Cover not available
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. 364–401

Questioning the clause as a crosslinguistic unit in grammar and interaction

ORCID logo | University of Helsinki
 | University of Alberta
 | Keio University
This paper focuses on ‘clause’, a celebrated structural unit in linguistics, by comparing Finnish and Japanese, two languages which are genetically, typologically, and areally distinct from each other and from English, the language on the basis of which this structural unit has been most typically discussed. We first examine how structural units including the clause have been discussed in the literature on Finnish and Japanese. We will then examine the reality of the clause in everyday talk in these languages quantitatively and qualitatively; in our qualitative analysis, we focus in particular on what units are oriented to by conversational participants. The current study suggests that the degree of grammaticization of the clause varies cross-linguistically and questions the central theoretical status accorded to this structural unit.
Keywords: clause, unit, grammar, everyday talk, conversation, interaction, participant orientation, interactional linguistics, Finnish, Japanese, English
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Understandings of similar units in standard references in Finnish and Japanese
    • 2.1Finnish
    • 2.2Japanese
  • 3.Clauses and predicates as units in interaction
    • 3.1The clause as a unit in Finnish conversation
    • 3.2The predicate as a unit in Japanese conversation
  • 4.Summary and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 November 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.17032.lau
References (83)
References
Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad & Edward Finegan. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan. 2010. Language, Usage and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chafe, Wallace. 1994. Discourse, Consciousness and Time. The Flow and Displacement of Conscious Experience in Speaking and Writing. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic Structures. London: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clancy, M. Patricia. 1980. Referential choice in English and Japanese narrative discourse. In Wallace L. Chafe (ed.), The pear stories: Cognitive, cultural, and linguistic aspects of narrative production. Norwood: Ablex.Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1989. Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. 2014. What does grammar tell us about action. Pragmatics 24(3). 623–648. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth & Tsuyoshi Ono. 2007. Incrementing in conversation. A comparison of practices in English, German and Japanese. Pragmatics 17(4). 513–552. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Croft, William. 1990. Typology and universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Crystal, David. 1998. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W. 1987. The Discourse Basis of Ergativity. Language 631. 805–855. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014. Towards a Dialogic Syntax. Cognitive Linguistics 25(3). 359–410. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Etelämäki, Marja, Markku Haakana & Mia, Halonen. 2013. Keskustelukumppanin kehuminen suomalaisessa keskustelussa. [Complimenting in Finnish conversation.] Virittäjä 1171. 461–494.Google Scholar
Ford, Cecilia E., Barbara A. Fox & Sandra A. Thompson. 2002. The Language of Turn and Sequence. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
. 2013. Units and/or action trajectories? The language of grammatical categories and the language of social action. In Beatrice Szczepek Reed & Geoffrey Raymond (eds.), Units of Talk – Units of Action , 13–56. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ford, Cecilia E. and Sandra A. Thompson. 1996. Interactional units in conversation: syntactic, intonational, and pragmatic resources for the projection of turn completion. In Elinor Ochs, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Sandra A. Thompson, eds., Interaction and grammar, 135–184. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fox, Barbara A. 2007. Principles shaping grammatical practices: An exploration. Discourse Studies 91. 299–318. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fromkin, V., R. Rodman & N. Hyams. 2011. An Introduction to Language, 9th ed. Boston: Cengage Learning Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Givón, Talmy. 1984. Syntax. A functional-typological introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Charles. 1979. The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation. In George Psathas (ed.), Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology, 97–121. New York: Irvington Publishers.Google Scholar
. 1981. Conversational Organization: Interaction between Speakers and Hearers. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph (ed.). 1978. Universals of Human Language. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hakulinen, Auli & Fred, Karlsson. 1979. Nykysuomen lauseoppia. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.Google Scholar
Hakulinen, Auli, Maria Vilkuna, Riitta Korhonen, Vesa Koivisto, Tarja Riitta Heinonen & Irja Alho. 2004. Iso suomen kielioppi. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.Google Scholar
Hakulinen, Auli & Marja-Leena Sorjonen. 2009. Designing utterances for action: Verb repeat responses to assessments. In Markku Haakana, Minna Laakso & Jan Lindström (eds.), Talk in Interaction. Comparative Dimensions, 124–151. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2010a. Comparative concepts and descriptive categories in cross-linguistic studies. Language 86(3). 663–687. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2010b. The interplay between comparative concepts and descriptive categories (Reply to Newmeyer). Language 86(3). 696–699. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hayashi, Makoto. 1999. Where grammar and interaction meet: A study of co-participant completion in Japanese conversation. Human Studies 221. 475–499. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2003. Joint Utterance Construction in Japanese Conversation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa. 2001. Syntax in the making: The emergence of syntactic units in Finnish conversational discourse (Studies in Discourse and Grammar 9). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hida, Yoshifumi. 2007. Bun. In Yoshihide Endo, Masanobu Kato, Takeyoshi Sato, Kiyoto Hachiya & Tomiyoshi Maeda (eds.), Nihongogaku Kenkyu Jiten (Encyclopedia of Research in Japanese Linguistics). Tokyo: Meiji Shoin.Google Scholar
Hinds, John. 1980. Japanese conversation, discourse structure, and ellipsis. Discourse Processes, 263–286. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1982. Japanese conversational structures. Lingua 57(2–4). 301–326. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. & Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 2003. Grammaticalization. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hoye, Masako. 2008. Exploration of the notion of subject in Japanese. Boulder, CO: University of Colorado Ph.D. dissertation.Google Scholar
Ikola, Osmo, Ulla Palomäki & Anna-Kaisa Koitto. 1989. Suomen murteiden lauseoppia ja tekstikielioppia. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.Google Scholar
Iwasaki, Shoichi. 1993. The structure of the Intonation Unit in Japanese. Japanese/Korean Linguistics 31. 39–53.Google Scholar
. 2014. Grammar of the Internal Expressive Sentences in Japanese: Observations and Explorations. In Kaori Kabata & Tsuyoshi Ono (eds.), Usage-based Approaches to Japanese Grammar, 55–83. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jahnsson, Adolf Waldemar. 1871. Finska språkets satslära. Helsinki.Google Scholar
Kärkkäinen, Elise & Tiina Keisanen. 2012. Linguistic and embodied formats for making (concrete) offers. Discourse Studies 14(5). 1–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kinsui, Satoshi. 1997. Kokubunpoo [Japanese grammar]. In Takashi Masuoka, Yoshio Nitta, Takao Gunji & Satoshi Kinsui (eds.), Bunpoo, 119–157. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.Google Scholar
Kuno, Susumu. 1973. The Structure of the Japanese Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Laakso, Minna & Marja-Leena Sorjonen. 2010. Cut-off or particle. Devices for initiating self-repair in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 421. 1151–1172. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Laury, Ritva. 2018. The Finnish verb repeat response: Elliptical ‘fragment’, fixed expression, or independent unit? Journal of Pragmatics 1231. 139–150. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Laury, Ritva and Tsuyoshi Ono. 2014. The limits of grammar: Clause combining in Finnish and Japanese conversation, Pragmatics 24(3). 561–592. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lerner, Gene. 1991. On the syntax of sentences in progress. Language in Society 201. 441–458. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Linell, Per. 2005. The Written Language Bias in Linguistics. Its Nature, Origins and Transformations. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009. Rethinking Language, Mind and World Dialogically. Interactional and contextual theories of human sense-making. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.Google Scholar
. 2013. The dynamics of incrementation in utterance-building: Processes and resources. In Beatrice Szczepek Reed & Geoffrey Raymond (eds.), Units of Talk – Units of Action, 57–89. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martin, Samuel Elmo. 2004 (1975). A Reference Grammar of Japanese. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).Google Scholar
Masuoka, Takashi & Yukinori, Takubo. 1992. Kiso Nihongo Bunpoo: Kaiteiban [Basic Japanese grammar: A revised edition]. Tokyo: Kuroshio Publishers.Google Scholar
Matthews, P. H. 2014. (Online version) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, 3 ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Maynard, Senko K. 1989. Japanese Conversation: Self-contextualization Through Structure and Interactional Management. Norwood: Ablex.Google Scholar
1990. Conversation Management in Contrast: Listener Response in Japanese and American English. Journal of Pragmatics 141. 397–412. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Minami, Fujio. 1974. Gendai nihongo no koozoo [The Structure of Modern Japanese]. Tokyo: Taishukan.Google Scholar
Nakayama, Toshihide. 2002. Nuuchahnulth (Nootka) Morphosyntax (UC Publications in Linguistics 134). Oakland: University of California Press.Google Scholar
. 2013. Emergent nature of linguistic units. Workshop ‘Linguistic and interactional units in everyday speech: Cross-linguistic perspective’, University of Alberta.
Nitta, Yoshio. 2007. Ku. In Endo Yoshihide, Kato Masanobu, Sato Takeyoshi, Hachiya Kiyoto & Maeda Tomiyoshi (eds.), Nihongogaku Kenkyu Jiten [Encyclopedia of Research in Japanese Linguistics]. Tokyo: Meiji Shoin.Google Scholar
Okamoto, Shigeko. 1985. Ellipsis in Japanese Discourse. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley Ph.D. dissertation.Google Scholar
Ono, Tsuyoshi & Ryoko, Suzuki. 2018. The use of frequent verbs as reactive tokens in Japanese everyday talk: Formulaicity, florescence, and grammaticization. Journal of Pragmatics 1231. 209–219. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ono, Tsuyoshi and Sandra A. Thompson. 1995. What can conversation tell us about syntax? In Philip W. Davis (ed.), Descriptive and theoretical modes in the new linguistics, 213–271. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Ono, Tsuyoshi & Sandra A. Thompson. 1997. Deconstructing “Zero Anaphora” in Japanese. Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Pragmatics and Grammatical Structure, 481–491. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ono, Tsuyoshi, Sandra A. Thompson & Ryoko Suzuki. 2000. The Pragmatic Nature of the So-called Subject Marker ga in Japanese: Evidence from Conversation. Discourse Studies 2(1). 55–84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Otsuki, Fumihiko. 1897. Koonihonbunten. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Hanshichi.Google Scholar
Payne, Thomas. 1997. Describing Morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff & Gail Jefferson. 1974. A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4). 696–735. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Setälä, Eemil Nestor. 1926 [1880]. Suomen kielen lauseoppi. Helsinki: Otava.Google Scholar
Shimojo, Mitsuaki. 2005. Argument Encoding in Japanese Conversation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shopen, Timothy. 2007. Language Typology and Syntactic Description, 2nd ed., vol. I1, Clause Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sorjonen, Marja-Leena & Minna Laakso. 2005. Katko vai eiku. Itselkorjauksen aloitustavat ja vuorvaikutustehtävät. Virittäjä 1091. 244–271.Google Scholar
Suzuki, Ryoko. 2016. Kaiwa ni okeru dooshi yurai no han’noo Hyogen: Aru to iru o chuushin ni [Reactive expressions of verb origin: with focus on aru and iru]. In Yoko Fujii & Hiroko Takanashi (eds.), Komyunikeeshon no dainamizumu: Shizen hatsuwa deeta kara [Dynamics of Communication: Analyses of Natural Discourse]. Tokyo: Hituzi Shobo.Google Scholar
Teramura, Hideo. 1982. Nihongo no Shintakusu to imi [Syntax and semantics of Japanese], vol.11. Tokyo: Kuroshio Publishers.Google Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A. & Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen. 2005. The clause as a locus of grammar and interaction. Discourse Studies 71. 481–505. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A., Barbara A. Fox & Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen. 2015. Grammar in Everyday Talk: Building responsive actions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trask, Robert L. 1997. A student’s dictionary of language and linguistics. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Tuomikoski, Risto. 1969. Lauseiden ja virkkeiden terminologiasta. [Clause and sentence terminology in Finnish Grammars] Virittäjä 73(1). 62–68.Google Scholar
Vatanen, Anna. 2014. Responding in overlap. Agency, epistemicity and social action in conversation. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies, PhD thesis.Google Scholar
Watanabe, Minoru. 1953. Jojutsu to chinjutsu: Jutsugo bunsetsu no koozoo [Predication and modality: The structure of predicates]. Kokugogaku 13–141. 20–34.Google Scholar
. 1974. Kokugo Bunpooron [A Study of Japanese Grammar]. Tokyo: Kasama Shoin.Google Scholar
Yamada, Yoshio. 1924. Nihon Bunpoo Koogi [Lectures on Japanese Grammar], 3rd ed. Tokyo: Tokyo Hobunkan.Google Scholar
. 1978. Ku. Published in Nihon Bunpougaku Gairon (1936). Reprinted in Shiro Hattori, Suzumu Oono, Atsuyoshi Sakakura & Akira Matsumura (eds.), Nihon no gengogaku 3 Bunpoo I (Linguistics in Japan vol. 3 Grammar I), 73–96. Tokyo: Taishukan.Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Inbar, Maya, Shir Genzer, Anat Perry, Eitan Grossman & Ayelet N. Landau
2023. Intonation Units in Spontaneous Speech Evoke a Neural Response. The Journal of Neuroscience 43:48 ► pp. 8189 ff. DOI logo
Ozerov, Pavel
2023. From sentential syntax to syntax of interaction. Journal of Speech Sciences 12 ► pp. e023001 ff. DOI logo
Steensig, Jakob, Maria Jørgensen, Nicholas Mikkelsen, Karita Suomalainen & Søren Sandager Sørensen
2023. Toward a Grammar of Danish Talk-in-Interaction: From Action Formation to Grammatical Description. Research on Language and Social Interaction 56:2 ► pp. 116 ff. DOI logo
Ono, Tsuyoshi & Ryoko Suzuki
2020. Chapter 3. Exploration into a new understanding of ‘zero anaphora’ in Japanese everyday talk. In Fixed Expressions [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 315], ► pp. 41 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.