ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with pragmatic meaning, that is, the meaning which is intended by a speaker in a verbal communication. Different types of pragmatic meaning, ranging from the implicit (implicatures, presuppositions) to the explicit (explicatures), will be explored. Since the main characteristic of conveyed meaning is its implicitness, this chapter will explain how an addressee can trust what a speaker says if the speaker can deny having had the intention to convey it and how the speaker can be committed to something she can deny. This pragmatic paradox raises not only the issue of what speaker meaning is, but more importantly what the relationships are between language and truth if an intended speaker's meaning can be cancelled and denied without contradiction. My answer to this apparent paradox gives a central role to truth in verbal communication.
