Chapter published in:
Emergent Syntax for Conversation: Clausal patterns and the organization of action
Edited by Yael Maschler, Simona Pekarek Doehler, Jan Lindström and Leelo Keevallik
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 32] 2020
► pp. 151–182

From matrix clause to turn expansion

The emergence of wo juede ‘I feel/think’ in Mandarin conversational interaction

One way complex clauses manifest themselves is through a combination of a matrix clause and a complement clause. However, matrix clauses as represented by constructions such as I think have been widely reported to undergo grammaticization, whereby they become a marker indicating the speaker’s epistemic stance. This has also been identified for Mandarin Chinese. In this chapter, however, we report that wo juede ‘I feel/think’ in Mandarin has developed a conversation interactional function that extends turns-at-talk – a phenomenon that has not yet received much attention in the Chinese literature on talk in interaction. By providing an account for the link between the epistemic/evaluative uses and the turn-expansion function of the erstwhile matrix clause, this paper brings in an extended, interactional dimension to the study of clause-combining.
Keywords: matrix clause, Mandarin Chinese, turn-expansion, complement clause
Published online: 17 February 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.32.06wan
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