OKAY as a response to informings in Finnish

This chapter examines the use of the particle OKAY in Finnish as a response to turns that are designed to provide new information. The study focuses on the ways in which the speakers of OKAY orient toward the epistemic character of the informing, and on its sufficiency for the purposes of the ongoing interaction. These aspects are analyzed by paying attention to the sequential and activity context of the particle, its phonetic-prosodic design, and the possible subsequent talk in the turn. OKAY is also compared with some other Finnish response particles in similar sequential and activity contexts. The data come from telephone and face-to-face interactions between family and friends spanning a period from the late 1980s to the present.