Cuando el valor ilocutivo no coincide con el locutivo

Some grammatical structures, as Spanish ESTAR + GERUNDIO or English BE + ING, both the present focus of this study, implement a conventionalized mismatch between their locutionary and illocutionary value. This means that what is uttered by means of such structures is not exactly what the utterer’s communicative intention points to. In other words, what is meant through them does not coincide with what is said, so it is necessary to infer it. These inferences of something often not made explicit in the text itself pose serious comprehension difficulties, for instance in reading in a foreign language, or L2. We propose here a theoretical model that allows us to conceptualize the functioning of these structures, as well as to develop strategies to improve the proper identification of the inferences promoted by these grammatical operators.