Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory draws a distinction between conceptual and procedural encoding. This is a cognilive distinction, according to which conceptual encoding contributes to the construction of conceptual representations and procedural encoding constrains the inferential computations performed over these. Recent work within the relevance theory framework (e.g., Haegeman 1989, Klinge 1993, Nicolle 1997a has characterized grammatical markers of modality, tense, and aspect äs exponents of procedural encoding. Although these accounts are synchronic, the general claim ihat grammatical markers encode procedural Information should also be compatible with evidence concerning the historical development of grammatical markers (a process known äs grammaticalization). In this article, I demonstrate that a procedural characterization of grammatical markers is not only compatible with research into grammaticalization, but also sheds light on the following problematic issues. First is the question of whether grammaticalization is semantically gradual (äs is generally assumed) or semantically instantaneous äs Givon (1991) claims; I provide evidence in favor of Givon s view. Secondly, a procedural analysis suggests an answer to the question of what semantic mechanism initiates grammaticalization. Finally I demonstrate how the distinction between conceptual and procedural encoding accountsfor the phenomenon of semantic retention (residual lexical meaning) in grammatical markers.

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This paper provides a relevance theoretic account of the semantics of the be going to construction in English, based on Klinge's (1993) model for the semantics of the modal auxiliaries, and in particular of will. The semantics of both forms will be accounted for in terms of the relation between linguistic representations of situations and cognitive domains. Finally the pragmatics of utterances of sentences containing will and be going to will be discussed.

This paper provides an account of be going to and will within the framework of Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1986, 1995. Because of the range of interpretations derived from the use of these expressions in different contexts, many previous accounts have characterized them as polysemous. This polysemy has been attributed to semantic retention, whereby both old (lexical) and new (grammaticalized) meanings are recovered in certain contexts. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate: (i) that although be going to does exhibit semantic retention, in a relevance-theoretic framework this does not entail polysemy, and (ii) that interpretations of will previously attributed to semantic retention are, in fact, pragmatically derived, and hence will is also monosemous.

This paper builds on work by Zegarac and Clark (Zegarac and Clark, forthcoming; Zegarac, in press) on phatic communication. Zegarac and Clark define phatic interpretations as interpretations which depend on the recognition of a communicative intention (as defined by Sperber and Wilson 1986 and exploited in their definition of ostensive communication). This definition does not link phatic interpretations directly to social functions but does reflect the fact that phatic interpretations have social effects. The social effects follow from the fact that any act of ostensive communication is, by definition, social. Zegarac discusses how phatic interpretations become standardised and conventionalised. Here we explore the processes of standardisation and conventionalisation in more detail. A first glance at the phenomena suggests an interesting paradox. When a particular linguistic form becomes so frequently linked with phatic interpretations that this usage becomes conventionalised, Zegarac and Clark's definition seems to predict that utterances containing that form will no longer give rise to phatic interpretations (because the interpretation will depend on the linguistically-encoded meaning rather than on the recognition of a communicative intention). We consider an alternative approach to that proposed by Zegarac, which exploits the relevance-theoretic notion of procedural encoding. We show how such an approach might lead to the modification of a prediction of Zegarac and Clark, i.e. the claim that purely phatic interpretations arise only when non-phatic interpretations are not consistent with the principie of relevance.