CLASP
The Centre for Linguistic Theory and Studies in Probability

Ad hoc grammatical categorisation in Dynamic Syntax

Abstract

The view of NLs as codes mediating a mapping between “expressions” and the world is abandoned to give way to a view where utterances are seen as actions aimed to locally and incrementally alter the affordances of the context. Such actions employ perceptual stimuli composed not only of “words” and “syntax” but also elements like visual marks, gestures, sounds, etc. Any such stimuli can participate in the domain-general processes that constitute the “grammar”, whose function is the dynamic categorisation of various perceptual inputs and their integration in the process of generating the next action steps. Given these assumptions, a challenge that arises is how to account for the reification of such processes as exemplified in apparent metarepresentational practices like quotation, reporting, citation etc. It is argued that even such phenomena can receive adequate and natural explanations through a grammar that allows for the ad hoc creation of occasion-specific content through reflexive mechanisms.