Linguistics (Mar 2023)

Quotation does not need marks of quotation

  • De Brabanter Philippe

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2021-0087
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 61, no. 2
pp. 285 – 316

Abstract

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Two major types of quotation theories can be distinguished according to whether they regard marks of quotation as necessary (type-1) or not necessary (type-2) for quotation. I argue that taken at face value, the empirical evidence disqualifies type-1 theories. I then show that even if we accept that surface appearances can be deceptive – ‘unmarked’ quotations are simply not quotations, or absent marks are underlain by marks in hidden syntactic structure – type-1 theories still prove inadequate. By contrast, a particular form of type-2 theory, depiction theory, is consistent with the empirical evidence, proves compatible with syntactic analyses that posit a covert quotative operator, and is equipped to account for the grammatically deviant behavior of certain categories of quotations.

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