Anticipatory Narrative Construal

Across the spectrum of human communication, from situational common-sense to complex culture-bound literary expression, anticipation is ubiquitous. Implicit or explicit, it occurs in propositional attitudes such as an agent's belief, or his ascribing a belief. This affects the making sense of a narrative (or of narrativized experiences or situational patterns), as well as the handing down of a narrative, for example as a cultural practice (watching a film or reading a novel, and the expectations involved according to the genre), or in literary hermeneutics, when the narrative in the text is reimagined and retold. Anticipation in beliefs may be ascribed sincerely or humorously ; in turn, making sense of a humorous text involves the ascription ofbeliefs and attitudes, e.g., to make sense of a pose which (mockingly or conventionally) interprets an event or a situation by invoking anticipation. This paper discusses an array ofcontexts where this takes place.