Le sens de l’implicite. Unité et diversité des phénomènes d’implicite linguistique.

This study aims at reconciling the specialized, rather fragmentary approaches to implicit meaning that have been developed in language sciences with the most common view of the facts involved. As a first step, an overall definition of implicit meaning is put forward, based on the notion of background information. It is then shown that this broad definition makes room for three kinds of facts which have been neglected so far by specialized studies, although providing the missing link between the two dominant conceptions of implicit meaning in language sciences: i) minimum implicit meaning (when only background information is activated); ii) structural implicit meaning (involved in every linguistic meaning as such); iii) extrasubjective implicit meaning (shaped by a general principle of mutual empathy). Conversational implicature is also redefined so as to make possible a clear-cut distinction between contents of meaning and mental contents attributable to the speaker. Lastly, most linguistic facts usually considered as sources of implicit uses are analyzed within the frame provided by this global definition of implicit meaning.