Thisbookexploresadomainofdiscourseprocessingreferredtoas’interactivegrammar’,basedonananalysisofgrammaticaldescriptionsofover100languagesspokenacrosstheworld.Whilemuchpreviousworkhastreatedinteractivegrammarasafairlymarginalpartoflanguage,BerndHeinedescribesithereasadistinctcategorythatcontrastswithsentencegrammarbothinitsfunctionsanditsstructuralbehavior.Heidentifiestentypesofinteractives-i.e.extra-clausalexpressionsoflinguisticdiscourse:attentionsignals,directives,discoursemarkers,evaluatives,ideophones,interjections,responseelicitors,responsesignals,socialformulae,andvocatives.Theanalysisrevealsthatspeakersmakeuseoftwocontrastingmodesforstructuringtheirdiscourses,bothofwhichareneededforsuccessfulcommunication:oneissentencegrammar,whichhasapropositionalformatandanalyticorganization;theotherisinteractivegrammar,whichhasaholophrasticorganizationandafocusonsocialcommunication.Whiletheargumentstructureofsentencegrammarisshapedbythepropositionalformatofsentences,thatofinteractivegrammarisshapedbytheindexicalnatureofthesituationofdiscourse.Thisdistinctionshowsinterestingcorrelationsbothwithfindingsfromneurolinguisticstudiesondifferentialactivityinthetwohemispheresofthehumanbrain,andwithobservationsfromsocialpsychologyonthedifferencesbetweensystemsofreasoningandjudgment.
