Emergent contexts

In this contribution, I look at context from the view of idiomatic utterances. Thereby, I adopt the view that context is a dynamic construct actively created by discourse participants, where the utterance itself is an important contextual resource. Against this background, I develop the claim that idiomatic utterances have a certain potential to create or evoke specific contextual features. Theoretically, I argue that this potential cannot be explained within a purely semantic approach, but is to be situated at the semantics/pragmatics interface level. Empirically, I report on the results of an experiment in which participants had to rate the acceptability of contextualized utterances of the idiom to throw in the towel. Contexts which were compatible with the assumed specific features of the idiom scored significantly better than contexts which were not.