What can language sciences do for readers of Paul's letters?

Engagement with language sciences proves to be fruitful, at least toward generating new hypotheses about the decipherment problems encountered by Paul's readers. A brief summary of such hypotheses would include the following:

(1) Discursive Recursion
This concept grows out of research in linguistics and psycholinguistics on syntactic recursion and discourse structure, respectively. It appears likely that Paul's texts have extraordinary levels of recursion in their discursive structure.

(2) A Competitive Principle
This is a corollary (and competitor) to the Gricean and Neo-Gricean hypotheses about a Cooperative Principle that guides human communication. It appears likely that Paul's texts are among the Biblical texts that are guided at least in part by a competitive principle, made explicit in several places (cf. Matt 13:10-15; Mark 4:10-12; Luke 8:10; John 6:22-68).

(3) Parsimonious Elenchic Dialogue - Recursive Anaphoric Polysemy ("PED-RAP")
This hypothesis grows out of insights from a variety of disciplines. The concept of parsimony comes especially from the philosophy of science, as a criterion for selection among competing explanations. The criterion of parsimony is motivated by the hypothesis that nature tends toward simpler rather than more complex dynamics, and that descriptions of nature ought therefore also to be parsimonious. The concept of elenchus comes from the ancient Hellenistic world, where it came to refer to a competitive, testing form of rhetoric, dialogue, or discourse. It appears likely that Paul's letters are characterized by these qualities. Stated differently: Paul competed, with stunning efficiency. The tremendous complexes of arguments are perfectly arranged around single-pointed, competitive necessities. 
The second part of the PED-RAP hypothesis describes a major reason for readers' confusion: not only are Paul's texts hugely recursive, but they also use polysemy intentionally (to achieve aims efficiently) and anaphorically. An example of a RAP might be Paul's use of the verb egkakeo in 2 Cor 4:1, where it may support, through intentional polysemy, propositions made in 2 Cor 2-3 both about ministerial fitness and ministerial boldness.