Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- How to use this book
- Transcription conventions
- 1 Introduction: Grammar, pragmatics, and what's between them
- PART I Drawing the grammar/pragmatics divide
- PART II Crossing the extralinguistic/linguistic divide
- 4 Grammar, pragmatics, and arbitrariness
- 5 All paths lead to the salient discourse pattern
- 6 The rise (and potential fall) of reflexive pronouns
- Part III Bringing grammar and pragmatics back together
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
4 - Grammar, pragmatics, and arbitrariness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- How to use this book
- Transcription conventions
- 1 Introduction: Grammar, pragmatics, and what's between them
- PART I Drawing the grammar/pragmatics divide
- PART II Crossing the extralinguistic/linguistic divide
- 4 Grammar, pragmatics, and arbitrariness
- 5 All paths lead to the salient discourse pattern
- 6 The rise (and potential fall) of reflexive pronouns
- Part III Bringing grammar and pragmatics back together
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
Summary
We briefly discussed specific form–pragmatic function correlations (referring expressions and degree of activation) in section 2.2. As forcefully argued for by Prince (1988, 1998), (some) interpretative aspects traditionally classified as pragmatic do not merely complement the grammar, as would seem to be the case for most of the phenomena examined in part I. Rather, some extralinguistic generalizations regarding forms must constitute part of the grammar (e.g. definite NPs encode Given/identifiable information, Left Dislocated sentences introduce discourse-new entities, and see the many cases discussed in Ariel (forthcoming: chapters 6–8)). How did that come about? Furthermore, researchers are in agreement that the variability of linguistic structures is quite restricted in languages of the world. How can we explain this? The point of this chapter is to argue that these are not accidental facts. Grammars routinely evolve as a response to extragrammatical forces. If so, it should not be surprising that there are linguistic conventions associating linguistic expressions with extralinguistic factors, and that grammatical forms are not infinitely varied. But, then, if grammars evolve out of pragmatically motivated discourse patterns, shouldn't all of grammar be pragmatically motivated? In principle, the answer is that it may very well have been. However, not every linguistic form wears its diachronic pragmatic raison d'être on its synchronic sleeve (see note 4 below). Be that as it may, it seems hopeless to argue this claim for all of grammar at any specific point in time.
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- Information
- Pragmatics and Grammar , pp. 117 - 148Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008