Abstract

The present paper discusses Eco’s interpretative approach in “Lector in fabulaµ from the crosslinguistic question of the point of view which describes the denotative/subjective tension of the reference, a support for the inferences calculated based on the activity of the enunciators/extra- or intratextual modal subjects. These abductions, that have an empathic nature, sustain a continuum which goes from the sensorial to the sensitive, the intelligible and the praxic. This continuum is then correlated to Peirce’s abductive inferences and Grize’s inferential natural logic, in order to highlight the strategic importance, for the readers and the analysts, of drawing a range of indirect argumentative dimensions underlying the abductive inferences related to the history, to its actors, to those who stage or interpret them. Finally, the paper explains how this approach extends Eco’s analyses from Lector in fabula, by giving an increasing importance to the linguistic materiality of the discursive use and to the diversification of enunciative sources to which the abductions are related.