the information added to the discourse context when a sentence is uttered, or, more precisely, 'the proposition expressed by a sentence which the hearer is expected to know or take for granted as a result of hearing the sentence uttered' (Lambrecht 1994:52). Example: in Alarms ringing, the burglar fled, the clause the burglar fled is pragmatically asserted. The criterion typically used for pragmatic assertion is that the content of a sentence can be negated or questioned, though other criteria are sometimes used, such as hedging. (Sections 13.2.1, 15.1.2)