| 1. |
- Gregoromichelaki, Eleni, et al.
(author)
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Completability vs (In)completeness
- 2020
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0374-0463 .- 1949-0763. ; 52:2, s. 260-284
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- © 2020 The Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen. In everyday conversation, no notion of “complete sentence” is required for syntactic licensing. However, so-called “fragmentary”, “incomplete”, and abandoned utterances are problematic for standard formalisms. When contextualised, such data show that (a) non-sentential utterances are adequate to underpin agent coordination, while (b) all linguistic dependencies can be systematically distributed across participants and turns. Standard models have problems accounting for such data because their notions of ‘constituency’ and ‘syntactic domain’ are independent of performance considerations. Concomitantly, we argue that no notion of “full proposition” or encoded speech act is necessary for successful interaction: strings, contents, and joint actions emerge in conversation without any single participant having envisaged in advance the outcome of their own or their interlocutors’ actions. Nonetheless, morphosyntactic and semantic licensing mechanisms need to apply incrementally and subsententially. We argue that, while a representational level of abstract syntax, divorced from conceptual structure and physical action, impedes natural accounts of subsentential coordination phenomena, a view of grammar as a “skill” employing domain-general mechanisms, rather than fixed form-meaning mappings, is needed instead. We provide a sketch of a predictive and incremental architecture (Dynamic Syntax) within which underspecification and time-relative update of meanings and utterances constitute the sole concept of “syntax”.
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| 2. |
- Kempson, Ruth, et al.
(author)
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Language as Mechanisms for Interaction
- 2016
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In: Theoretical Linguistics. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 0301-4428 .- 1613-4060. ; 42:3-4, s. 203-276
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Language use is full of subsentential shifts of context, a phenomenon dramatically illustrated in conversation where non-sentential utterances displaying seamless shifts between speaker/hearer roles appear regularly. The hurdle this poses for standard assumptions is that every local linguistic dependency can be distributed across speakers, with the content of what they are saying and the significance of each conversational move emerging incrementally. Accordingly, we argue that the modelling of a psychologically-realistic grammar necessitates recasting the notion of natural language in terms of our ability for interaction with others and the environment, abandoning the competence-performance dichotomy as standardly envisaged. We sketch Dynamic Syntax, a model in which underspecification and incremental time-relative update is central, showing how interactive effects of conversation follow directly. Finally, we note the changing cognitive-science horizons to be explored once a language-as-action view is adopted.
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