Some recent lines of research suggest that there are two different domains of discourse processing where one is concerned with the form and meaning of sentences and their parts and the other with the organization of discourse beyond the sentence and the relationship between linguistic material and the extra-linguistic situation of discourse. One important mechanism relating the two domains to one another is provided by cooptation, a cognitive-communicative operation whereby pieces of discourse located in one domain are transferred to another domain. In the present paper, the nature of this operation is looked at in more detail based on the framework of Discourse Grammar (Kaltenböck et al. 2011, On thetical grammar. Studies in Language 35(4). 848–893; Heine et al. 2013, An outline of Discourse Grammar. In Shannon Bischoff & Carmen Jeny (eds.), Reflections on functionalism in linguistics, 175–233. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter Mouton).