Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-q6k6v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-08T07:18:29.872Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - The Grammar of Incremental Language Production in Context

from Part II - Philosophical, Semantic, and Grammatical Approaches to Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 November 2023

By
J. Lachlan Mackenzie
Edited by
Jesús Romero-Trillo
Jesús Romero-Trillo
Affiliation:
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Get access

Summary

This chapter reviews recent developments that reflect a convergence of work in various branches of linguistics and psycholinguistics around the implications of the incremental sequencing of speech units for understanding grammar and the cognitive processing that underlies the production, comprehension, and interpretation of utterances. Notions from Functional Discourse Grammar are used to present a view of syntactic structure as arising from the incremental extension of holophrases, i.e., minimal utterances. By prioritizing the timecourse of language processing, the chapter interprets syntactic hierarchy as arising from chunk-and-pass operations supported by predictive processing. Spoken dialogue is identified as the primary arena for these processes, with grammaticality subordinated to situational appropriateness. Linguistic data are seen as protocols of joint action aimed at the incremental co-creation of meaning. All of these notions make essential reference to context as constantly active, prior to and during the utterance of the linguistic signal, and as a crucial component of the operations and processes that take place in verbal interaction.

Keywords

dialogueFunctional Discourse Grammarholophraseincrementalitylanguage comprehensionlanguage productionpredictive processingsequencing
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Language in Context , pp. 140 - 159
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anward, J., and Linell, P. (2016). On the grammar of utterances: Putting the form vs. substance distinction back on its feet. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 48(1), 35–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boeckx, C. (2006). Linguistic Minimalism: Origins, Concepts, Methods, and Aims. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bošković, Ž. (2022). Formalism and, not vs, functionalism. Lingbuzz. https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/006337.Google Scholar
Brazil, D. (1995). A Grammar of Speech. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brennan, S. E., and Hanna, J. E. (2017). Psycholinguistic approaches: Meaning and understanding. In Weigand, E. (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Dialogue (pp. 93–108). New York/Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bresnan, J. (2001). Lexical-Functional Syntax. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bühler, K. (1990). Theory of Language (trans. of Sprachtheorie, 1934). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chafe, W. (1994). Discourse, Consciousness and Time. Chicago/London: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Chater, N., McCauley, S. M., and Christiansen, M. H. (2016). Language as skill: Intertwining comprehension and production. Journal of Memory and Language, 89, 244–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Christiansen, M. H., and Chater, N. (2016). Creating Language: Integrating Evolution, Acquisition, and Processing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cinque, G. (1999). Adverbs and Functional Heads: A Cross-linguistic Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, A. (2015). Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Culicover, P. W., and Jackendoff, R. (2005). Simpler Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalrymple, M., and Findlay, J. Y. (2019). Lexical functional grammar. In Kertész, A., Moravcsik, E., and Rákosi, C. (eds.), Current Approaches to Syntax: A Comparative Handbook (pp. 123–154). Berlin/New York: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Everett, D. L. (2015). The role of culture in the emergence of language. In MacWhinney, B. and O’Grady, W. (eds.), The Handbook of Language Emergence (pp. 354–376). Malden, MA/Oxford/Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ferreira, F., Bailey, K. G. D., and Ferraro, V. (2002). Good-enough representations in language comprehension. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(1), 11–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferreira, V. (2008). Ambiguity, accessibility, and a division of labor for communicative success. Learning and Motivation, 49, 209–246.Google Scholar
Fortescue, M. (2004). The complementarity of the process and pattern interpretations of Functional Grammar. In L. Mackenzie, J. and Gómez González, M. Á. (eds.), A New Architecture for Functional Grammar (pp. 151–178). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, S. L., Bod, R., and Christiansen, M. H. (2012). How hierarchical is language use? Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 279 (1747), 4522–4531.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Givón, T. (1995). Functionalism and Grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, A. (1995). A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Greenfield, P., Reilly, J., Leaper, C., and Baker, N. (1985). The structural and functional status of single-word utterances and their relationship to early multi-word speech. In Barrett, M. (ed.), Children’s Single-Word Speech (pp. 233–267). Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Gregoromichelaki, E., and Kempson, R. (2019). Procedural syntax. In Scott, K., Clark, B., and Carston, R. (eds.), Relevance, Pragmatics and Interpretation: Essays in Honour of Deirdre Wilson (pp. 209–246). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Groenendijk, J., and Stokhof, M. (2006). Dynamic semantics. In Brown, K. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed. (Vol. IV, pp. 28–33). Oxford: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Hannay, M. (1991). Pragmatic function assignment and word order variation in a functional grammar of English. Journal of Pragmatics, 16, 131–155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hengeveld, K., and Mackenzie, J. L. (2008). Functional Discourse Grammar: A Typologically-Based Theory of Language Structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hengeveld, K., and Mackenzie, J. L. (2014). Grammar and context in Functional Discourse Grammar. Pragmatics, 24(2), 203–227.Google Scholar
Huddleston, R., and Pullum, G. K., eds. (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1977). X’ Syntax: A Study of Phrase Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R., and Audring, J. (2020). The Texture of the Lexicon: Relational Morphology and the Parallel Architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R., and Wittenberg, E. (2014). What you can say without syntax: A hierarchy of grammatical complexity. In Newmeyer, F. J. and Preston, L. B. (eds.), Measuring Linguistic Complexity (pp. 65–82). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kornmesser, S. (2019). The multiparadigmatic structure of science and generative grammar. In Kertész, A., Moravcsik, E., and Rákosi, C. (eds.), Current Approaches to Syntax: A Comparative Handbook (pp. 493–520). Berlin/New York: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (1987). Minimization and conversational inference. In Papi, M. Bertuccelli and Verschueren, J. (eds.), The Pragmatic Perspective: Selected Papers from the 1985 International Pragmatics Conference (pp. 61–129). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luraghi, S., and Parodi, C., eds. (2013). The Bloomsbury Companion to Syntax. London/New York: Bloomsbury Academic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackenzie, J. L. (2014a). Morphosyntax in Functional Discourse Grammar. In Carnie, A., Siddiqi, D., and Sato, Y. (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Syntax (pp. 627–646). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mackenzie, J. L. (2014b). The Contextual Component in a dialogic FDG. Pragmatics, 24(2), 249–273.Google Scholar
Mackenzie, J. L. (2020). Functional approaches. In Aarts, B., Bowie, J., and Popova, G. (eds.), Oxford Handbook of English Grammar (pp. 180–200). Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Momma, S., and Phillips, C. (2018). The relationship between parsing and generation. Annual Review of Linguistics, 4, 233–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Müller, S., and Machicao y, Priemer, A. (2019). Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. In Kertész, A., Moravcsik, E., and Rákosi, C. (eds.), Current Approaches to Syntax: A Comparative Handbook (pp. 317–359). Berlin/New York: De Gruyter Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nordström, J. (2017). Language without narrow syntax. The Linguistic Review, 34(4), 687–740.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pesetsky, D. (2013). Что дѣлать? What is to be done? Plenary talk to the annual meeting of the Linguistics Society of America, January 4, 2013.Google Scholar
Piantadosi, S. T., Tily, , H., and Gibson, E. (2012). The communicative function of ambiguity in language. Cognition, 122 (3), 280–291.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pickering, M. J., and Garrod, S. (2021). Understanding Dialogue: Language Use and Social Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollard, C., and Sag, I. (1994). Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rappe, S. (2019). Now, never, or coming soon? Prediction and efficient language processing. Pragmatics & Cognition, 26(2/3), 357–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, L., ed. (2004). The Structure of CP and IP: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, Vol. II. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sadock, J. M. (2012). The Modular Architecture of Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Searle, J. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinclair, J., and Mauranen, A. (2006). Linear Unit Grammar: Integrating Speech and Writing. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steedman, M. (2022). Combinatory Categorial Grammar. https://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/steedman/papers/ccg/moravcsik2.pdf.Google Scholar
Wagner, M. (2016). Information structure and production planning. In Féry, C. and Ishihara, S. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure (pp. 541–561). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weigand, E. (2017). The concept of language in an utterance grammar. In Weigand, E. (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Dialogue (pp. 214–233). New York/Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wray, A. (2002). Formulaic Sequences and the Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×