Notions of context for natural language interpretation are factored in terms of three processes: translation, entailment and attunement. The processes are linked by accessibility relations of the kind studied in many-dimensional modal logic, modulo complications from constraints between translation and entailment (violations in which may trigger re-attunement) and from refinement and underspecification.

The processing of sequences of (English) sentences is analyzed compositionally through transitions that merge sentences, rather than decomposing them. Transitions that are in a precise sense inertial are related to disjunctive and non-deterministic approaches to ambiguity. Modal interpretations are investigated, inducing various equivalences on sequences.

To address complications involving ambiguity, presupposition and implicature, three processes underlying natural language interpretation are isolated: translation, entailment and attunement. A meta- language integrating these processes is outlined, elaborating on a proof-theoretic approach to presupposition.