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Grammar in Action: Building comprehensive grammars of talk-in-interaction
Edited by Jakob Steensig, Maria Jørgensen, Jan K. Lindström, Nicholas Mikkelsen, Karita Suomalainen and Søren Sandager Sørensen
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 37] 2025
► pp. 78–116

Chapter 4
Grammatical formats of requests for immediate actions

Observations on Danish talk-in-interaction

 | Aarhus University
This chapter investigates three social action formats for requesting immediate action in Danish talk-in-interaction: embodied-only formats, phrasal formats, and modal verb formats. The analyses of the use of these formats are serve as a basis for discussing how entries in a comprehensive grammar of Danish talk-in-interaction should be organized and written. This is related to an ongoing project to develop such a grammar (DanTIN 2024). I focus on the consequences of the analyses for concrete entries in the grammar, and for the use of concepts such as multimodality, ellipsis, interrogativity, and sequentiality in the grammar. I argue that some nonverbal formats must be included in the grammar, and I suggest how this can be done. I also argue that sequence organization must be part of a syntactic description, and that the centrality of some traditional syntactic concepts must be reconceptualized.
Keywords: requests, social action formats, embodied formats, phrasal formats, modal verb formats, syntax, parts of speech
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Social action formats
    • 1.2The grammar
    • 1.3Requests and grammar
    • 1.4Chapter overview
  • 2.Data and focus
  • 3.Analyses of three formats and their implications for grammar writing
    • 3.1Embodied-only requests
      • 3.1.1Embodied-only requests as social action formats
      • 3.1.2Embodied-only formats in the comprehensive grammar
    • 3.2Phrasal or subsentential requests
      • 3.2.1Item-only requests
      • 3.2.2Phrasal action-guiding requests
      • 3.2.3Phrasal requests in the comprehensive grammar
    • 3.3Modal verb request formats
      • 3.3.1Self-referencing modal verb request formats
      • 3.3.2Other-referencing modal verb request formats
      • 3.3.3Modal verb request formats in the Comprehensive Grammar
  • 4.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
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