What’s Pragmatics Doing Outside Constructions?

Taking A Look At The Support Verb Construction V A Look: A Demonstration Of Methodology

“…When one node is accessed (because it is selected by the speaker or processed by the hearer) its activation spreads through the network. This is compatible with the idea that pragmatics can be 'part of' a construction (Cappelle 2017).…”

Cognitive Linguistics and a Usage‐Based Approach to the Study of Semantics and Pragmatics

“…In addition to Cappelle (2017), who reflects upon the kind of pragmatic information that should and should not be included in constructions, Finkbeiner (2019) also looks for the kinds of meaning aspects that should and should not count as pragmatic aspects. With respect to "Can you pass the salt?," the two layers of meaning that exist (i.e., the interrogative reading and the request) should be kept separate.…”

“…Leclercq (2020: 231) observes that the term 'semantics' has shifted from being a synonym of 'meaning' (Kay & Fillmore 1999) to being a synonym of 'meaning conventions' (Kay & Michaelis n.d.). To avoid confusion, Leclercq sides with Cappelle (2017) and Depraetere (2019) and argues that the terms 'semantics' and 'pragmatics' are most explanatory when defined in truth-conditional terms. Reducing semantics to the encoded content of a construction has the double benefit of handling a missing aspect of Construction Grammar and leaving pragmatics more space in the paradigm's formalism.…”

The necessity modalshave to,must,need to, andshould

“…Stefanowitsch 2003;Boogaart 2009;De Haan 2012;Boogaart & Fortuin 2016) might suggest that the integration of pragmatics in modal constructions is problematic, it is certainly possible to include pragmatic information in a modal construction's representation. After all, constructions can come with pragmatic specifications (for surveys, see Kay 2004;Nikiforidou 2009; the introduction in Bergs & Diewald 2009;Lee-Goldman 2011;Cappelle 2017; introduction to this issue). What is typical of the pragmatic value of a modal construction is that it can be 'short-circuited', to use Morgan's (1977) imagery of how pragmatic aspects of our understanding of an utterance can be conventionally associated with specific expressions.…”