Cover not available
Part of
Usage-based Approaches to Japanese Grammar: Towards the understanding of human language
Edited by Kaori Kabata and Tsuyoshi Ono
[Studies in Language Companion Series 156] 2014
► pp. 193–222

The re-examination of so-called ‘clefts’

A study of multiunit turns in Japanese 
talk-in-interaction

Using conversation analysis as a central tool for analysis, this chapter examines how conversational participants utilize a cleft construction, which begins with -no wa topic clause, as a resource to construct and process their turns at talk. Unlike the well-formed structure of this construction described in reference grammar, it is rare for the speakers in talk-in-interaction to end the unit initiated with the -no wa topic clause with a clause marked by a nominalizer. The current analysis demonstrates how the the -no wa topic clause serves as a prospective indexical that pre-announces the nature of the forthcoming extended talk and provides the recipients an interpretive framework, and thereby contributes to the investigation of the mutual relationship between interaction and grammar.
Published online: 10 June 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.156.14mor
References
Bloomfield, Leonard
1933  Language . New York NY: Holt.Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight
1965 The atomization of meaning. Language 41: 555–573. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brugmann, Karl
1906  Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen , Vol.2, Part 1, 2nd edn. Strassburg: Trubner.Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace L.
1965 Review of Grammar Discovery Procedures , by Robert E. Longacre. Language 41: 640–7. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
1957  Syntactic Structures [Janua Linguarum 4]. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Collins, Peter C.
1991  Cleft and Pseudo-Cleft Constructions in English . London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth & Ono, Tsuyoshi
2007 ‘Incrementing’ in conversation: A comparison of practices in English, German and Japanese. Pragmatics 17(4): 513-552.Google Scholar
Davidse, Kristin
2000 A constructional approach to clefts. Linguistics 38: 1101-1131. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ford, Cecilia E.
2004 Contingency and units in interaction. Discourse Studies 6(1): 27-52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ford, Cecilia E. & Thompson, Sandra A.
1996 Interactional units in conversation: Syntactic, intonational, and pragmatic resources for the management of turns. In Ochs, Schegloff & Thompson (eds), 134-84.
Ford, Cecilia E., Fox, Barbara A. & Thompson, Sandra A.
1996 Practices in the contruction of turns: The ‘TCU’ revisited. Pragmatics 6: 427-454.Google Scholar
(eds) 2002  The Language of Turn and Sequence . Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Geluykens, Ronald
1991 Discourse functions of it-clefts in English conversation. Communication and Cognition 24(3-4): 343-358.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles
1996 Transparent vision. In Ochs, Schegloff & Thompson (eds), 370-404.
2000a  Gesture, aphasia, and interaction. In Language and Gesture , David McNeil (ed.), 84-98. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2000b Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 32: 1489-1522. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness & Goodwin, Charles
1986 Gesture and coparticipation in the activity of searching for a word. Semiotica 62: 51-75. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gundel, Jeanette K.
1977 Where do cleft sentences come from? Language 53: 543-559. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harada, S.I.
2000 [1972] Hobun ryooshiki no ‘no’. In Syntax and Meaning: S. I. Harada Collected Works in Linguistics , 439-447. Tokyo: Taishukan Publishing.Google Scholar
Hayashi, Makoto
2001 Postposition-initiated utterances in Japanese conversation: An interactional account of a grammatical practice. In Selting & Couper-Kuhlen (eds), 317-344.
2003a  Joint Utterance Construction in Japanese Conversation [Studies in Discourse and Grammar 12], Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hayashi, M.
2003b Language and the body as resources for collaborative action: A study of word searches in Japanese conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction 36 (2): 109-141. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hayashi, Makoto
2004a Discourse within a sentence: An exploration of postpositions in Japanese as an interactional resource. Language in Society 33: 343-376. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004b Projection and grammar: Notes on the ‘action-projecting’ use of the distal demonstrative are in Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics 36: 1337-1374. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hayashi, Makoto & Yoon, Kyung-Eun
2009 Negotiating boundaries in talk. In Conversation Analaysis: Comparative Perspectives , Jack Sidnell (ed.), 248-276. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Herriman, Jennifer
2003 Negotiating identity: The interpersonal functions of wh-clefts in English. Functions of Language 10(1): 1-30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 The interpersonal function of clefts in English and Swedish. Languages in Contrast 8(2): 143-160. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hockett, Charles F.
1964 The Proto Central Algonguin Kinship System. Explorations in Cultural Anthropology, Essays in Honor of George Peter Murdock , Ward Goodenough, 329-358. New York NY: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul
1988 Emergent grammar and the a priori grammar postulate. In Linguistics in Context , Deborah Tannen (ed.), 117-134. Norwood NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
2004 The openness of grammatical constructions. Proceedings from the Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society 40(2): 153-175.Google Scholar
2007 Linguistics and micro-rhetoric: A twenty-first century encounter. Journal of English Linguistics 35(3): 236-252. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Iwasaki, Shoichi
2008 Collaborative Construction of Talk in Japanese Conversation. PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
2009 Initiating interactive turn spaces in Japanese conversation: Local projection and collaborative action. Discourse Processes 46: 226-246. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1997 The Northridge earthquake conversations: The floor structure and the ‘loop’ sequence in Japanese conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 28: 661-93. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2002  Japanese [London Oriental and African Language Library 5]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Iwasaki, Shoichi & Ono, Tsuyoshi
1999  ‘Bun’ saikoo: Kaiwa ni okeru ‘bun’ no tokuchoo to nihongo kyooiku e no teian . In Gengogaku to Nihongo Kyooiku: Jitsuyooteki Gengo Kenkyuu no Koochiku o Mezashite , Yukiko Sasaki Alam (ed.), 129-144. Tokyo: Kuroshio.Google Scholar
2002 ‘Sentence’ in spontaneous spoken Japanese discourse. In Complex Sentences in Grammar and Discourse: Essays in Honor of Sandra A. Thompson , Joan L. Bybee & Michael Noonan (eds), 175-202. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail
1978 Sequential aspects of storytelling in conversation. In Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction , Jim Schenkein (ed.), 219-48. New York NY: Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1984 Notes on some orderliness of overlap onset. In Discourse Analysis and Natural Rhetorics , Valentina D’Urso & Paolo Leonardi (eds), 11-38. Padova: CLEUP Editore.Google Scholar
Jucker, Andreas H.
1997 The relevance of cleft constructions. Multilingua 16 (2-3): 187-198. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kamio, Akio
1990 Cleft sentences and the territory of information. In Interdisciplinary Approaches to Language: Essays in Honor of S. Y. Kuroda , Carol J. Georgopoulos (ed.) 353-371. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Kim, Kyu-hyun
1995 Wh-clefts and left-dislocation in English conversation: Cases of topicalization. In Word Order in Discourse [Typological Studies in Language 30], Pamela A. Downing & Michael Noonan (eds), 247-296. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyuujo (National Language Research Institute)
1963  Hanashi Kotoba no Bunkei, 2: Dokuwa shiryoo ni yoru kenkyuu . Tokyo: Shuuei Shuppan.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud
2001 A framework for the analysis of cleft constructions. Linguistics 39: 456-516. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lerner, Gene H. & Takagi, Tomoyo
1999 On the place of linguistic resources in the organization of talk-in-interaction: A co-investigation of English and Japanese grammatical practice. Journal of Pragmatics 31(1): 49–75. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Linton, Larry D. & Lerner, Gene H.
2004 Before the beginning: Breath taking in conversation. Ms, University of California, Santa Barbara.Google Scholar
McNeill, David
1992  Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought . Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Jim
1995 Does spoken language have sentences? In Grammar and Meaning: Essays in Honour of Sir John Lyons , Frank R. Palmer (ed.), 116-135. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mori, Junko
1999  Negotiating Agreement and Disagreement in Japanese: Connective Expressions and Turn Construction [Studies in Discourse and Grammar 8]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nakamura, Kanae
2009 Interactive Negotiation of Perspectives in Japanese: Predicate-final Structure as a Resource to Organic Interaction. PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison.Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor, Schegloff, Emanuel A. & Thompson, Sandra A.
(eds) 1996  Interaction and Grammar . Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ono, Tsuyoshi & Suzuki, Ryoko
1992 Word order variability in Japanese conversation: Motivation and grammaticization. Text 12: 429-445. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Prince, Ellen
1978 A comparison of wh-clefts and it-clefts in discourse. Language 54(4): 883-906. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ross, John Robert
1967 Constraints on Variables in Syntax. PhD dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey
1974 An analysis of the course of a joke’s telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking , Richard Bauman & Joel Sherzer (eds), 337-53. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
1992  Lectures on Conversation . Oxford: Backwell.Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey & Schegloff, Emanuel A.
2002 Home position. Gesture 2(2): 133–146. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sacks, Harvey, Schegloff, Emanuel A. & Jefferson, Gail
1974 A simplest systematics for the organiztion of turn-taking for conversation. Language 50: 696-735. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A.
1980 Preliminaries to preliminaries: ‘Can I ask you a question?’ Sociological Inquiry 50(3-4): 104-52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1982 Discourse as an interactional achievement: some uses of ‘uh huh’ and other things that come between sentences. In Georgetown University Roundtable on Language and Linguistics , Deborah Tannen (ed.), 71-93. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
1996  Turn organization: One intersection of grammar and interaction . In Ochs, Schegloff & Thompson (eds), 52-133. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Selting, Margaret
2000 The contruction of units in conversational talk. Language in Society 29: 477-517. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Selting, Margaret & Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth
(eds) 2001  Studies in Interactional Linguistics [Studies in Discourse and Grammar 10]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Streeck, Jürgen
1988 The significance of gesture: How it is established. IPrA Papers in Pragmatics 2: 60-83.Google Scholar
1993 Gesture as communication, I: Its coordination with gaze and speech. Communication Monographs 60: 275-299. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tanaka, Hiroko
1999  Turn-taking in Japanese Conversation: A Study in Grammar and Interaction [Pragmatics & Beyond New Serie 56]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
2000 Turn projection in Japanese talk-in-interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction 33(1): 1-38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weinert, Regina & Miller, Jim
1996 Cleft constructions in spoken language. Journal of Pragmatics 25: 173-206. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 november 2023. 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.