The Psychological Foundations of the Grammar 51
Yet within a given context a hearer of the utterances in (1) understands that
they are all requests to close a window and a hearer of (2) understands that
they are all requests for information.
Labov (1972a: 124) notes that a great many speakers habitually use
statements to request confi rmations and hearers invariably recognize
such statements as requests and not assertions. He proposes that hearers
interpret speech based upon the concept of shared knowledge and categor-
izes all language events as A-events, B-events, and AB-events. He says:
Given any two-party conversation, there exists an understanding that
there are events that A knows about, but B does not; and events that
B knows about but A does not; and AB-events that are known to both.
(ibid. 124)Assuming that A is the speaker and B the hearer, A-events are instances
where a speaker, in Brazil’s terms, aims to expand the state of speaker/
hearer convergence shared with B. He/she produces a telling increment in
order to move the hearer to a new target state and achieve his/her com-
municative purpose. In a B event the speaker A requires the hearer’s (B’s)
assistance to achieve his/her desired communicative purposes and pro-
duces an asking increment. Target state can only be realized by B’s reply. AB
events are instances where the speaker A projects a pre-existing state of
convergence with the hearer B. In Brazil’s terms the speaker refers and
progress to target state is only realized by the speaker’s following verbal
contribution. Table 3.1 summarizes the relation.
Table 3.1 A-events, B-events, A-B events as increments
Asking increment Telling increment Proclaimed
A-event No Yes:
e.g. John is meeting
Mary later
YesB-event Yes:
e.g. When is John meeting Mary?
Is John meeting Mary?
John is meeting Mary?
No Yes for Wh example
No for Wh,
No for other examplesAB-event Yes:
e.g. [You know that John is meeting
later] but what are they going to
talk about?
Yes:
e.g. [John is meeting
Mary later] and then
they will play tennisNo but followed by a
tone unit with
proclaiming tone