide-ranging communicated effects are derived pragmatically. Procedures are proposed for both the proximal and distal demonstrative determiners, and a range of examples are discussed. It is argued that all of the identified uses and functions of demonstratives derive from the same underlying procedures, and that these procedures can interact with the discourse context to create effects that go beyond simply resolving reference. Examples from advertising and political discourse are discussed along with literary examples, and a range of stylistic effects are identified and explained on the procedural, relevance-based analysis.

Jary and Kissine examine the meaning of imperative sentences, taking the existing relevance-theoretic semantic analysis, in terms of the desirability and potentiality of the described state of affairs, as their point of departure. In their view, a complete account of the interpretation of imperatives has to explain how they can result in the addressee forming an intention to perform an action, and this requires the theory to make room for ‘action representations’ (in addition to factual representations, such as assumptions). They claim that the imperative form is uniquely specified to interface with such action representations.

In this chapter, Thorstein Fretheim discusses a Norwegian modal adverb, gjerne, which he maintains is polysemous, in that it has two related meanings, both of which are conventionalised and stored in the lexicon. This case of polysemy seems to be different from the polysemy of open-class words (nouns, verbs, adjectives), which is typically explained in relevance-theoretic terms as involving pragmatic adjustments of an encoded concept. Fretheim argues that the two meanings of gjerne are better analysed as encoded procedures, so as constraining the hearer’s interpretation process rather than contributing a concept to that interpretation.

Ingrid Lossius Falkum uses data from young children’s communicative development to argue that metaphor and metonymy rely on different pragmatic mechanisms. Metaphor and metonymy do have certain characteristics in common: they both target individual words or phrases, they both contribute content to the proposition explicitly expressed, and they both lie on a continuum of literal and figurative uses. However, developmental data suggests that early metonymic uses may be the result of a more basic process than metaphorical uses, one in which the child exploits salient associative relations to compensate for gaps in vocabulary.

Tim Wharton and Claudia Strey make the case that it is time to develop an account of how emotions are expressed and communicated and to fully integrate it into pragmatic theory. They discuss the descriptive ineffability of emotional communication and argue for the introduction of a new notion of ‘positive emotional effect’ to complement the existing notion of ‘positive cognitive effect’. They also suggest that recent developments in relevance theory, specifically work on indeterminacy of meaning and on procedural meaning, make it uniquely capable of accommodating these vaguer aspects of communication.