An integrative approach to the relations of prosody to discourse: towards a multilinear representation of an interfac e network

The study of the relations between prosody and disco urse, as we view it, requires the development of an analysis tool adapted to the description of complex interface net works comprising the heterogeneous data from both prosodic and inference-driven text-centred analyses. Such a tool can be designed as a multi-linear grid, the method ological and theoretical bases of which are exposed in this pape r. 1.Introduction This paper presents the theoretical foundations and the methodology which characterize our approach to the relations of prosody to discourse. These relations a re considered to take part in both the production a nd the interpretation processes inherent in spontaneous sp oken discourse in French. Although this approach re lates to the cognitive linguistics stream inspired by researcher s attached to the « situated cognition » paradigm o r to the « pragmatic perspective » (Verschueren, 1994), the formal descr iption of linguistic objects constitutes one of its major centres of interest. More specifically, our approach intends t o pay the greatest attention to conceptual and disc ourse factors in order to account for the layout of linguistic (both syntactic and prosodic) objects and for the cognit ive strategies which constitute the basis for the online encoding and tr eatment of discourse. This theoretical position thus aims at favouring exchanges between the traditionally antagonistic li nguistic trends of formalism and functionalism (New meyer, 1998). In this perspective, our basic hypothesis is that t he general apparatus allowing to account for the co mplex and non-bijective nature of the form-function relations can be represented with a meta-grammar called Ecological Grammar (Di Cristo, 2000). It is important to note that the term « grammar » is not used here in its classical sense of « formal grammar » (or « competence grammar »), but in the more general sense of a descriptive system of the ex istence and functioning of a natural language. The unusual assoc iation of the terms « ecology » and « grammar » (ta ken from Lambrecht), means that we regard « situated discours e » as an ecosystem, a mode of expression which constantly adapts to its setting. The term « ecology » also see ms to suit the flexibility and adaptability of pros ody in the flow of discourse. More generally, this term makes room for a link with cognitive sciences, one of the major t enets of which is that intellectual capacities and perceptive functio ns are processing systems for environment data. Ecological Grammar is a meta-grammar which interfaces a contextualisation grammar with a grammar of linguistic expressions. The contextualisation gramma r (or grammar of pragmatic competence in discourse) is based on several principles from diverse theories and models such as Gumperz's contextualisation model, Sperber & Wilson's Relevance Theory, Lambrecht's and Vallduví's conceptions of information structure, and Grize's Schematiz ation Theory. The grammar of linguistic expressions consists of th e elements and the constructions of the syntactic a nd the prosodic systems, « summoned » and configured by the contextualisation grammar. The structuring of the two grammars originates in an integrative approach to the relationship of langua ge to communication. It proposes to do away with the clos ed strategy of reductionism and the thesis of the i mmanence of linguistic facts, in favour of the open strategy of contextualism, which strives to explain phenomena taking into account both their internal properties and external facts. As an example, this implies that we try to account for the organisation of discourse prosody by explaining how the constrai nts inherent in the prosodic systems (which constit ute evidence for