In this paper, we document the temporal and contingent nature of noun phrases (NPs). Focusing on relativized NPs, we show that they are produced as an interactional accomplishment, emerging from how participants adapt to each other’s verbal and non-verbal conduct. Based on 20 hours of French conversation, we identify two types of emergent complex NPs, and document their interactional working: Those resulting from a current speaker’s adding on a relative clause increment to his/her preceding turn; and those resulting from a next speaker’s production of such an increment, yielding jointly constructed NPs. We discuss implications for our understanding of the NP as an emergent unit, of the subordinate (or not) status of relative clauses, and of the notion of increment.
Article outline
1.Introduction
2.Formal properties of on-line emergent relativized NPs
2.1Relativized NPs resulting from self-incrementation
2.2Relativized NPs resulting from other-incrementation
3.The interactional workings of on-line emergent relativized NPs
3.1Self-incrementing an NP by means of an RC: Pursuing uptake and repairing reference
3.2Other-incrementing an NP by means of an RC: Initiating referential repair and accomplishing a disaligning action
Auer, Peter. 1996. On the prosody and syntax of turn-continuations. In Prosody in Conversation: Interactional Studies, Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen & Margret Selting (eds), 57–100. Cambridge: CUP.
Auer, Peter. 2005. Syntax als Prozess. InLiSt – Interaction and Linguistic Structures 41. <[URL]>
Auer, Peter. 2009. On-line syntax: Thoughts on the temporality of spoken language. Language Sciences 31: 1–13.
Auer, Peter & Pfänder, Stefan (eds). 2011. Constructions: Emerging and Emergent. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Clift, Rebecca. 2007. Grammar in time: The non-restrictive ‘which’-clause as an interactional resource. Essex Research Reports in Linguistics 55: 51–82.
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth & Ono, Tsuyoshi (eds). 2007. Turn Continuation in Cross-linguistic Perspective. Special issue of Pragmatics 17.
Couper-Kuhlen, E.2012. Some truths and untruths about final intonation in conversational questions. In J. P. de Ruiter (ed.), Questions: Formal, functional and interactional perspectives. Cambridge: CUP.
Deppermann, Arnulf & Günthner, Susanne (eds). 2015. Temporality in Interaction [Studies in Language and Social Interaction 27]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Drew, Paul. 1987. Po-faced receipts of teases. Linguistics 25: 219–253.
Ford, Cecilia E. & Thompson, Sandra A.1996. Interactional units in conversation: Syntactic, intonational, and pragmatic resources for the management of turns. In Interaction and Grammar, Elinor Ochs, Emanuel A. Schegloff & Sandra A. Thompson (eds), 134–185. Cambridge: CUP.
Ford, Cecilia E., Fox, Barbara A. & Thompson, Sandra A.2002. Constituency and the grammar of turn increments. In The Language of Turn and Sequence, Cecilia E. Ford, Barbara A. Fox & Sandra A. Thompson (eds), 14–38. Oxford: OUP.
Fox, Barbara A. & Thompson, Sandra A.1990. A discourse explanation of the grammar of relative clauses in English conversation. Language 66: 297–316.
Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa. 2019. Free NPs as units. Studies in Languag 43: 301–328.
Heritage, John. 1984. A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement. In Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, J. Maxwell Atkinson & John Heritage (eds), 299–345. Cambridge: CUP.
Hopper, Paul. 1987. Emergent grammar. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. General Session and Parasession on Grammar and Cognition, John Aske, Natasha Beery, Laura Michaelis & Hana Filip (eds), 139–157. Berkeley CA: BLS.
Hopper, Paul. 2011. Emergent grammar and temporality in interactional linguistics. In Constructions: Emerging and Emergent, Peter Auer & Stefan Pfänder (eds), 22–45. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Hopper, Paul J. & Thompson, Sandra A.2008. Projectability and clause combining in interaction. In Crosslinguistic Studies of Clause Combining. The Multifunctionality of Conjunctions [Typological Studies in Language 80], Ritva Laury (ed.), 99–124. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Horlacher, Anne-Sylvie. 2015. La dislocation à droite revisitée. Une approche interactionniste. Louvain-la-Neuve: De Boeck.
Jefferson, Gail. 2004. Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In Gene H. Lerner (Ed.), Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 125], 13–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Keenan, Edward L. & Comrie, Bernard. 1977. Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 8: 63–99.
Laury, Ritva & Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa. 2015. Detached NPs with relative clauses in Finnish conversations. In Information Structuring of Spoken Language from a Crosslinguistic Perspective, M. M. Jocelyne Fernandez-Vest & Robert D. Van Valin Jr. (eds), 149–166. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Luke, Kang Kwong, Thompson, Sandra A. & Ono, Tsuyoshi. 2012. Turns and increments: A comparative perspective. Discourse Processes 49(3–4): 155–162.
Maschler, Yael. 2011. On the emergence of adverbial connectives from Hebrew relative clause constructions. In Constructions: Emerging and Emergent, Peter Auer & Stefan Pfänder (eds), 293–331. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Mertens, Piet. 2004. The prosogram: Semi-automatic transcription of prosody based on a tonal perception model. In Proceedings of Speech Prosody, Bernard Bel & Isabelle Marlien (eds), 443–446, Nara, Japan, 23–26March.
Ono, Tsuyoshi & Thompson, Sandra A.1994. Unattached NPs in English conversation. Berkeley Linguistics Society 20: 402–419.
Pekarek Doehler, Simona. 2011a. Emergent grammar for all practical purposes: The on-line formatting of dislocated constructions in French conversation. In Constructions: Emerging and Emergent, Peter Auer & Stefan Pfänder (eds), 45–88. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Persson, Rasmus. 2015. Registering and repair-initiating repeats in French talk-in-interaction. Discourse Studies 17: 583–608.
Schegloff, Emanuel A.1996. Turn organization: One intersection of grammar and interaction. In Interaction and Grammar, Elinor Ochs, Emanuel A. Schegloff & Sandra A. Thompson (eds), 52–134. Cambridge: CUP.
Schegloff, Emanuel A.2001. Conversation analysis: A project in progress – ‘increments’. Forum lecture delivered at the
LSA Linguistic Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Schegloff, Emanuel A.2016. Increments. In Accountability in Social Interaction, Jeffrey D. Robinson (ed.), 239–263. Oxford: OUP.
Stivers, Tanya, Enfield, Nicholas J. & Levinson, Stephen C.2007. Person reference in interaction. In Person Reference in Interaction: Linguistic, Cultural, and Social Perspectives, Nicholas J. Enfield & Tanya Stivers (eds), 1–20. Cambridge: CUP.
Stivers, Tanya & Rossano, Federico. 2010. Mobilizing response. Research on Language and Social Interaction 43: 3–31.
Stivers, Tanya, Mondada, Lorenza & Steensig, Jakob. 2011. Knowledge, morality and affiliation in social interaction. In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada & Jakob Steensig (eds), 1–31. Cambridge: CUP.
Stoenica, Ioana-Maria. 2014. Répétition et différenciation dans les reprises structurelles intégrant des relatives. In La parole reprise: Formes, processus et fonctions. Actes du 12e colloque de logopédie – 16–17 novembre 2012, Stefano Rezzonico (ed.). TRANEL 60: 209–220.
Stoenica, Ioana-Maria. 2016. Grammaire-en-interaction: Le potentiel praxéologique des relatives dans les conversations en français. Bulletin Suisse de Linguistique Appliquée 104: 87–103.
Stoenica, Ioana-Maria. 2020. Actions et conduites mimo-gestuelles dans l’usage conversationnel des relatives en français [Sciences pour la communication 128]. Berne: Peter Lang.[URL].
Stoenica, Ioana-Maria & Pekarek Doehler, Simona. 2020. Relative-clause increments and the management of reference. A multimodal analysis of French talk-in-interaction. A multimodal analysis. In Emergent Syntax for Conversation: Clausal Patterns and the Organization of Action. [Studies in Language and Social Interaction 32], Yael Maschler, Simona Pekarek Doehler, Jan Lindström & Leelo Keevallik (eds), 303–329. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Tanaka, Hiroko. 1999. Turn-Taking in Japanese Conversation: A Study in Grammar and Interaction [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 56]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Tao, Hongyin & McCarthy, Michael J.2001. Understanding non-restrictive which-clauses in spoken English, which is not an easy thing. Language Sciences 23: 651–677.
Thompson, Sandra A., Fox, Barbara A. & Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. 2015. Grammar in Everyday Talk: Building Responsive Actions. Cambridge: CUP.
2021. Fonctionnement macro-syntaxique et dimension anaphorique des relatives produites post hoc : une analyse interactionnelle et multimodale. Langue française N° 210:2 ► pp. 101 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.