Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- How to use this book
- Transcription conventions
- 1 Introduction: Grammar, pragmatics, and what's between them
- PART I Drawing the grammar/pragmatics divide
- PART II Crossing the extralinguistic/linguistic divide
- 4 Grammar, pragmatics, and arbitrariness
- 5 All paths lead to the salient discourse pattern
- 6 The rise (and potential fall) of reflexive pronouns
- Part III Bringing grammar and pragmatics back together
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
6 - The rise (and potential fall) of reflexive pronouns
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- How to use this book
- Transcription conventions
- 1 Introduction: Grammar, pragmatics, and what's between them
- PART I Drawing the grammar/pragmatics divide
- PART II Crossing the extralinguistic/linguistic divide
- 4 Grammar, pragmatics, and arbitrariness
- 5 All paths lead to the salient discourse pattern
- 6 The rise (and potential fall) of reflexive pronouns
- Part III Bringing grammar and pragmatics back together
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
Summary
Keenan (2003) compares the history of reflexive pronouns to the history of the Eiffel Tower. Built for an international fair towards the end of the nineteenth century, the plan was to destroy the building once the fair was over. However, it just so happened that radio became popular in those days, and the Eiffel Tower was found useful for housing a radio antenna. It is its function in radio transmission, a totally new and unrelated function, which is (partly) responsible for the survival of the building. The story of reflexive pronouns is the story of a construction evolved for the encoding of emphatic reference, which now serves for quite different functions. We discuss this history firstly in order to exemplify the theoretical points made in chapters 4 and 5. In line with chapter 4, the process of conventionalization is argued to be motivated, although the ultimate conventions are not completely motivated. In line with chapter 5, we see how linguistic change is part and parcel of language use, how recurrent discourse patterns lie behind grammatical conventions. Next, given that reflexive pronouns were initiated by a pragmatic process, we need to determine whether reflexive pronouns are by now fully grammaticized. What is the grammar/pragmatics divide for the use and interpretation of reflexive pronouns if they are constantly evolving? The conclusion we will reach is that it is not just grammar, but pragmatics too, that governs the current distribution of reflexive pronouns. Neither one is sufficient by itself.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Pragmatics and Grammar , pp. 212 - 256Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008