@incollection{AldrupKuettnerLechleretal.2021,
  author    = {Marit Aldrup and Uwe-Alexander K{\"u}ttner and Constanze Lechler and Susanne Reinhardt},
  title     = {Suspended assessments in German talk-in-interaction},
  series = {Prosodie und Multimodalit{\"a}t. Empirische Beitr{\"a}ge der Interaktionalen Linguistik},
  editor    = {Maxi Kupetz and Friederike Kern},
  publisher = {Winter},
  address   = {Heidelberg},
  isbn      = {978-3-8253-4702-4},
  url       = {https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bsz:mh39-107108},
  pages     = {31 -- 66},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {In this paper we examine the composition and interactional deployment of suspended assessments in ordinary German conversation. We define suspended assessments as lexicosyntactically incomplete assessing TCUs that share a distinct cluster of prosodic-phonetic features which auditorily makes them come off as 'left hanging' rather than cut-off (e.g., Schegloff/Jefferson/Sacks 1977; Jasperson 2002) or trailing-off (e.g., Local/Kelly 1986; Walker 2012). Using CA/IL methodology (Couper-Kuhlen/Selting 2018) and drawing on a large body of video-recorded face-to-face conversations, we highlight the verbal, vocal and bodily-visual resources participants use to render such unfinished assessing TCUs recognizably incomplete and identify six recurrent usage types. Overall, the suspension of assessing TCUs appears to either serve as a practice for circumventing the production of assessments that are interactionally inapposite, or as a practice for coping with local contingencies that render the very doing of an assessment problematic for the speaker. Data are in German with English translations.},
  language  = {en}
}