A cognitive-pragmatic account of the English imperative-conditional construction
Issue: Vol 1 No. 2 (2016)
Journal: East Asian Pragmatics
Subject Areas:
Abstract:
There is a quite commonly used construction called imperative-conditional construction (ICC) in English. It consists of an ordinary imperative clause and an ordinary declarative clause connected by the connective and or or. Based on the concept of construction in cognitive linguistics, ICC can be called a complex symbolic structure which, though composed of two components, should be regarded as a single pragmatic processing unit, because the imperative and the declarative are complementary to and interactive with each other. It will be demonstrated that in everyday communication, ICC can usually convey three kinds of speaker intentions: prohibitive intention, inducing/forcing intention, and advisory intention. The first refers to the speaker intention to prohibit the hearer from carrying out the act described by the imperative clause. The second is the speaker intention to induce or force the hearer to bring about the act described by the imperative clause. The third refers to the speaker intention to advise the hearer to carry out the act described by the imperative clause. These speaker intentions are highly motivated. The motivations include the constructional context, the conditional relation between the imperative clause and the declarative clause, the directive force of the imperative clause, the pragmatic enrichment of the declarative clause, and the complementary and interactive relationship between the imperative and declarative clauses, among which the constructional context serves as an overall macro-motivation, and the rest may be seen as specific motivations. It is hoped that this study can inspire similar investigations of other complex constructions in English and those in other languages like Chinese that have rich complex constructions.
Author: Keding Zhang
References :
Allwood, J., Andersson, L., & Dahl, Ö. (1977). Logic in linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511621017
Birner, B. J. (2013). Introduction to pragmatics. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
Blakemore, D. (2002). Relevance and linguistic meaning: The semantics and pragmatics discourse markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bolinger, D. (1977). Meaning and form. London: Longman.
Carston, R. (2002). Thoughts and utterances: The pragmatics of explicit communication. Oxford: Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470754603
Chapman, S. (2011). Pragmatics. Basingstroke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Clark, B. (1993). Relevance and ‘pseudo-imperatives’. Linguistics and Philosophy, 16(1), 79–121. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00984723
Dancygier, B., & Sweetser, E. (2005). Mental spaces in grammar: Conditional constructions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486760
Fortuin, E., & Boogaart, R. (2009). Imperative as conditional: From constructional to compositional semantics. Cognitive Linguistics, 20(4), 641–673. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/COGL.2009.028
Goldberg, A. E. (1995). Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Goldberg, A. E. (2006). Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
He, Y. C., & Peng, Y. L. (1988). Luojixue yinlun [Introduction to logic]. Shanghai: Huadong Normal University Press.
Huntley, M. (1984). The semantics of English imperatives. Linguistics and Philosophy, 7(2), 103–133. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00630809
Jary, M., & Kissine, R. M. (2014). Imperatives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511998126
Jin, Y. L. (1979). Xingshi luoji [Formal logic]. Beijing: People’s Publishing House.
Kissine, M. (2013). From utterances to speech acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511842191
Koffka, K. (1935). Principles of Gestalt psychology. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company.
Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226471013.001.0001
Langacker, R. W. (1987). Foundations of cognitive grammar: Vol. 1. Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, R. W. (2000). Topic, subject, and possessor. In H. G. Simonsen & R. T. Endresen (Eds.) A cognitive approach to the verb: Morphological and constructional perspectives (pp. 11–48). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110817461.11
Langacker, R. W. (2008). Cognitive grammar: A basic introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331967.001.0001
McGinn, C. (1977). Semantics for nonindicative sentences. Philosophical Studies, 32(3), 301–311. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00354141
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1986). Relevance: Communication and cognition. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Taylor, J. R. (2016). Cognitive linguistics. In K. Allan (Ed.) The Routledge handbook of linguistics (pp. 455–469). London: Routledge.
Wang, C. M. (2007). What context facilitates foreign language learning? Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 39(3), 190–197.
Wang, C. M. (2015). Construction, constructional context and L2 learning. Modern Foreign Languages, 38(3), 357–365.
Wang, J. Y., Shen, C. J., & Zhang, J. (2006). Xinbian luojixue jiaocheng [A new introductory course in logic]. Changsha: Central South University Press.
Wang, Y. (2011). Researches on construction grammar: Vol. I. Theoretical exploration. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
Wilson, D., & Sperber, D. (2012). Meaning and relevance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139028370