Is free enrichment always free? Revisiting ad hoc-concept construction

Abstract

In relevance-theoretic pragmatics, lexical adjustment, or ad hoc-concept construction, is considered a case of free pragmatic enrichment. It is hence included within the group of non-linguistically mandated processes that are automatically carried out during comprehension. Its output is an inferentially-specified representation of the conceptual content encoded, or activated, by open-class words like nouns, adjectives, verbs or adverbs. Ad hoc-concept construction is a necessary step to obtain a fully propositional, truth-evaluable form that captures in a more precise manner the portion of meaning that the speaker communicates explicitly. However, this paper argues that this lexical pragmatic process needs not always be described as completely exempt from linguistic mandate: it may sometimes be enacted and steered by a series of linguistic elements. These fall within two categories: (i) the evaluative morphemes that some lexical items may receive in some languages, and (ii) lexical and phrasal items adjacent to content words. These elements would finetune the representations arising from content words as regards more specific, contextdependent features or shades. Moreover, they could add to such representations information about the speaker's attitude towards, or stance about, what the speakers refer to. Therefore, that information needs not always be derived as implicatures.