What linguistics is all about

Sentence in its context

A text is like the description of a scene in a theater play. It alludes to an action which occurs at a certain place, at a certain time, in certain circumstances. It make sense in a context of utterance, with a given speaker, an intended audience, and with respect to known background facts. Certain elements of this context are extra-linguistic, but language has also its way to ground a sentence within an enunciation, with deictics.

Va, cours, vole et nous venge.

There is no way to understand this sentence if you do not understand a number of elements. Remark: “nous” (“we”) is actually ambiguous.

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