Chapter 10
Right-dislocated complement clauses in German
talk-in-interaction
(Re-)specifying propositional referents of the
demonstrative pronoun
das
This contribution deals with
right-dislocated complement clauses with the
subordinating conjunction dass
(‘that’) in German talk-in-interaction. The
bi-clausal construction we analyze is as follows:
The first clause, in which one argument is realized
by the demonstrative pronoun das
(‘this/that’), is syntactically and semantically
complete; the reference of the pronoun is
(re-)specified by adding a
dass-complement clause after a
point of possible completion (e.g., aber das
hab ich nich MITbekommen. (0.32) dass es da so
YOUtubevideos gab. (‘But I wasn’t aware
of that. That there were videos about that on
YouTube.’). The first clause always performs a
backward-oriented action (e.g., an assessment) and
the second clause (re-)specifies the propositional
reference of the demonstrative, allowing for a
(strategic) perspective shift. Based on a collection
of 93 cases from everyday conversations and
institutional interactions, we found that the
construction is used close to the turn-beginning for
referring to and (re-)specifying (parts of) another
speaker’s prior turn; turn-internal uses tie
together parts of a speaker’s multi-unit turn. The
construction thus facilitates an incremental
constitution of meaning and reference.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Right dislocation in German
- 2.1General properties of the
construction [[NP V
das
i]
[dass NP VP]i]
- 2.2Right dislocation in the literature
- 3.Data
- 4.Uses of the right dislocation construction
- 4.1Co-reference with (parts of) a prior
turn
- 4.2Co-reference with prior parts of the same
turn
- 4.3Co-constructed uses: Referential self-repair
and understanding-check
- 5.Discussion
- 6.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
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2021.
Conversation and Culture.
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► pp. 219 ff.

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