Barth-Weingarten2009

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Barth-Weingarten2009
BibType ARTICLE
Key Barth-Weingarten2009
Author(s) Dagmar Barth-Weingarten
Title Contrasting and turn transition: prosodic projection with parallel-opposition constructions
Editor(s)
Tag(s) Conversation Analysis, Prosody, Turn Transition, Semantic Opposition, On-line Syntax, Narrow Focus, IL
Publisher
Year 2009
Language
City
Month
Journal Journal of Pragmatics
Volume 41
Number 11
Pages 2271–2294
URL Link
DOI 10.1016/j.pragma.2009.03.007
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

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.

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