Chapter 4. The role of inferencing in the interpretation of two expressive speech act constructions
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Klaus-Uwe Panther
Abstract
We analyze two illocutionary constructions, viz. an autonomous complement clause construction, instantiated by That it should come to this!, and a wh-interrogative construction, such as What do think you are doing? Both constructions convey emotive and evaluative senses and have a factual presupposition. Conceptually and pragmatically, they are members of a large family of expressive constructions, albeit morphosyntactically unrelated. The first construction is directly associated with a non-compositional illocutionary meaning. In contrast, the interpretation of the second construction requires a number of inferential steps leading from a still extant source meaning (neutral question) to a conventionalized indirect expressive and directive target meaning. The chapter finishes with some reflections on the relation between semantics and pragmatics as well as on the necessity of integrating an inferential component into cognitive linguistic theory.
Abstract
We analyze two illocutionary constructions, viz. an autonomous complement clause construction, instantiated by That it should come to this!, and a wh-interrogative construction, such as What do think you are doing? Both constructions convey emotive and evaluative senses and have a factual presupposition. Conceptually and pragmatically, they are members of a large family of expressive constructions, albeit morphosyntactically unrelated. The first construction is directly associated with a non-compositional illocutionary meaning. In contrast, the interpretation of the second construction requires a number of inferential steps leading from a still extant source meaning (neutral question) to a conventionalized indirect expressive and directive target meaning. The chapter finishes with some reflections on the relation between semantics and pragmatics as well as on the necessity of integrating an inferential component into cognitive linguistic theory.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Analytical perspectives on grammatical constructions
- Chapter 1. The role of verbs and verb classes in identifying German search -constructions 17
- Chapter 2. Embodied motivations for abstract in and on constructions 53
- Chapter 3. Doing Tsukahara and the Epley in a cross-linguistic perspective 77
- Chapter 4. The role of inferencing in the interpretation of two expressive speech act constructions 109
- Chapter 5. Exploring inter-constructional relations in the constructicon 135
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Part II. From applications to theory and back
- Chapter 6. Revisiting the English resultative family of constructions 175
- Chapter 7. The family of German dative constructions 205
- Chapter 8. Motivation behind the extended senses of the Polish ditransitive construction 241
- Chapter 9. The English conative as a family of constructions 277
- Chapter 10. Multimodal constructional resemblance 301
- Index 339
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Analytical perspectives on grammatical constructions
- Chapter 1. The role of verbs and verb classes in identifying German search -constructions 17
- Chapter 2. Embodied motivations for abstract in and on constructions 53
- Chapter 3. Doing Tsukahara and the Epley in a cross-linguistic perspective 77
- Chapter 4. The role of inferencing in the interpretation of two expressive speech act constructions 109
- Chapter 5. Exploring inter-constructional relations in the constructicon 135
-
Part II. From applications to theory and back
- Chapter 6. Revisiting the English resultative family of constructions 175
- Chapter 7. The family of German dative constructions 205
- Chapter 8. Motivation behind the extended senses of the Polish ditransitive construction 241
- Chapter 9. The English conative as a family of constructions 277
- Chapter 10. Multimodal constructional resemblance 301
- Index 339
