ABSTRACT
This chapter sheds some light on the great challenge of an utterance grammar and provides guidelines for future work. An utterance grammar as a grammar of performance cannot be conceived of as a stable rule-governed system but represents a dynamic balance of multiple variables mediated by human beings in specific dialogic action games. Insofar as an utterance grammar includes individuality, it cannot aim at describing any possible occurrence of an utterance. The possibilities are, in principle, innumerable. It seems, therefore, reasonable to elaborate standard cases and indicate ways of going beyond these in particular cases. Verification of an utterance grammar is provided by sociobiological results, that is, by neurological experiments and anthropological goal-oriented observations of various languages and cultures. Different disciplines have to collaborate in the joint attempt to shed more light on how human beings succeed in coming to an understanding about their mutual purposes.
