Phatic communication and Relevance Theory: a reply to Ward & Horn * VLAD Ž EGARAC University of Luton BILLY CLARK Middlesex University 1. Introduction In Žegarac & Clark (1999) we try to show how phatic communication can be explained within the framework of Relevance Theory. We suggest that phatic commun ication should be charact erized as a particular type of interpretation, which we call ‘phatic interpretation’. On our account, an int erp ret ati on is phat ic to the exten t that its main relev ance lies with impli cated concl usion s whic h do not depe nd on the expl icit cont ent of the utte ranc e, but rath er on the communicative intention (where ‘depends on X’ means: ‘results from an inferential process which takes X as a premise’). For example: (1) Sit uat ion : Arthur and Pauline have quarrelled, and have not spoken to each other for two days. Over breakf ast, Arthu r says to Pauli ne: There' s a red gas bill. In this situation, Arthur's utterance implicates that he is no longer as angry with Pauline as he had been. This implicature is a conclusion which crucially depends on the fact that Arthur has spoken to Pauline (i.e. on hi s communicative intention), rather than on the meanings of the words he has used. Thus, even if Arthur had said something like: ‘I don't want to speak to you ever again’, Pauline might still have taken the fact that he has addressed her as evidence of some degree of willingness on his part to make up with her (perhaps as an indirect invitation to make the first dire ct move towar ds a recon cilia tion) . Our detai led anal ysis of a few clea r-cut examp les draws on the Relevance-theoretic notion of (mutual)