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On the syntax of sentences-in-progress*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Gene H Lerner
Gene H Lerner
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
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Abstract

This article describes how it could be possible for two participants engaged in conversation to jointly produce a single syntactic unit such as a sentence. From an inspection of sentence types that are achieved through such joint production, it was determined that participants have available a single utterance construction format. This format, the compound turn-constructional unit format, may be a component of a socially construed syntax-for-conversation. It can be constituted by a wide range of interactionally relevant features of talk in interaction that reveal an emerging utterance as a multiple component turn-constructional unit. The compound turn-constructional unit format is primarily a resource for turn-taking. It can be used to project the next proper place for speaker change. However, it concomitantly provides the resources needed to complete the utterance-in-progress of another participant, thus allowing for the construction of a single sentence across the talk of two speakers. (Conversation, interaction, recognizable activity)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , September 1991 , pp. 441 - 458
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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