Cover not available
Article published In:
Grammar, usage and discourse: Functional studies offered to Kristin Davidse
Edited by Lieven Vandelanotte, Wout Van Praet and Lieselotte Brems
[English Text Construction 10:2] 2017
► pp. 199–232

There’s grammar and there’s grammar just as there’s usage and there’s usage

| Aarhus University
Usage-based grammars have become increasingly prominent in recent years. In these theories usage is construed quantitatively and serves as a circumstance for the emergence and development of grammar. This paper argues that usage can go deeper than this, and may become a component of the semiotic resources of a language and a part of grammar. However, this semioticisation is restricted to interpersonal grammar, those semiotic resources of grammar that construe interpersonal meaning. Three apparently unrelated grammatical phenomena – optionality of grammatical markers, insubordination, and a range of repetition-based constructions – are shown to be unified by the notions of grammaticalised usage and interpersonal grammar. This has implications for the nature of interpersonal grammar: it represents the codification of the triadic actional frame, the basis of which is the idea that action on an interlocutor is effected via action on linguistic units.
Keywords: grammatical optionality, insubordination, interpersonal grammar, repetition, triadic actional frame, usage
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Three domains of grammar where usage may be fundamental
    • 2.1Optionality of grammatical markers
    • 2.2Insubordination
    • 2.3Repetition-based constructions
  • 3.Usage as a grammatical system
    • 3.1The limitations of unit and relational descriptions
    • 3.2Usage as interpersonal grammar
    • 3.3The range and extent of usage in grammar
  • 4.A reconsideration of interpersonal grammar
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 October 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.10.2.02mcg
References (85)
References
Austin, John L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas & Susan Conrad. 2001. Register variation: A corpus approach. In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics), Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen & Heidi E. Hamilton (eds). Malden, MA, Oxford and Carlton: Blackwell, 175–197.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard. 1973 [1933]. Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight. 1968. Entailment and the meaning of structures. Glossa 21: 119–128.Google Scholar
. 1972. That’s That (Janua Lingarum Studia Memoriae Nicolai van Wijk Dedicata). The Hague and Paris: Mouton.Google Scholar
. 1987. The remarkable double IS. English Today 91: 39–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, Penelope & Stephen Levinson. 1978. Universals of language usage: Politeness phenomena. In Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction, Esther Goody (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 56–310.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan. 2010. Language, Usage and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Christie, Agatha. 1979 [1933]. Sad Cypress. London: Pan.Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert H. 2016. Depicting as a method of communication. Psychological Review 123 (3): 324–347. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, Herbert H. & Richard J. Gerrig. 1990. Quotations as demonstrations. Language 661: 764–805. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1981. The Languages of the Soviet Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Coppock, Elizabeth & Laura Staum. 2004. Origin of the English double-is construction. Unpublished manuscript, Stanford University. Available at: [URL] (Last accessed on 3 June 2017).
Coupe, Alexander R. 2011. On core case marking patterns in two Tibeto-Burman languages of Nagaland. Linguistics in the Tibeto-Burman Area 34 (2): 21–47.Google Scholar
Cristofaro, Sonia. 2016. Routes to insubordination: A cross-linguistic perspective. In Insubordination (Typological Studies in Language 115), Nicholas Evans & Honoré Watanabe (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 393–422. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cuenca, Maria Josep. 2007. Repetició consecutiva i idiomaticitat. Zeitschrift für Katalanistik 201: 189–219.Google Scholar
Curme, George O. 1931. A Grammar of the English Language: Syntax, Vol. 31. Boston, DC: Heath and Company.Google Scholar
Delbecque, Nicole. 2002. A construction grammar approach to transitivity in Spanish. In The Nominative & Accusative and their Counterparts (Case and Grammatical Relations across Languages 4), Kristin Davidse & Béatrice Lamiroy (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 81–130. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evans, Nicholas. 2007. Insubordination and its uses. In Finiteness: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations, Irina Nikolaeva (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 366–431.Google Scholar
. 2009. Insubordination and the grammaticalisation of interactive presuppositions. Lecture given at the conference Methodologies in Determining Morphosyntactic Change , Osaka, March 2009.
Evans, Nicholas & Honoré Watanabe. 2016a. The dynamics of insubordination: An overview. In Insubordination (Typological Studies in Language 115), Nicholas Evans & Honoré Watanabe (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1–37. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(eds). 2016b. Insubordination (Typological Studies in Language 115). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J. 1988. The mechanisms of ‘Construction Grammar’. Berkeley Linguistic Society 141: 35–55. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ghomeshi, Jila, Ray Jackendoff, Nicole Rosen & Kevin Russell. 2004. Contrastive focus reduplication in English: The salad-salad paper. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 221: 307–357. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Givón, Talmy. 1980. The binding hierarchy and the typology of complements. Studies in Language 41: 333–377. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, Adele E. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gosden, Chris. 2003. Prehistory: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gras, Pedro. 2016. Revisiting the functional typology of insubordination: Insubordinate que-constructions in Spanish. In Insubordination (Typological Studies in Language 115), Nicholas Evans & Honoré Watanabe (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 113–143. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grice, H. Paul. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Haiman, John. 1980. The iconicity of grammar: Isomorphism and motivation. Language 561: 515–540. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1997. Repetition and identity. Lingua 1001: 57–70. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Halliday, M.A.K. 1979. Modes of meaning and modes of expression: Types of grammatical structure and their determination by different semantic functions. In Function and Context in Linguistic Analysis: Essays offered to William Haas, D.J. Allerton, Edward Carney & David Holdcroft (eds). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 57–79.Google Scholar
. 1985. An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 1st ed. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Hand, David J. 2016. Measurement: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd, Gunther Kaltenböck & Tania Kuteva. 2016. On insubordination and cooptation. In Insubordination (Typological Studies in Language 115), Nicholas Evans & Honoré Watanabe (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 39–63. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hobson, Peter. 2004. The Cradle of Thought: Exploring the Origins of Thinking. London: Pan Books.Google Scholar
Hockett, Charles F. 1960. The origin of speech. Scientific American 2031: 88–96. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ishikawa, Minako. 1991. Iconicity in discourse: The case of repetition. Text 11 (4): 553–580. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jaeger, T. Florian. 2006. Redundancy and syntactic reduction in spontaneous speech. PhD dissertation, Stanford University.
. 2010. Redundancy and reduction: Speakers manage syntactic information density. Cognitive Psychology 611: 23–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara (ed.). 1994a. Repetition in Discourse: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Vol. 11 (Advances in Discourse Processes 47). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
(ed.). 1994b. Repetition in Discourse: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Vol. 21 (Advances in Discourse Processes 48). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W. 1990. Concept, Image, and Symbol: The Cognitive Basis of Grammar (Cognitive Linguistics Research 1). Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
. 1991. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume II: Descriptive Application. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 1992 [1983]. Pragmatics (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
. 2000. Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of Generalized Conversational Implicature (Language, Speech, and Communication). Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lilja, Niina. 2014. Partial repetitions as other-initiations of repair in second language talk: Re-establishing understanding and doing learning. Journal of Pragmatics 711: 98–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Massam, Diane. 1999. Thing is constructions: The thing is, is what’s the right analysis? English Language and Linguistics 3 (2): 335–352. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McConvell, Patrick. 1988. To be or double be? Current changes in the English copula. Australian Journal of Linguistics 8 (2): 287–305. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McGregor, William B. 1989. Phrase fracturing in Gooniyandi. In Configurationality: The Typology of Asymmetries, László Marácz & Pieter Muysken (eds). Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 207–222.Google Scholar
. 1994. The grammar of reported speech and thought in Gooniyandi. Australian Journal of Linguistics 14 (1): 63–92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1995. Ja hear that didja?: Interrogative tags in Australian English. Te Reo 381: 3–35.Google Scholar
. 1997. Semiotic Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
. 1998. “Optional” ergative marking in Gooniyandi revisited: Implications to the theory of marking. Leuvense Bijdragen 871: 491–534.Google Scholar
. 2006a. Repetition in Gooniyandi narrative. Paper presented at Second European Workshop on Australian Languages: Narrative and Grammar, Somlószöllös, 14-16 September 2006.
. 2006b. Focal and optional ergative marking in Warrwa (Kimberley, Western Australia). Lingua 116 (4): 393–423. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2007. Ergative marking of intransitive subjects in Warrwa. Australian Journal of Linguistics 27 (2): 201–229. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2010. Optional ergative case marking systems in a typological-semiotic perspective. Lingua 120 (7): 1610–1636. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013a. Optionality in grammar and language use. Linguistics 51 (6): 1147–1204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013b. There are existential constructions and existential constructions: Presumption invoking existentials in English. Folia Linguistica 47 (1): 139–181. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013c. Some unusual clause types in Shua. Paper presented at Final KBA Meeting, Aarhus, 8-9 April 2013.
. 2015a. Four counter-presumption constructions in Shua (Khoe-Kwadi, Botswana). Lingua 1581: 54–75. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2015b. Optional accusative marking in Shua. Paper presented at Variation and asymmetries in case-marking workshop, Canberra, 31 July 2015.
Mithun, Marianne. 2008. The extension of dependency beyond the sentence. Language 841: 69–119. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Persson, Gunnar. 1974. Repetition in English. Part I: Sequential Repetition (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Anglistica Upsaliensia 21). Uppsala: Universitetsbiblioteket.Google Scholar
Pike, Kenneth L. 1959. Language as particle, wave, and field. The Texas Quarterly 2 (2): 37–54.Google Scholar
Rumsey, Alan L. 2010. ‘Optional’ ergativity and the framing of reported speech. Lingua 1201: 1652–1676. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schmid, Hans-Jörg. 2013. Is usage more than usage after all? The case of English not that. Linguistics 51 (1): 75–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schwenter, Scott A. 2016. Independent si-clauses in Spanish: Functions and consequences for insubordination. In Insubordination (Typological Studies in Language 115), Nicholas Evans & Honoré Watanabe (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 89–111. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shaumyan, Sebastian. 1987. A Semiotic Theory of Language. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Simon, Horst J. & Heike Wiese (eds). 2011. Expecting the Unexpected: Exceptions in Grammar (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 216). Berlin and New York: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tannen, Deborah. 1987. Repetition in conversation: Toward a poetics of talk. Language 631: 574–605. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1989. Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue and Imagery in Conversational Discourse (Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics 6). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A. & Anthony Mulac. 1991. The discourse conditions for the use of the complementizer that in conversational English. Journal of Pragmatics 151: 237–251. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, Michael. 1999. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
. 2003. Constructing a Language: A Usage-based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
. 2008. Origins of Human Communication (The Jean Nicod Lectures). Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
. 2014. A Natural History of Human Thinking. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Torres Cacoullos, Rena & James A. Walker. 2009. On the persistence of grammar in discourse formulas: A variationist study. Linguistics 47 (1): 1–43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Valenzuela, Javier, Joseph Hilferty & Mar Garachana. 2005. On the reality of constructions. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 31: 201–215. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van der Voort, Hein. 2003. Reduplication of person markers in Kwaza. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 351: 65–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Verstraete, Jean-Christophe, Sarah D’Hertefelt & An Van linden. 2012. A typology of complement insubordination in Dutch. Studies in Language 36 (1): 123–153. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1987. Boys will be boys: ‘Radical semantics’ vs. ‘radical pragmatics’. Language 631: 95–114. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wohlgemuth, Jan & Michael Cysouw (eds). 2010a. Rethinking Universals: How Rarities Affect Linguistic Theory (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 45). Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(eds). 2010b. Rara & Rarissima: Documenting the Fringes of Linguistic Diversity (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 46). Berlin and New York: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

McGregor, William B.
2019. Reported speech as a dedicated grammatical domain – and why defenestration should not be thrown out the window. Linguistic Typology 23:1 ► pp. 207 ff. DOI logo
McGregor, William B.
2019. The evolutionary origins of interpersonal grammar. Functions of Language 26:1 ► pp. 112 ff. DOI logo
Vandelanotte, Lieven
2017. Favourite puzzles. English Text Construction 10:2 ► pp. 187 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.