Some things that we take to be the case in a fictional work are never made explicit by the work itself. For instance, we assume that Sherlock Holmes does not have a third nostril, that he wears underpants and that he has never solved a case with a purple gnome, even though neither of these things is ever mentioned in the narration. This article argues that examples like these can be accounted for through the same content-enriching reasoning that we employ when confronted with non-fictional discourse, with the important difference that fictional discourse essentially involves pretence. Fictional discourse works in much the same way as non-fictional discourse, and what is conveyed without being stated can accordingly be explained through familiar pragmatic mechanisms. It is argued that this account carries some distinct advantages over competing views.

我们认为虚构作品中的某些事情从未在作品本身中明确表达过。例如，我们假设夏洛克·福尔摩斯没有第三个鼻孔，他穿着内裤，并且他从未解决过与紫色侏儒的案件，尽管这些事情在叙述中都没有提及。本文认为，像这样的例子可以通过我们在面对非虚构话语时使用的相同的内容丰富推理来解释，但重要的区别是虚构话语本质上涉及伪装。虚构话语的运作方式与非虚构话语大致相同，因此，无需陈述而传达的内容可以通过熟悉的语用机制进行解释。有人认为，与其他观点相比，这种说法具有一些明显的优势。