What Is Occult Grammar? #

All communication, in order to be communication, is governed by rules that determine the ways in which utterances (that is, any and all speech acts and their constituent parts, whether verbal or non-verbal) are assembled by the speaker and listener into meaning. These rules define the implicature carried by a given speech act, as well as its "literal" meaning.

In this series, I use the term "grammar" to mean those rules that speakers and listeners use to formulate and interpret speech acts, body language, actions, and all other "moves" in the language game, in ways that are both overt and occult to those participating in the conversation. Using this framework, I will discuss various ways that the divergence between grammars can create conversational obstacles between speakers of allistic and autistic neurotypes, and approaches for overcoming said obstacles.

Occult vs Overt Grammar #

Rules of grammar may be, to varying degrees, overt, that is, known and recognized by the language participants, or occult, hidden from their view. Grammar rules can be made overt by careful observation, but quite often, those fluent in a language find it disconcerting to notice that they've been following a rule for many years in countless conversations without ever recognizing its existence.

When a child first learns to speak, all grammar is occult to them. Over time, they come to understand that utterances are composed of discrete components. Some of these identify actions, others identify things, still others describe shape or color or direction, and so on. From their interactions with others, they form an implicit understanding of these rules long before they go to school and learn words like "verb" and "noun".

Some rules, like the assembly of simple parts of speech, are straightforward to discover and make overt. Others are less so.

For example, native English speakers somehow know that "good little dog" sounds more correct than "little good dog", because size comes after opinion. But, "big bad wolf" is correct, despite violating this rule, because adjective order is superseded by ablaut reduplication. When forming utterances, we follow these complicated overlapping rules without even knowing them consciously.

Consider also, "a hot little flame" implies that a singular "hot flame" is small in size. However, "a little hot flame" carries the connotation that the "hot flame" is a stuff, which we have a small quantity of. This is because the characteristic "hot" must come before the description of size of a single object, but after quantity of some mass noun.

In this example, we observe how occult grammar rules also determine how we interpret language, switching "flame" from a countable to a mass noun. That is, the sense of "little" being either about size or about amount, is determined by the occult grammar rule of adjective order.¹

If you ask a speaker to explain these rules, most people will struggle. We know the rule implicitly, and can follow it flawlessly, but we don't know how we know it. And yet, the rules inexorably determine how we interpret moves in the language game. We cannot help it.

"Occult grammar" refers to the hidden rules of communication that native speakers of a language use without conscious awareness. The rules are "occult" in the sense that they are hidden from view, especially from the view of those who clearly understand the grammar well enough to use it flawlessly.

These rules are simply how the language works. It's not necessary to enforce them, because fluency in the language means following them. They are natural laws of interpretation and expression, rather than social rules of decorum. As such, they do not need enforcement; they just exist to be discovered through observation.

More Than Words #

In this series, I am referring to human communication in the broadest possible sense, and thus "grammar" concerns more than merely the assembly of words; that is, I use the term "utterance" in the sense of "a move in the language game" rather than strictly a spoken or written series of words.

Of course, much of human communication is carried by the creation and interpretation of words. But the principles here should equally be applied to things such as a sigh, a wave, a cough, entering or exiting a room, giving a gift, sending an invitation, turning to face towards or away from someone, tightening the muscles of the lips or eyelids, making or breaking eye contact, and so on. These things can be considered "linguistic", despite not being strictly "verbal", at least when humans do them.²

Perhaps the most fundamental rule of grammar in almost any human communication is the cooperative principle, which is the framework underlying theories of language such as relevance theory and Grice's Maxims.

However, even if we accept that all language ought to follow the cooperative principle, and provide some relevant information sufficient to justify the listener attending to it, the question remains of what sorts of things we ought to consider "relevant", what objective we are cooperating towards. Similar to how ablaut reduplication supersedes adjective order ("good little dog" but "big bad wolf"), there are cases where occult grammar rules may supersede or alter our understanding of the less buried rules of cooperative relevance.

Humans are social beings, and as a result, communication forms a significant part of our cognition. Grammar is the underlying framework of communication, despite often being largely hidden from conscious awareness. Thus, rather than assume that all communicators implement the same rules of grammar, it is more fruitful to examine them in action.

Occult Grammar and Culture #

While some aspects of human communication are no doubt universal, language is both essential to culture and extremely dependent upon it. Even between cultures that ostensibly speak the "same" language, there may be extreme differences in the ways that certain speech acts are interpreted. Often, this is a result of cultural ideas about the importance, costs, and benefits of various sorts of interaction.

Consider for example the clash between ask cultures and guess cultures.

Within an "ask" culture, denying a request is seen as essentially a zero-cost interaction. Ask cultures place a high value on freedom, independence, and clarity, also known as "negative face". While gifts may be given, it's understood that a gift might miss the mark. Thus, gifts confer little to no obligation on the part of the receiver, and it's often better to assume someone doesn't want help if they haven't asked for it. You ask for what you want, you might get a "no", and that's fine. If someone hasn't asked, it's safe to assume they don't want something. If someone asks for something you don't want to give, you can say "no" and neither has lost any social capital.

Within a "guess" culture, on the other hand, "positive face" is given higher importance, and denying a request is seen as a personal rejection. Therefore, it's very important to try to avoid situations that might result in someone having to turn down a request, as they are unlikely to do so, even if meeting the request breeds resentment. Guess cultures place a high priority on social cohesion. A guess culture adherent would only explicitly ask for something if their numerous hints had gone unnoticed, or perhaps if it was a dire emergency, because asking puts the recipient in the awkward position of perhaps having to turn down the request, which could cause conflict.

Even though both parties might be native English speakers, a person from an ask culture person and another from a guess culture will approach social interactions with a different occult grammar of communication. The ask culture adherent will seem pushy and demanding, whereas the guess culture adherent will seem passive-aggressive and inscrutable. When they attempt to explain themselves to one another, the confusion will only tend to deepen, because though they are using the same words, their contexts may be completely incompatible.

Neurotypal Communication Grammars #

Grammars form the "operating system" of our communicative machinery. They determine the assumptions and implicit context that are used to form and interpret every speech act. In fact, they even help establish what is a "speech act" and what is just some other kind of thing. For example, is that person waving at me? Or are they just stretching their arm or doing some kind of dance? (And are they dancing for me? About me? At me?³)

People whose neurotypes diverge from societal neuronormativity can have radically different relationships with language, due to having different occult grammar rules.

Being autistic in an allistic society often feels like a strange sort of culture shock; I'm from here, I speak this language, and yet whenever I speak to the people around me, we seem to talk past one another and leave in confusion.

This double empathy problem arises largely from differences in the occult grammar rules used by allistic and autistic people in their communication. By studying and consciously considering these rules, even as they seem strange and foreign to us, we can improve our communication. Even more beneficially, by identifying the differences, autistic people can more effectively advocate for the benefits of our natural communication style.

It seems likely to me, though I of course have no direct knowledge, that other divergent neurotypes may also have different occult grammars of their own, especially those such as Cluster A and B Personality Disorders, which involve social/emotional divergence from the societal norm.

However, the divergence between autistic and allistic norms are so significant that they appear to comprise a signficant majority of the "social deficits" associated with ASD. We simply do not interpret or formulate utterances according to the same rules as the allistic majority. And when asked, the allistic people in our life genuinely cannot explain what those rules even are. Both sides are left waving their hands in exasperation at the other's obstinate inscrutability.

It is clear upon investigation that the divergence between allistic occult grammar and autistic occult grammar are at least as significant as any other cultural divide, and should be treated with the same level of cultural sensitivity.

Coming Next #

This framework has remarkable explanatory power which can be leveraged powerfully in service of mutual empathy, understanding, and collaboration.

In the next posts in this series, I will discuss some of the specific rules of the occult grammars of allistic and autistic communication, and the conflicts that arise from their differences.

2025-11-04autismallismcommunciationoccult grammarthe quiet part out loudphilosophy