TY - JOUR U1 - Zeitschriftenartikel, wissenschaftlich - begutachtet (reviewed) A1 - Helmer, Henrike A1 - Reineke, Silke A1 - Deppermann, Arnulf T1 - A range of uses of negative epistemic constructions in German: ICH WEIß NICHT as a resource for dispreferred actions JF - Journal of Pragmatics N2 - The paper deals with the use of ICH WEIß NICHT (‘I don’t know’) in German talk-in-interaction. Pursuing an Interactional Linguistics approach, we identify different interactional uses of ICH WEIß NICHT and discuss their relationship to variation in argument structure (SV (O), (O)VS, V-only). After ICH WEIß NICHT with full complementation, speakers emphasize their lack of knowledge or display reluctance to answer. In contrast, after variants without an object complement, in contrast, speakers display uncertainty about the truth of the following proposition or about its sufficiency as an answer. Thus, while uses with both subject and object tend to close a sequence or display lack of knowledge, responses without an object, in contrast, function as a prepositioned epistemic hedge or a pragmatic marker framing the following TCU. When ICH WEIß NICHT is used in response to a statement, it indexes disagreement (independently from all complementation patterns). KW - Deutsch KW - Interaktion KW - Epistemische Logik KW - German KW - Interactional linguistics KW - Epistemics KW - Preference organization KW - Mental verb constructions Y1 - 2016 UN - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bsz:mh39-52082 SN - 1879-1387 SS - 1879-1387 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.06.002 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.06.002 N1 - Postprint: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:mh39-68856 VL - 106 SP - 97 EP - 114 PB - Elsevier CY - New York, NY [u.a.] ET - Article in Press ER -