Pragmatics - Volume 29, Issue 2, 2019

In this introduction, we set out the central themes of the special issue. It concentrates on imperfect function-form mappings, and discusses several cases in which specific perspectival meanings are not fully predictable on the basis of a perspectivizing grammatical construction alone. We distinguish two kinds of form-function mismatches: (1) perspective-persistent phenomena, i.e. grammatically signaled deictic and/or cognitive perspective shifts which are not realized in interpretation, and (2) irregular perspective shifts, which involve either grammatically un(der)specified shifts or grammatically signaled shifts that are interpreted as mixing multiple sources of deictic and/or cognitive perspective (‘multiple-perspective constructions’). We briefly discuss and contextualize each of the contributions, and highlight their central findings.

This paper investigates questions of perspective shift or non-shift against a background of a basic deictic-cognitive divide in our understanding of what comes under the linguistic notion of perspective. In differentiating ‘distancing’ from ‘free’ indirect speech/thought in narratives, it proposes a new lens through which to reconsider a class of examples controlled in curious ways by the narrator’s deictic and cognitive perspective. Turning to a newer mode of communication – that of Internet memes combining set phrases and images in one multimodal package – the paper shows that despite this novelty, unusual uses of quotation in memes in fact join the ranks of existing non-quotative uses of quotation to express a stance rather than genuinely shift to a different discourse source. The paper also touches on the question of the constructional status of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ phenomena investigated.

This paper discusses several conventional perspective operators at the lexical, grammatical, and narrative levels. When combined with each other and with particular contexts, these operators can amount to unexpected viewpoints arrangements. Traditional conceptualisations in terms of viewpoint embedding and the regular shifting from one viewpoint to the other are argued to be insufficient for describing these arrangements in all their nuances and details.

We present an analysis of three cases in which viewpoints of speaker, addressee, and third parties are mutually coordinated: (i) global and local perspective structure in Nabokov’s novel Lolita, (ii) postposed reporting constructions in Dutch, and (iii) the Russian apprehensive construction, which has a seemingly redundant negation marker in the subordinate clause. For each of these three cases, we discuss how traditional conceptualisations fall short. We discuss an alternative model of viewpoint construction which allows for the conceptual juxtaposition and mixing of different and simultaneously activated viewpoints.

This paper tackles the question of how multiple viewpoints emerge through the interplay of different viewpoint parameters within the (i) dynamics of discourse and (ii) their diachronic development. In particular, it will focus on ‘Future of Fate’ (FoF) (e.g. He was never to return.), i.e. future-in-the-past meanings with potentially distinct values both on the semantic dimension of temporality and the dimension of knowledge attribution. These viewpoint meanings are ‘irregular’ in the sense that they cannot be predicted solely on the basis of the grammatical context of past modal obligation. Based on empirical analyses of German sollte + inf. and the méllō construction in Homeric Greek, it is shown that the – diachronic as well as synchronic – emergence of viewpoints is the result of the interplay between the deictic structure of grammatical elements and the perspectival structure of discourse context.

This paper explores the use of non-quotational direct speech – a construction displaying deictic perspective persistence – in the Hebrew Bible, an ancient text of great cultural significance. We focus on the use of non-quotational direct speech to introduce intentions, hopes, motives, or states of affairs. Special emphasis is laid on the complementizer lemor, grammaticalized from a speaking verb, which introduces the import of an action through direct speech. We claim that such fictive speech is grounded in face-to-face conversation as conceptual model or frame. Beyond the Hebrew Bible itself, we discuss possible extended implications that our findings have for the link between grammatical structures conventionally associated with perspective shift and orality, as well as possible links between the conceptual frame of situated interaction and the notion of linguistic meaning. Ultimately, we hope to advance the view that grammar and discourse are inherently conversational and thus viewpointed in nature.

Based on original fieldwork, this paper discusses reported speech and thought constructions in Solega (Dravidian). Following McGregor (1994) we claim that reported speech can only be comprehensively characterised if it is identified as a syntactic construction in its own right, a construction we label a framing construction. In natural discourse, elements of the framing construction, particularly clauses referring to the reporting event, may be left unexpressed. We term framing constructions without a matrix clause ‘defenestrated clauses’. While defenestrated clauses in Solega leave perspective shifts underspecified, they include several distinctive strategies that allow us to reconsider the role of morpho-syntactic marking in the expression of perspective shifts.

This epilogue reflects on the notions of ‘irregularity’ and ‘mismatch’ which form the leitmotiv for this issue on perspectivization in language use, and more specifically on perspective shift and perspective persistence. While endorsing the approach, it is suggested that, given the complexities involved (who orients to what aspects of context and how?) any stable form-function coding would probably fail to perform the communicative task at hand, so that adaptable structures and processes are predictable. It is also pointed out that the observed irregularities seem to show a high degree of persistence across time and space, and it is suggested that this ‘regularity’ may be the most useful focus for this type of research.