On the syntax-discourse interface of nonsententials in Mandarin

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-305
Author(s):  
Wei-Cherng Sam Jheng
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Clausal Structure ◽  
Major Consequence ◽  
West Flemish ◽  
Theory Of Discourse ◽  
Discourse Particle ◽  
Discourse Interface ◽  
Type Information

Abstract This paper aims to develop the empirical and theoretical basis for the necessity of motivating a cartographic approach (Rizzi 1997; Cinque 1999) to the clausal structure of nonsententials (NSs) in Mandarin. Especially noteworthy about NSs is that they are able to encode clause type information, illocutionary force and the discourse roles speaker and hearer/addressee, though their structure is considerably reduced. Following the line of reasoning in Sigurðsson & Maling (2012) and Tsai (2015a, 2015b), I show that NSs have a fully-fledged CP structure, according to the effects exerted upon their interpretation. Adopting Haegeman’s (2014) sa*P analysis of the discourse particle in West Flemish, I argue that NSs contain a suprasentential structure, a Speech Act layer, dominating ForceP and responsible for the encoding of the speaker- hearer/addressee relation sensitive to the immediate context. Crucially, it is argued that the discourse properties surrounding NSs pertain to the articulated CP structure of NSs. The major consequence of the proposed analysis is to show that the theory of discourse is closely tied to the architecture of grammar in general, adding weight to the view that the transparent syntax-discourse mapping results from a set of functional projections layered in the CP periphery.

scholarly journals Towards a model of the syntax–discourse interface: a syntactic analysis of please

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
REBECCA WOODS
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Syntactic Analysis ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Functional Elements ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Discourse Interface

This article examines the syntax and semantics of please. Using a mainstream generative syntactic framework, I propose that syntactically integrated please is a discourse marker that marks the clause in which it occurs as a request. Please may appear clause-initially or clause-medially as determined by a number of factors, including clause type, modality, negation and the application of ellipsis. There is also a homophonous marker please that occurs in clause-final position; clause-final please does not mark requests per se but ‘bonds’ a speaker and addressee, reinforcing their relationship as requester and requestee. This analysis of please provides support for syntactic approaches to speech act structure, particularly the claim that illocutionary force is part of narrow syntax rather than a solely pragmatic phenomenon. The article provides support for pursuing a model of the syntax–discourse interface in which interactions between discourse markers and clause-internal functional elements, such as mood and modality, form the interface between syntax and discourse.

An Optative-Comparative Construction Expressing Emphatic Assertion in Classical Spanish

2020 ◽  
Vol 132 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-306
Author(s):  
Lorena Núñez Pinero
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Pragmatic Analysis ◽  
Comparative Construction

This paper offers a pragmatic analysis of a rarely used construction in Classical Spanish: an emphatic comparison of equality with optative illocution A comparative sentence such as Así me ayude Dios como fue buena mi intención (’May God help me just as my intention was good‘) is used for emphasizing the assertion fue buena mi intención (’my intention was good‘) This construction is probably a Latinism It occurs in Latin, especially in Plautus and Terence, and is mostly attested in Spanish in humanistic comedy and in the Celestinesque tradition of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries The first member of the construction is interpreted at the pragmatic level as a reinforcer of the illocutionary force of the comparative construction as a whole, which expresses an indirect assertive speech act Speakers perform this type of act by satisfying its sincerity condition: they believe that the event of the second member is true, because if it were not, they would run a risk, i.e. the optative would entail a curse for themselves By contrast, when the event is true, the optative entails a good wish for themselves This paper also analyzes how the pragmatic properties of the construction are reflected in its semantic and morphosyntactic properties

Speech Acts in Discourse Context

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craige Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Semantic Type ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Consensus View ◽  
Grammatical Mood ◽  
The Relationship

This essay sketches an approach to speech acts in which mood does not semantically determine illocutionary force. The conventional content of mood determines the semantic type of the clause in which it occurs, and, given the nature of discourse, that type most naturally lends itself to a particular type of speech act, i.e. one of the three basic types of language game moves—making an assertion (declarative), posing a question (interrogative), or proposing to one’s addressee(s) the adoption of a goal (imperative). There is relative consensus about the semantics of two of these, the declarative and interrogative; and this consensus view is entirely compatible with the present proposal about the relationship between the semantics and pragmatics of grammatical mood. Hence, the proposal is illustrated with the more controversial imperative.

Force and Conversational States

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Murray ◽  
William B. Starr
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Semantic Type ◽  
Grammatical Mood

This essay sketches an approach to speech acts in which mood does not semantically determine illocutionary force. The conventional content of mood determines the semantic type of the clause in which it occurs, and, given the nature of discourse, that type most naturally lends itself to serving as a particular type of speech act, that is, to serving as one of the three basic types of language game moves-making an assertion (declarative); posing a question (interrogative); or proposing to one’s addressee(s) the adoption of a goal (imperative). This type of semantics for grammatical mood is illustrated with the imperative.

scholarly journals The Speech Act Fallacy Fallacy

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hurka
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
The Other ◽  
John Searle ◽  
Speech Act Analysis

John Searle has charged R.M. Hare's prescriptivist analysis of the meaning of ‘good,’ ‘ought’ and the other evaluative words with committing what he calls the ‘speech act fallacy.’ This is a fallacy which Searle thinks is committed not only by Hare's analysis, but by any analysis which attributes to a word the function of indicating that a particular speech act is being performed, or that an utterance has a particular illocutionary force. ‘There is a condition of adequacy which any analysis of the meaning of a word must meet,’ Searle writes, ‘and which the speech act analysis fails to meet. Any analysis of the meaning of a word must be consistent with the fact that the same word (or morpheme) can mean the same thing in all the different kinds of sentences in which it can occur.' Hare maintains that the word ‘good’ is used to indicate the speech act of prescribing. He maintains that one of the principal functions of this word is to indicate that utterances of sentences containing it have prescriptive illocutionary force, and that an analysis of its meaning must make explicit and ineliminable reference to this force-indicating function. But ‘good’ regularly occurs in sentences utterances of which appear to have no prescriptive illocutionary force.

scholarly journals Politeness as a Linguistic Device in Response to the Speech Act of Modesty

2020 ◽  
pp. 378-390
Author(s):  
Maryam Shafaghi
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Considerable Impact ◽  
Negative Judgement

The context in which the speech act of modesty takes place has a considerable impact on the formation of meaning as well as the determination of the illocutionary force behind the modesty act. This context might include different speech acts, such as admiration, approval, and praise. Modesty can be either positive or negative. In positive modesty, i.e. sincere modesty, the speaker expresses his true feeling of respect and politeness. Thus, he or she conforms to accepted norms of expressing modesty in a society. In negative modesty, i.e. insincere modesty, the speaker deviates from those norms. To be modest is to be polite; therefore, responses given to the act of modesty include a range of different speech acts. Positive modesty entails the acts of approval, praise, admiration, and a request to end modesty, whereas negative modesty leads to the acts of disapproval, negative judgement, denial, reproach, and a request to end flattery. High modesty is indicative of a polite and modest person, while low modesty is suggestive of an impolite and egoistic person. Excessive and low modesty form an unfriendly and unequal interaction.

A different perspective on embedded Verb Second

2020 ◽  
pp. 297-322
Author(s):  
Rebecca Woods
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Embedded Clause ◽  
Matrix Verb

This chapter compares embedded verb movement phenomena in English with embedded Verb Second clauses in German and Swedish. Close examination of the syntactic—but more particularly the semantic and pragmatic—properties of these phenomena reveals striking similarities, and the claim is made that these phenomena exhibit independent illocutionary force in the sense that the perspective holder for the embedded proposition or question is disambiguated—a departure from the claim that embedded verb movement structures are asserted (cf. Julien 2015 and Chapter 11 of this volume). It is proposed, following recent innovations in speech act syntax (Wiltschko and Heim 2016; Woods 2016) that these structures are dependent, as the ‘embedded’ clause contains less structure than full a root clause, yet is still structurally larger than a typical embedded clause. However, they are not selected and are instead in an apposition relation with a (usually covert) nominal complement to the matrix verb.

What is an indirect speech act?

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-84
Author(s):  
Jörg Meibauer
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Indirect Speech Acts ◽  
Getting Lost ◽  
Indirect Speech Act

Abstract The notion of an indirect speech act is at the very heart of cognitive pragmatics, yet, after nearly 50 years of orthodox (Searlean) speech act theory, it remains largely unclear how this notion can be explicated in a proper way. In recent years, two debates about indirect speech acts have stood out. First, a debate about the Searlean idea that indirect speech acts constitute a simultaneous realization of a secondary and a primary act. Second, a debate about the reasons for the use of indirect speech acts, in particular about whether this reason is to be seen in strategic advantages and/or observation of politeness demands. In these debates, the original pragmatic conception of sentence types as indicators of illocutionary force seems to have been getting lost. Here, I go back to the seemingly outdated “literal force hypothesis” (see Levinson 1983: 263–264) and point out how it is still relevant for cognitive pragmatics.

scholarly journals Features of the Use of Addressed Statements in Russian Orthodox Sermon

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (10) ◽  
pp. 9-25
Author(s):  
V. A. Burtsev
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Main Method ◽  
Illocutionary Act ◽  
New Type ◽  
The Subject

The features of the use of addressed utterances are considered from the point of view of the concept of asubjectivation, as opposed to the locuous activity of the subject of speech. Asubjectivation is defined as the presence in the semantics of the statement of the point of view of a non-assertive judgment subject, which is not perceived by the speaker’s sphere of consciousness and imposes restrictions on the meaning of the illocutionary act. The main method for identifying and describing asubjectivation in addressed utterances in a sermon is the identification of the scope and illocutionary force of the utterance. It has been proven that addressed utterances in a sermon, regardless of the speaker’s intentions, cover any communication participants, including those who turn out to be casual listeners. In addition, asubjectivation manifests itself as a requirement for the speaker to perform the illocutionary act “informative”, addressed to all participants in communication together, and at the same time — the speech act “message”, which regulates adequate interaction with the recipients of speech when using the language in the sermon. As a material, the authors considered statements built on the grammatical base of sentences with propositional (complex with additional clauses) and non-propositional meanings (impersonal with a due predicate). The relevance of the research is associated with the study of a new type of relationship in the semantic-syntactic structure of the sentence. The concept of asubjectivation allows us to formulate principles that regulate the features of referential relations in the structure of a sentence, taking into account the specifics of discourse.

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