Abstract

The interpretation of natural language utterances in argumentation is largely a tacit procedure, that is to say, a procedure transacted for the most part sublinguistically, inattentively, automatically and involuntarily. In the particular case of the interpretation of argumentative texts, the tacitness thesis provides that interpreters are able to discern intended messages without forming -- and usually without being able to -- propositional representations that wholly contain their contents. How is this done? In this paper, we propose the following theses: Interpretation can be represented as collapse of meaning in a semantic space model. Semantic collapse, in turn, can be likened to the quantum collapse of superpositional states of word meaning. Non-trivial structural similarities with quantum collapse are discernible in matrix models of memory. The advantage of is that it provides independent reason to suppose that quantum structures admit of psychological construal. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research.