Consider the following exchange between two college students:

1. Joe: Are you going to take the semantics course next semester?

2. Sue: Didn't you hear that Prof. Allen is teaching it?

How does Joe interpret Sue's response to his question? Although Sue's response is itself a question, it is considered an appropriate answer to Joe's original question. But in different circumstances it would convey different answers. For example, on the assumption that Sue likes Prof. Allen, the implied answer will be yes, whereas on the assumption that she wants to avoid him as an instructor, the implied answer will be no. The fact that the listener (Joe) presumably knows, for example, that Sue doesn't like Prof. Allen (or at least is aware of the belief that Prof. Allen is, say, an usually difficult instructor), allows Joe to easily deduce that Sue really means that she won't be enrolling in the class.

How should we characterize the process by which people understand utterances? And what role does recognition of a speaker's intentions play in the comprehension process? My general claim is that language understanding is not grounded in understanding the meanings of the words spoken, even in context. Nor do speakers produce utterances and listeners understand them independently of one another. Instead, speakers and listeners cooperate and coordinate with each other to understand their individual and joint intentions in face-to-face interaction. Describing how this is accomplished is the primary goal of this chapter.