Phrase

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Phrase
Author(s):	Sandra A. Thompson (University of California, Santa Barbara, USA) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7794-2042)
To cite:	Thompson, Sandra A. (2023). Phrase. In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI: []

In linguistics, a phrase is generally understood as a sequence of independently-recognized words. Evidence from child language acquisition, distribution in corpora, and language change, shows that this sequence is stored and retrieved as a grammatical unit (Bybee 2010). Phrases are of interest both structurally and interactionally.

Structurally, phrases are generally understood both to have internal structure and to be constituents themselves of larger structures. Thus, in structural linguistics, the structure of a constructed sentence such as The dog in the corner belongs to Fran can be analyzed as:

(1) [English]

{{the dog} {in {the corner}}} {belongs {to Fran}}                                     

where each sequence in a pair of brackets is a phrase within a larger unit.

Although phrases can be found in any language, they are most evident in analytic languages, i.e., those with relatively simple word structure, such as English and other west European languages, as well as languages of west Africa and southeast Asia (Sapir 1921). The more complex the word structure, as in a number of indigenous languages of the western hemisphere, the less analytically prominent are phrasal units.

Typical examples of phrases from languages in which they are analytically prominent are the following. Unless otherwise indicated, all the examples are from interactional data (here phrases are boldfaced, and curly brackets are used to mark phrase boundaries:

(2) Noun phrase [English]

do you have {really long socks like hockey socks}                                       

(3) Prepositional phrase [English]

you’ve been doing it {for ten years}                                                                             

(4) Adjectival phrase [Indonesian] (Ewing 2021: 18) 

{kang penting}, seneng {wong   loro} Wan                                      
 REL  important happy   person two   Wan
 what’s important is that the two of them are happy, Wan

(5) Postpositional phrase [Japanese] (Hayashi 2005)

MAA, MA   {kare wa} {jibun de} nanka,                                       
well well  he   TOP  self  by  like
well, he arranged ((his study abroad)) himself...

(6) Formulaic expression [English]

has this been goin’ on lo:ng {or wha:t}                                       

Phrases are of interest in research on interaction because they play an important role in the construction of turns. Phrases in English serve as both turns and as parts of turns (Sacks, et al. (1974: 702, n. 12), or turn-constructional units (TCUs). In the following example, e.g., the phrases serve as parts of a TCU, which makes up a turn:

(7) [English]

we {were training} {for {the {Bolder Boulder}}}

As for phrases serving as entire turns, speakers find phrases especially useful in second position to a range of initiating actions, where research has shown that participants orient closely to a distinction between clause and ‘phrase’. Thus speakers routinely respond to a question-word question with a phrase (Auer 2015), as in (8):

(8) [English] (talking about a recipe naming a four- by eight-inch pan)                                      

01  AMB:   where did you see four by eight
02  JUL:   {right there}

Phrases also regularly serve as confirmation questions:

(9) [English]

01  DON:   .hh they’ve got a hu:ge ca:rved wooden. (0.1) desk in the corner.                                      
02         (0.4)
03  BET:   {in China City}?

It has been suggested that a full clause in such positions is used only ‘for cause’, that is, when there is trouble of some sort with the initiating action or the sequence (Thompson, et al. 2015).

Turn continuations, or increments, are also routinely done with phrasal formats (Couper-Kuhlen & Ono 2007; Ford, et al. 2002; Schegloff 2016 [2000]):

(10) [Mandarin] (Lim 2014: 43)                                                                            

01  FEN:   ta  xianzai ji       sui.
           3SG now     how-many year.
           how old (would) he (be) now?

02         ={liang sui} duo}} ba
             two   year more  BA
           (should be) more than two

(11) [English]

01  JAS:   I think I’m going to move (.) to Finland.
02         {for {at least}, {two more years}}.                                       

These phrases are interpreted in terms of, and treated as belonging to, the immediately prior TCU.

Additional Related Entries:

• Clause
• Social action
• Social action format

Cited References:

Auer, P. (2015). The temporality of language in interaction: Projection and latency. In A. Deppermann & S. Günthner (Eds.), Temporality in Interaction (pp. 27-56). John Benjamins.

Bybee, J. (2010). Language, Usage and Cognition. Cambridge University Press.

Couper-Kuhlen, E. & Ono, T. (2007). Turn continuation in cross-linguistic perspective. Special issue, Pragmatics, 17(4).

Ewing, M. C. (2021). The predicate as a locus of grammar and interaction in colloquial Indonesian. In T. Ono, R. Laury, & R. Suzuki (Eds.), Usage-based and Typological Approaches to Linguistic Units (pp. 161-202). John Benjamins.

Ford, C. E., Fox, B. A., & Thompson, S. A. (2002). Constituency and the grammar of turn increments. In C. E. Ford, B. A. Fox, & S. A. Thompson (Eds.), The Language of Turn and Sequence (pp. 14–38). Oxford University Press.

Hayashi, M. (2005). Referential problems and turn construction: An exploration of an intersection between grammar and interaction. Text, 25(4), 437-468.

Lim, N.-E. (2014). Retroactive Operations: On ‘Increments’ in Mandarin Chinese Conversations. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.

Sacks, H., Emanuel A. Schegloff, & Gail Jefferson. (1974). A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation. Language, 50, 696–735.

Schegloff, E. A. (2016 [2000]). Increments. In J. D. Robinson (Ed.), Accountability in Social Interaction (pp. 239–263). Oxford University Press.

Sapir, E. (1921). Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech. Harcourt, Brace.

Additional References: