User and Situation

Abstract

Studies on context in human language were not predominant in the influential research direction that bases on an assumed autonomy of syntax [Chomsky, 1965] and that explicitly excluded performance related issues as out of scope of their analysis [Chomsky, 1981]. These analyses focused on linguistic competence as well as innate structures and -mechanisms for the acquisition of such a (universal or core) grammar [Chomsky, 1995]. Noting the omission of semantic - let alone pragmatic or contextual - considerations by the so-called East-Coast linguistic school, the socalled West-Coast school proposed an alternative point of view [Langacker, 1987] that flourished under several headings, e.g. cognitive grammar or functional grammar [Givón, 1995], but is essentially usage-based.