Functions of Language - Volume 31, Issue 2, 2024

Abstract

This paper examines a construction in Aisi (Trans New Guinea) which consists of a formally subordinate clause that expresses asserted meaning. This construction is called ‘semi-embedding’. The construction is more restricted than subordinate clauses, and serves a specific discourse function: it presents the information in the matrix clause as a surprising climax. The paper argues that semi-embedding arose when the backgrounding function of subordinate clauses was extended to allow assertions to serve as backgrounds for certain highlighted events. As this happened, the relationship between the semi-embedded clause and its matrix became more coordinate, which allowed longer strings of semi-embedded clauses to occur in what is called disengagement (Cristofaro 2016). Fully insubordinate clauses can then occur when the main clause no longer has to be uttered. At this point, the foregrounded meaning that originally centered on the main clause attached, instead, to the newly insubordinate one.

Abstract

This paper examines two variants of the pseudo-cleft construction which display a WHAT-NP-VP-be pattern with the VP realised with cognitive verbs and the proform do in the context of spoken British English dyadic and multi-party BBC podcasts. It is based on the premise that the construction’s referencing potentials are both cataphoric and projective, and that depending on its contexts, one of the two referencing functions is foregrounded while the other is backgrounded. The analysis focuses on those linguistic features and contextual configurations which either contribute to its cataphoric referencing function, or which go beyond the local cataphoric referencing function and indicate its projective, discourse-organising function. The research is corpus-based and uses quantitative and qualitative methodologies, filtering out the linguistic features and contextual configurations which contribute to assigning the two variants the status of a projective construction with a discourse-organising function. The features under investigation are (1) the semantics of the constitutive NPs and VPs marking for tense, aspect and modality and their uptake in the discourse, (2) degrees of continuity and discontinuity in the cohesive chains triggered by the constitutive parts of the construction. The paper shows that when semantic continuity between the what-clause and what follows is discontinued and thus deferred, the construction’s projective function is foregrounded.

Abstract

This paper studies the way utterances project properties of the interactional context via the choice of grammatical indexicals. Our analysis is an original combination of existing theoretical developments including notions of grammatical indexicality (Silverstein 1976), of the relational structure of indexical reference (Hanks 2014) and of presupposition accommodation (von Fintel 2008; Heim 1982; Karttunen 1974, among others). While Silverstein (1976) suggested that different types of grammatical indexicals can be (relatively) context-creating or (relatively) context-presupposing, we argue that presupposition vs creativity is not a property of specific categories, but rather of tokens in a given context and that in natural interaction, they are subject to negotiation. While all indexicals are presupposing, there are two types of uses of pragmatic presupposition involved forming a scale (Mazzarella & Domaneschi 2018; Sbisà 1999): non-informative (when the presupposition is already part of common ground of the interlocutors) and informative (when the presupposition needs to be accommodated by the addressee). The theoretical analysis is grounded in a discussion of data on evidentiality, egophoricity, pronouns of address, demonstrative reference, and tense and is based on literature review, as well as first-hand recordings of conversations in Wutun (mixed Sinitic language, China) and Mano (Mande, Guinea).

This article reviews Systemic functional grammar: A text-based description of English, Spanish and Chinese978-1-009-28500-1

This article reviews Slowing metaphor down: Elaborating Deliberate Metaphor Theory9789027213853

This article reviews Existential constructions across languages: Forms, meanings and functions978 90 272 1367 9

This article reviews Salience of information in Japanese: Discourse and the syntax-pragmatics interface978 1 009 42182 9

This article reviews Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition of Chinese: Theories and applications978 1 009 18671 1