Article published in:
Usage-based and Typological Approaches to Linguistic Units
Edited by Tsuyoshi Ono, Ritva Laury and Ryoko Suzuki
[Studies in Language 43:2] 2019
► pp. 254–280

Understanding ‘clause’ as an emergent ‘unit’ in everyday conversation

| University of California, Santa Barbara

Linguists generally assume ‘clause’ to be a basic unit for the analysis of grammatical structure. Data from natural conversations, however, suggests that ‘clause’ may not be grammaticized to the same extent across languages. Understanding ‘clause’ as a predicate (plus any arguments, inferred or expressed), we can show that participants do indeed organize their talk around ‘clauses’. I argue that English-speaking participants in everyday interaction do indeed orient to clausal units as so defined, by building their turns around predicates, and that these turns do key interactional work. The data further reveal that these units must be understood as emergent structures, recurrent patterns in a given language that emerge from humans pursuing their ordinary interactional business of communicating information, needs, identities, attitudes, and desires.

Keywords: clause, Japanese, English, conversation, unit, social action, predicate
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Problematizing ‘social action’
  • 3.Problematizing ‘clause’: ‘Clause’ as ‘predicate-plus’
  • 4.Clauses as vehicles for social action
    • 4.1Directive-commissive actions
    • 4.2Assessments
    • 4.3Informings
    • 4.4Assertions
    • 4.5Requests for information
  • 5.Social actions not done by clauses
  • 6.Scaffolding
  • 7.Conclusion and outlook
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 November 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.16032.tho
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