Refine
Document Type
- Article (2)
- Part of a Book (1)
Has Fulltext
- yes (3)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (3) (remove)
Keywords
- Interaktion (2)
- Prosodie (2)
- Construction Grammar (1)
- Englisch (1)
- Interaction (1)
- Interaktionsanalyse (1)
- Interjektion (1)
- Intonation <Linguistik> (1)
- Konstruktionsgrammatik (1)
- Konversationsanalyse (1)
Publicationstate
Reviewstate
- Peer-Review (2)
- (Verlags)-Lektorat (1)
Publisher
- de Gruyter (2)
- Elsevier (1)
Contrasting and turn transition: Prosodic projection with the parallel-opposition constructions
(2009)
The parallel-opposition construction has not yet been widely described as an independent construction type. This article reports on its realization in everyday British-English conversation. In particular, it focusses on prosodic projection in the lexically and syntactically unmarked first component of this syntactic pattern, and thus adds to the body of research investigating the organization of turn-taking in the context of bi-clausal constructions with which the first part lacks explicit lexical hints to their continuation. It is shown that the parallel-opposition construction, next to specific semantic–pragmatic, syntactic and lexical features, also exhibits a relatively fixed range of prosodic features in the first conjunct, among these narrow focus, continuing intonation and/or the avoidance of intonation-unit boundary signals. These are used to project continuation of an otherwise complete utterance and, thus, to secure the floor for the expression of contrast. In addition, the detailed analysis of apparently deviant cases, which takes into account the on-line production of syntax, shows that a lack of prosodically projective features in the first component of the parallel-opposition construction can be explained by the strategic, retrospective use of the construction to resolve problems in turn transition.
The term “pivot” usually refers to two overlapping syntactic units such that the completion of the first unit simultaneously launches the second. In addition, pivots are generally said to be characterized by the smooth prosodic integration of their syntactic parts. This prosodic integration is typically achieved by prosodic-phonetic matching of the pivot components. As research on such turns in a range of languages has illustrated, speakers routinely deploy pivots so as to be able to continue past a point of possible turn completion, in the service of implementing some additional or revised action. This article seeks to build on, and complement, earlier research by exploring two issues in more detail as follows: (1) what exactly do pivotal turn extensions accomplish on the action dimension, and (2) what role does prosodic-phonetic packaging play in this? We will show that pivot constructions not only exhibit various degrees of prosodic-phonetic (non-)integration, i.e., differently strong cesuras, but that they can be ordered on a continuum, and that this cline maps onto the relationship of the actions accomplished by the components of the pivot construction. While tighter prosodic-phonetic integration, i.e., weak(er) cesuring, co-occurs with post-pivot actions whose relationship to that of the pre-pivot tends to be rather retrospective in character, looser prosodic-phonetic integration, i.e., strong(er) cesuring, is associated with a more prospective orientation of the post-pivot’s action. These observations also raise more general questions with regard to the analysis of action.