underses

Underses is a hypothetical linguistic concept referring to minimal semantic units whose meanings are under-specified and resolved primarily through discourse context. In this framing, an underses carries a single broad sense rather than multiple distinct senses, and its precise reference is determined by surrounding discourse, common ground, and situational cues.

Characteristics include context-dependence, reliance on prior mentions, and potential variability across speakers. Function words and deictic expressions are often discussed as candidates that can behave as underses when their referents are not yet established in the ongoing discourse. For instance, a demonstrative like this or that may function as an underses in a scene-setting sentence until the specific referent is made explicit.

In linguistic analysis, underses are positioned within discussions of underspecification and pragmatic interpretation. They challenge models that treat all lexical items as fully specified at the point of use, and they invite analyses that separate linguistic form from immediate interpretation. In natural language processing and machine translation, accounting for underses involves modeling discourse context, co-reference chains, and world knowledge to resolve references accurately.

Critics note that the distinction between underses, deixis, and under-specified referents can be subtle and that empirical evidence for a separate category is limited. Proponents contend that the concept helps describe how speakers manage ambiguity in real-time communication and how discourse context shapes meaning.

See also: underspecification, deixis, anaphora, polysemy, discourse analysis.