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This concluding chapter summarizes the arguments presented and draws out the main consequences. It points out the basic idea of the study, namely that verbal subcategorization is underspecified and that verbs allow for a free process of adjunction resulting in verb phrases with varying complementation patterns, built anew on every occasion of use, and interpreted with recourse to pragmatic enrichment. The relation between the conceptual content of the study and the particular implementation is shown, and possible improvements or alternatives are sketched. Further possible empirical developments are mentioned, such as a closer study of other valency changing operations such as passives. The most important result of the study is, however, that the interpretation of verbs and their syntactic environment is thoroughly context-dependent, thus providing evidence against a syntactic level of logical form. Rather, in the process of utterance interpretation, lexical, syntactic, and pragmatic knowledge interact so as to jointly derive an interpretation of the words encountered.

This chapter provides the theoretical background to the study. Based on the two major theories behind the analysis — Dynamic Syntax and Relevance Theory — it develops a formal model of utterance interpretation which assumes that 1) linguistic knowledge is directly reflected in the linguistic abilities of speaking and understanding; and that 2) a formal model of linguistic understanding can be developed independently of production. The description of this model includes a detailed discussion of Dynamic Syntax and Relevance Theory and addresses also the role of phonology and the lexicon in the model. The second part of the chapter gives an introduction into the formal tools of Dynamic Syntax which will be employed in the following chapters.

This Introduction summarizes the arguments presented thus far. Namely, that the received understanding of the semantics–pragmatics divide is not a good way to think about the current understanding about language. The rules of language are more diverse than has been generally acknowledge, and the mechanisms through which we engage with utterance interpretation are more varied than is often supposed. The book's argument is not a deep one. The idea it presents is that speakers' intentions play exactly the same roles in cooperative conversation as people's other intentions play across all practical collaborations.