Nonsentential Constituents and Theories of Phrase Structure

Abstract

Within a principles and parameters approach to linguistic theory, the choice of an alternative usually has complex and wide-ranging consequences (Chomsky 1981, 1986); sometimes these consequences extend beyond the domain of autonomous grammar and affect its interaction with other modules of cognition and production. Exploring this general approach, some recent work on the interaction between grammar and pragmatics has described their modular contributions to the explanation of a speaker’s ability to produce and understand expressions of a language (Barton 1985, 1989a, 1990a; Horn 1988; Levinson 1985, 1987; Morgan 1989); this approach leads to a concentration on data that help define the different contributions of grammar and pragmatics in linguistic explanation. One such body of illustrative data consists of what I have termed nonsentential constituents, defined as independent major lexical categories and clauses dominated by their own maximal projections as initial nodes, which are pragmatically marked in form and intonation as casual, even laconic, comments within conversational discourse. In a larger work (Barton 1990a), I present a theory of non- sentential constituents in English by developing two interacting models: an autonomous competence model of the grammar of nonsentential constituent structures and a modular pragmatic model of the interpretation of independent constituent utterances in context.