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Between Turn and Sequence: Turn-initial particles across languages
Edited by John Heritage and Marja-Leena Sorjonen
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 31] 2018
► pp. 119–154

Chapter 5
Diverging from ‘business as usual’

Turn-initial ngala in Garrwa conversation

| University of Queensland
This paper presents the first detailed attempt to analyse the interactional functions of a turn-initial particle in an Australian Aboriginal language. The Garrwa particle ngala has grammatical properties of a clause connector that sets up a contrast between two simultaneous but distinct events (similar to English while). In this paper I show that ngala is used in conversation turn-initially to simultaneously connect the upcoming talk with the prior turn and to project that the upcoming turn diverges in trajectory from the prior talk or course of action. I also show how the clause connecting and turn-initial functions of ngala are characterised by distinct syntactic and prosodic shapes.
Keywords: Garrwa, Australian Aboriginal Languages
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Garrwa people
  • 3.Garrwa language and the grammar of ngala
  • 4. Ngala in conversation
    • 4.1Data
    • 4.2 Ngala establishing connections between speaker’s current and prior TCU
    • 4.3 Ngala in co-construction
  • 5.Pre-core ngala as a turn-initial particle
    • 5.1Turn-initial ngala in responses to embodied actions
    • 5.2Turn-initial ngala in responses to prior turns
    • 5.3Turn-initial ngala in topic management
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.31.05mus
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Cited by five other publications

Bolden, Galina B., John Heritage & Marja-Leena Sorjonen
2023. Chapter 1. Introduction. In Responding to Polar Questions across Languages and Contexts [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 35], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Claire Bowern
2023. The Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, DOI logo
Mushin, Ilana, Joe Blythe, Josua Dahmen, Caroline de Dear, Rod Gardner, Francesco Possemato & Lesley Stirling
2023. Towards an interactional grammar of interjections: Expressing compassion in four Australian languages. Australian Journal of Linguistics 43:2 ► pp. 158 ff. DOI logo
Mushin, Ilana & Simona Pekarek Doehler
2021. Linguistic structures in social interaction. Interactional Linguistics 1:1 ► pp. 2 ff. DOI logo
Mushin, Ilana
2020. Chapter 9. Multiple nominal expressions in Garrwa conversation. In The ‘Noun Phrase’ across Languages [Typological Studies in Language, 128], ► pp. 212 ff. DOI logo

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