Pragmatics in the Minimalist framework: Evidence from the study of emotional language

This article explores the relationship between pragmatics and the other components of grammar. Specifically, it aims to determine whether pragmatics is a distinct module of grammar coming into play at some point in the derivation process to connect the sentence with the context. The conclusion is that, based on the phenomena considered in this work, pragmatics rather than being a separate module, is distributed in the various components. It is shown in fact that the context immediately intervenes at the representative level to yield the correct syntax to be fed to the sensorimotor system on one side, and to the conceptual one on the other. The empirical focus of the article is on a specific type of questions in Italian, namely surprise and surprise-disapproval questions, because they are most sensitive to pragmatic factors. The syntactic, prosodic, and gestural components of these constructions will be examined, highlighting their most important characteristics.