scholarly journals How cool is that! A new ‘construction’ and its theoretical challenges

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-365
Author(s):  
Andreas Trotzke
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Type ◽  
Cumulative Effect ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Arbitrary Form ◽  
German Version ◽  
Modal Particles ◽  
Form Function ◽  
Pragmatic Function ◽  
Syntactic Approach ◽  
New Construction

AbstractThis paper deals with the controversial connection between sentence type and illocutionary force. I focus on wh-configurations of the form How cool is that! and demonstrate that this recent phenomenon presents some interesting challenges to approaches that are concerned with the illocutionary potential of sentence forms. In particular, the exclamation component of How cool is that! cannot be derived from features of exclamative syntax, but rather is a cumulative effect of exclamative intonation, the respective adjective, and the degree reading of how. However, the V-to-C-movement property results in a special pragmatics that proper exclamatives (i.e., without V-to-C movement: How cool that is!) lack. I claim that How cool is that! asks for affirmation or objection on the part of the addressee, and that this addressee-oriented component is signaled by a dedicated class of modal particles in the German version(s) of How cool is that! To analyze these addressee-oriented exclamations (A-EXCs), I adopt a syntactic approach to the connection between sentence types and their potential illocutionary uses and thus argue that this connection is by no means arbitrary and unrestricted. I show that both the special pragmatic function of How cool is that! and the corresponding distribution of modal particles in the German counterparts can be accounted for by referring to a compositional conception of sentence-type meanings, and I hence disagree with recent approaches that deal with How cool is that! and its counterparts in German as constructions (i.e., arbitrary form-function mappings) only.

Language structure and social agency: Confirming polar questions in conversation

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
N. J. Enfield ◽  
Jack Sidnell
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Agency ◽  
Language Structure ◽  
Form Function ◽  
Pragmatic Function ◽  
Telephone Calls ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Function Mapping

AbstractWhile it has been shown that languages can select quite different formal resources for performing similar pragmatic functions in social interaction, our focus in this paper is the possibility that some types of form-function mapping are essentially universal. Our case study looks at how polar questions are confirmed. For confirming a polar question like ‘Have they gone?’, all languages provide two basic alternatives: an interjection type strategy (something like ‘Yes’) and a repetition type strategy (something like ‘They have gone’). Combinations of these are also possible. Does selection of one of these options have a definable pragmatic function? An analysis of cases from English telephone calls shows that interjection type confirmations are used when the confirmation is relatively straightforward in interactional terms, and where the epistemic terms of the question are accepted by the person who is confirming. By contrast, repetition type confirmations are associated with pragmatic functions where the answerer is in some way resisting the epistemic terms of the question, or dealing with a perturbation of the interactional sequence. We argue that the inherent semiotics of the two strategies explain why they have this distribution; i.e., we do not expect that interjection forms would be standardly used for non-straightforward confirmations, etc. In other words, the form-function mapping observed in English is a non-arbitrary one. Given that this semiotic motivation for choosing one over the other alternative for confirming polar questions should be present in other languages as well, we predict that the mapping observed in English will be observed in other languages as well.

Self-quotations and politeness: The construction of discourse events and its pragmatic implications

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miri Cohen-Achdut
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
The Self ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
The Other ◽  
Future Tense ◽  
The Past ◽  
Linguistic Politeness ◽  
Social Authority ◽  
Pragmatic Function

Abstract The article discusses self-quotations as a strategy of politeness. I maintain that self-quotations fulfill strategies of linguistic politeness, and that the fulfillment of these strategies must be understood through the discourse event standing in the background of the self-quotation. In the corpus – 13 Hebrew articles written by women in eastern Europe in the nineteenth century – 35 self-quotations were found. All of them are “fictional”, i.e. they do not refer to an actual discourse event that occurred in the past. Nevertheless, the fictionality is not identical in all the cases examined, and it arises from the specific characteristics of each case. The examination of the construction of the other discourse event (past, future, or fictional) reveals that it strongly influences the quotation’s pragmatic function, and specifically its “polite” character. The discourse event might be a speech or thought event; it might actually have occurred in the past or only be implied by a future tense or a conditional structure; or sometimes it may be openly declared as a discourse event that will not take place altogether. Self-quotations function as hedging devices, qualifying various aspects of the utterance – its illocutionary force, comprehensiveness, the degree of social authority it expresses, or the act of uttering itself.

scholarly journals When “Questions“ are not Questions. Inferences and Conventionalization in Spanish But-Prefaced Partial Interrogatives

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Ehmer ◽  
Malte Rosemeyer
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Second Step ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
Form Function ◽  
Pragmatic Function ◽  
Discourse Functions ◽  
Over Time

Abstract The present paper analyzes the discourse-pragmatic function of introducing Spanish qué ‘what’- interrogatives with the concessive connective pero ‘but’. In some contexts, a pero-preface contributes to the interpretation of the interrogative as the realization of an interactional challenge rather than a request for information (e.g. an information question). We explore the inferential processes by which the peropreface leads to an interpretation of the interrogative as an interactional challenge and try to demonstrate that this challenge function of pero-prefaced qué-interrogatives may not only achieved ‘ad hoc’ by a local combination of the constitutive elements, but also by conventionalized form-function associations that developed diachronically. In a first step, we analyze pero-prefaced qué-interrogatives in a corpus of spoken Present Day Spanish. There are three main functions of pero-prefaces: to signal that a previous answer to the same interrogative is insufficient, to insist on an answer to a previously unattended request, or to challenge an immediately preceding action by an interlocutor. Using methodology from variationist linguistics, we identify entrenched patterns of pero-prefaced qué-interrogatives that have conventionalized the challenge function. In a second step, we conduct a diachronic variationist analysis of the development of Spanish pero-prefaced qué-interrogatives between 1700 and 1975, testing the hypothesis that the challenge reading developed later than the question reading. Our results show that due to their largely monological nature, the same inferential processes cued by pero lead to different discourse functions in historical texts. Over time, however, the use of pero-prefaced interrogatives started to become more likely in constructed dialogues. We argue that this change reflects an ongoing conventionalization of the challenge function in pero-prefaced interrogatives in spoken language.

Pragmatic function impairment and Alzheimer’s dementia

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Schatz ◽  
Melvin González-Rivera
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Alzheimer’S Dementia ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Targeted Treatment ◽  
Pragmatic Competence ◽  
Functional Communication ◽  
Progressive Deterioration ◽  
Function Impairment ◽  
Pragmatic Function ◽  
Progressive Cognitive Impairment

Pragmatic competence includes the capacity to express illocutionary force and successfully achieve perlocutionary effects, in order to guarantee fully functional communication exchanges. Alzheimer’s Disease is characterized by a constellation of limitations derived from progressive cognitive impairment, which is usually viewed as a global uniform phenomenon. In this paper it is argued that looking independently at the loss and recovery of pragmatic function related to illocutionary and perlocutionary abilities can be a productive way of understanding the progressive deterioration of communicative capacities by patients or their improvement under targeted treatment.

scholarly journals Modal particles and sentence type restrictions: A construction grammar perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Alm ◽  
Janina Behr ◽  
Kerstin Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Type ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Modal Particles

A prototype approach to sentences and sentence types

2008 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 83-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus-Uwe Panther ◽  
Klaus-Michael Köpcke
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Type ◽  
Declarative Sentence ◽  
Conceptual Content ◽  
Pragmatic Function ◽  
Central Member ◽  
Scenario Approach

This paper proposes a new solution to the age-old problem of defining the sentence and sentence types. Arguing against traditional definitions, we propose that the category SENTENCE exhibits a complex prototypical structure on the levels of morphosyntactic form, conceptual content, and pragmatic function. By positing that the central member of the category SENTENCE is the declarative sentence type, we can show how imperative sentences are related to the prototypical declarative sentence type and that imperatives exhibit an internal prototypical structure of their own. Finally, using a scenario approach, we show how the conceptual and pragmatic functions of declarative and imperative sentences may overlap.

Construct Validity of Sensation Seeking: A Psychometric Investigation

1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Beauducel ◽  
Burkhard Brocke ◽  
Alexander Strobel ◽  
Anja Strobel
Keyword(s):  
Substance Use ◽  
Construct Validity ◽  
Psychometric Properties ◽  
Factor Structure ◽  
Sensation Seeking ◽  
German Version ◽  
Trait Theory ◽  
Multilevel Theory ◽  
Sensation Seeking Scale ◽  
Psychometric Investigation

Abstract: Zuckerman postulated a biopsychological multilevel theory of Sensation Seeking, which is part of a more complex multi-trait theory, the Alternative Five. The Sensation Seeking Scale Form V (SSS V) was developed for the measurement of Sensation Seeking. The process of validation of Sensation Seeking as part of a multilevel theory includes analyses of relations within and between several levels of measurement. The present study investigates validity and basic psychometric properties of a German version of the SSS V in a broader context of psychometric traits. - The 120 participants were mainly students. They completed the SSS V, the Venturesomeness- and Impulsiveness-Scales of the IVE, the BIS/BAS-Scales, the ZKPQ and the NEO-FFI. - The results reveal acceptable psychometric properties for the SSS V but with limitations with regard to factor structure. Indications for criterion validity were obtained by prediction of substance use by the subscales Dis and BS. The results of a MTMM analysis, especially the convergent validities of the SSS V were quite satisfying. On the whole, the results yielded sufficient support for the validity of the Sensation Seeking construct or the instrument respectively. They also point to desirable modifications.

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