Polar answers: Accepting proposals in Greek telephone calls

Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou and Angeliki Alvanoudi
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the forms and functions of answers to proposals for joint action, implemented through polar interrogatives, in Greek telephone calls. Our analysis indicates a distinct functional distribution of three types of accepting answers to such proposals. Particle-type answers do ‘simple’ acceptance of the proposal, i.e. they only display the respondent’s willingness to take on the proposed action and nothing else, while repetition-type answers display the speaker’s epistemic/deontic stance towards additional aspects of the proposal. With a third type of responses, speakers accept the proposal in a mitigated manner. Our findings align with Enfield et al.’s (2019) conclusion that particles serve as pragmatically unmarked polar answers. They do not, however, evince the prevalence of this type of answer to proposals to the same extent as to epistemically oriented polar interrogatives.

Keywords:
Publication history
Table of contents

The point of departure (and incentive) for this paper was Enfield et al.’s (2019) cross-linguistic study on ‘polar answers’. By this, they mean the answers to polar interrogatives, focusing on ‘interjection-type answers’ like yes, mhm, head nods, etc., and ‘repetition-type answers’ that fully or partially repeat the question. Based on everyday interactional data from fourteen, typologically diverse, languages, Enfield et al. (2019) found that, although both options are available in all languages examined, the interjection-type answers made out at least 80% of all answers in eleven out of the fourteen languages. Such answers semantically code the meaning ‘I answer and confirm that the proposition you put on the table is true’, while pragmatically indicating – through their sequential position – what this proposition is (Enfield et al. 2019, 284). This particular semantic-pragmatic design of the interjection-type answers makes them better fitted to serve as “an unmarked answer type, regardless of cultural or linguistic context” (Enfield et al. 2019, 289), by contrast to pragmatically marked answers.

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