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Constructing Families of Constructions: Analytical perspectives and theoretical challenges
Edited by Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Alba Luzondo Oyón and Paula Pérez Sobrino
[Human Cognitive Processing 58] 2017
► pp. 109–134

Chapter 4
The role of inferencing in the interpretation of two expressive speech act constructions

| University of Hamburg
| Independent Researcher

We analyze two illocutionary constructions, viz. an autonomous complement clause construction, instantiated by That it should come to this!, and a wh-interrogative construction, such as What do think you are doing? Both constructions convey emotive and evaluative senses and have a factual presupposition. Conceptually and pragmatically, they are members of a large family of expressive constructions, albeit morphosyntactically unrelated. The first construction is directly associated with a non-compositional illocutionary meaning. In contrast, the interpretation of the second construction requires a number of inferential steps leading from a still extant source meaning (neutral question) to a conventionalized indirect expressive and directive target meaning. The chapter finishes with some reflections on the relation between semantics and pragmatics as well as on the necessity of integrating an inferential component into cognitive linguistic theory.

Keywords: autonomous complement clause construction, emotive sense, evaluative sense, family of constructions, presupposition, wh-interrogative construction
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Constructions and speech acts
    • 2.1The notion of construction
    • 2.2Searle’s classification of illocutionary acts
  • 3.Illocutionary constructions: Two case studies
    • 3.1The expressive scenario
    • 3.2The pragmatic meaning of the That NP should VP construction
    • 3.3The pragmatic meaning of the Wh-x do you think CL-x construction
  • 4.Conclusions and outlook
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 July 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.58.05pan
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