The predicate as a locus of grammar and interaction in colloquial Indonesian
Descriptions of Indonesian usually take the clause as the starting point for analysing grammatical structure and
rely on the notion of ellipsis to account for the way speakers actually use language in everyday conversational interaction. This
study challenges the status of “clause” by investigating the structures actually used by Indonesian speakers in informal
conversation and it demonstrates that the predicate, rather than the clause, plays a central role in the grammar of Indonesian
conversation. The preponderance of predicates in the data that do not have explicit arguments suggests that this format is best
viewed as the default. When a predicate is produced without overt arguments, reconstructing what arguments may have been elided is
often ambiguous or indeterminate and seems to be irrelevant to speakers. An examination of turn-taking, overlap and incrementing
in conversation also shows that predicates, rather than full clauses, are the grammatical format participants regularly orient
to.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Predicate configurations in conversational Indonesian
- 2.1Verbal predicates
- 2.2Non-verbal predicates
- 2.3When there are no explicit arguments
- 3.Frequency and distribution of predicate configurations in conversation
- 4.Predicates in interaction
- 4.1Turn constructions and predicates
- 4.2Participant orientation and predicates
- 4.2.1Next turn onset
- 4.2.2Joint utterance completion
- 4.2.3Turn continuations
- 5.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Glosses
-
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