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Part of
Fixed Expressions: Building language structure and social action
Edited by Ritva Laury and Tsuyoshi Ono
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 315] 2020
► pp. 99–132

Chapter 5
English why don’t you X as a formulaic expression

| University of California, Santa Barbara
| University of Helsinki

In this chapter we examine a formulaic expression in English, why don’t you + action verb/predicate (= WDY). We show that WDY is used in everyday conversation to carry out the social work of giving advice, as in why don't you try taking it again? We argue that this construction is a formulaic expression because it is not understood compositionally: the WDY format does not ask a question, but proposes a future action that the speaker is recommending that the recipient undertake. Our chapter explores the implicativeness of WDY for subsequent talk, and reveals the intricate relationship between the grammar of WDY and the social work that it is used to do.

Keywords: formulaic expression, conversation, giving advice, grammar, reduction, prosody, dynamic, agentive, deontic, account
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The phenomenon
  • 3.Data and procedure
  • 4.Evidence for WDY as a formulaic expression
    • 4.1WDY is grammatically constrained
    • 4.2WDY as a FE giving advice
    • 4.3 Prosodic-phonetic design of WDY
      • a. WDY and pitch accents
      • b. WDY and phonetic reduction
  • 5.A variant of advice-giving WDY: why not X?
  • 6.The pay-off of using WDY to give advice
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 10 December 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.315.05tho
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