Questioning the clause as a crosslinguistic unit in grammar and interaction

Ritva Laury, Tsuyoshi Ono, Ryoko Suzuki

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper focuses on 'clause', a celebrated structural unit in linguistics, by comparing Finnish and Japanese, two languages which are genetically, typologically, and areally distinct from each other and from English, the language on the basis of which this structural unit has been most typically discussed. We first examine how structural units including the clause have been discussed in the literature on Finnish and Japanese. We will then examine the reality of the clause in everyday talk in these languages quantitatively and qualitatively; in our qualitative analysis, we focus in particular on what units are oriented to by conversational participants. The current study suggests that the degree of grammaticization of the clause varies crosslinguistically and questions the central theoretical status accorded to this structural unit.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)364-401
Number of pages38
JournalStudies in Language
Volume43
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019 Nov 13

Keywords

  • Clause
  • Conversation
  • English
  • Everyday talk
  • Finnish
  • Grammar
  • Interaction
  • Interactional linguistics
  • Japanese
  • Participant orientation
  • Unit

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Language and Linguistics
  • Communication
  • Linguistics and Language

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