Grammar in time: pragmatic contingency and non-restrictive whichJournal Article
Overview
abstract
Abstract; In this paper, we draw upon dimensions of syntax, prosody and pragmatics to address a lacuna in current understandings of the non-restrictive (‘appositive’/‘supplementary’) relative which-clause. Contrary to its portrayal in descriptive grammars, naturally occurring data shows that this clause is commonly produced after a main clause has come to prosodic completion, that is, as a grammatical increment. Its usage therefore raises the interactional and pragmatic questions of why speakers should initially produce an utterance that is, to all intents and purposes, complete, and therefore what the subsequent production of the increment serves. By examining the production of non-restrictive relative which-increments with respect to their main (‘host’) clause, we subject the Gricean maxim of Quantity to empirical investigation, exposing both its strengths and its shortcomings. We identify two potentially conflicting pragmatic constraints to which speakers orient in the use of this grammatical object: the principle of minimization (an empirical specification of the Quantity maxim), and a principle of progressivity (an orientation to forwarding trajectories of action). This study therefore reveals the extent to which grammar serves as an interactional resource, implicated in the projects of alignment and disalignment, both of understanding and of stance. We thus see the intersection of time and grammar to interactional ends.
