 child".
Inferential theories of meaning, which belong to the family of use-theories of meaning, can be understood in at least two basic ways. The approach that I am particularly interested in, might be called "normative inferentialism". It is a theory that claims that linguistic meaning is constituted by those material inferences (transitions, moves) one ought to or may (not) make. The grasp of meaning is, according to these theories, an ability to distinguish the properly made transitions from incorrect ones. According to normative inferentialism, the linguistic expression is its role in the practice of speaking language and that role is determined by a set of rules that tell us which inferential transitions are correct and which are not. One should be aware that inferentialism may not be understood in such a normative way. Most notably, Paul Boghossian (1993Boghossian (, 1994Boghossian (, 2003Boghossian (, 2012 considered the naturalistic version of inferentialism, quite frequently called Inferential Role Semantics. This type of theory assumes that meaning constituting inferences are not those that are correct, but those that speakers of a language normally or typically make (or are disposed to make). Inferential theories have been quite popular in logic and philosophy of logic. There were numerous attempts to account for logical constants in terms of roles, as well as ardent criticisms of such attempts (cf. Prior 1960;Belnap 1962;Dummett 1973;Cozzo 1994;Felscher 2002;Peregrin 2006;Fouqueré and Quatrini 2013;Warren 2015;Francez 2015;Zangwill 2015). However, inferentialists do not need to restrict themselves to accounting of logical vocabulary, but they strive to provide a theory of meaning that includes also empirical vocabulary (Brandom 1994;Peregrin 2014). How do inferentialists try to do that? Inference is normally a move from one statement to another, so it seems to be somehow "detached" from empirical reality. To avoid such an unwelcome conclusion, inferentialists propose to broaden the notion of inference "so that we are able to talk about inferences from situations to utterances and from utterances to actions" (Peregrin 2014, p. 32). Now, let me say a few words on how such broadening may look like in practice. Inferentialists like Peregrin or Brandom seem to follow Sellars on distinguishing three types of inferential "moves" or "transitions": α from situations to sentences. β from sentences to sentences.

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Inferentialism, Context-Shifting and Background Assumptions γ from sentences to actions. 2 Transitions of the type α are the ones that are determined by rules usually tying sentences with reality; for instance there is a rule within the linguistic community that tells us that we are allowed to say "This is a tiger" when pointing to a tiger. These inferences are crucial, but, according to Peregrin, not sufficient to establish language: Can an empirical word become meaningful just by being 'tied to the world' in the above sense? … Consider a cat emitting a peculiar kind of hiss when it sees a dog: the hiss, in the mouth of the cat, appears to be tied to the same situations to which the sentence This is a dog is in the mouth of a speaker of English. So why do we say that the latter is a meaningful sentence, a description of the situation, whereas the former is a mere reaction to the situation? The reasons usually stem from the fact that the human utterer … deals with language with the versatility characteristic of thinking … Her utterance is embedded within a richly structured spectrum of other utterances, hence we assume that the sentence is part of a certain network of other sentences (Peregrin 2014, pp. 29-30).
Since connecting certain sentences with relevant situations is insufficient to "establish" language competence, there is a need for β type of inferences. These rules allow us to infer that if "x is a tiger", then (i) "x is an animal", (ii) "x is not a fish", (iii) "x is a carnivore" etc. Finally, there are rules that tell us how to make γ type of inferences, for example if "x is a tiger", then (i) "one should keep distance from x", (ii) "one should not irritate x" etc.
The meaning of a linguistic expression is, thus, determined by rules that tell us what inferences of the types α, β and γ, we may or should (not) make. 3 The meaning of a sentence is considered by inferentialist as a role that that sentence plays in the practice of speaking the language. Such a role is analogous to the role tennis racquet plays in the practice of playing tennis matches or that a rook plays in the practice of chess matches. Context is much included in the determination of the role of an item in the game. The moves we are allowed, prescribed or forbidden to make are affected by situation on the playing ground (chessboard, boxing ring, tennis court etc.), for instance, the role a pawn play in the game of chess is conferred to a wooden piece by the following rules: 2 Note that Sellars used terms "Language Entry Transitions", "Intra-linguistic Moves" and "Language Exit Transitions". Sellars speaks that way because he is used to traditional, narrow notion of inference. Inferentialists such as Brandom and Peregrin broaden the notion of inference to such extent that it seems to be a metaphor, so they can speak of "inferences from situations to sentences" and "inferences from sentences to actions". In this paper, I use notion of inference, move and transition interchangeably. 3 Inferential theories of meaning are holistic. This feature of inferentialism is often criticised because allegedly, in order to know the meaning of certain expression e, we need to know all rules within a language expression e belongs to. However, it seems that inferentialist is not necessarily committed to such problematic version of holism. One recent version of some modest alternative can be found in Warren (2015).
(R1) a pawn can be moved one box forward. (R2) if it is the pawn's first move, it can be moved two boxes forward. (R3) a pawn can capture one of the opponent's pieces by moving diagonally forward one square to the left or right. (R4) a pawn on its fifth rank may capture an enemy pawn on an adjacent file that has moved two squares in a single move, as if the pawn had moved only one square (en passant).

Inferential Significance and Inferential Potential
I have presented the general idea of how a normative inferentialist can understand sentence meaning; now it is time to investigate the issue of how he or she can account for the content of the utterance. The most prominent inferentialist, Robert Brandom, claims that "contents are essentially social and perspectival in nature (1994, p. 197)". However, one must admit that he does not provide us with a wellstipulated account of the relation between sentence meaning and utterance content; it is just a slogan we have in his papers. Fortunately, Matej Drobňák (2020) has recently presented how an inferentialist may understand that issue. He distinguishes between inferential potential and inferential significance. The former can be understood as basically equivalent to the role of a pawn as determined by the set of abovementioned rules (R1)-(R4): it is the whole spectrum of moves (inferences) one is allowed to make and it involves collateral premises (e.g. "a pawn on its fifth rank" or "enemy pawn on an adjacent file that has moved two squares"). The latter is a "part" of the whole role of a pawn, for instance (R4) en passant. Finally, one should distinguish a move the player makes according to the rules in certain circumstances; for instance, that a player makes an en passant capture, given his or her pawn is on its fifth rank and the enemy's pawn is on an adjacent file that has moved two squares; this is equivalent to specific utterance made by the speaker in certain context. As noted by Drobňák: The process of contextual modulation is a process in which we delimit a specific part of meaning, or in which we specify a particular aspect of meaning. The content of an utterance is not an outcome of a change of meaning; it is an outcome of a specification/narrowing of meaning for a particular context. (2020, p. 43).
Inferentialists often appeal to the analogy between games and language. This should not be surprising, given that the founding father of all use-theories of meaning Ludwig Wittgenstein used to exercise this analogy a lot. However, the issue of inferential potential and inferential significance can be presented in a less metaphoric manner. 4 To use Drobňák's example, the simplified inferential potential of the sentence "Fido is a dog" can be:

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Inferentialism, Context-Shifting and Background Assumptions IP("Fido is a dog") = (a) < "Fido barks", "Fido is a carnivore", …, "Fido is a living being" >| "Fido is an animal" (b) < "Fido barks", "Fido is not a carnivore", "Fido is not a living being", …, "Fido is made of metal and plastic" | "Fido is a robot" > (c) < "Fido does not bark", "Fido is not a carnivore", "Fido is not a living being", …