Casting shadows onto Translucent and TranslucentLightingVolume

I have been struggling to get dynamic shadows to show up an a translucent material. I have a semi-opaque floor and a character on it. Each are illuminated with a single Directional light with cascading ‘ray traced distance field’ shadows. I did get the shadows to show up and now I am trying to control the softness/anti-aliasing. In the process I have come across the TranslucencyLightingVolume and controls such as r.TranslucencyLightingVolumeInnerDistance, but I can not find any good explanation of how the volume works, what it is, and what the various controls actually do.
Can you explain what the volume is and how to interact with it.