Affiliation:
1. Albert-Ludwigs University Freiburg
2. Philipps-University Marburg
Abstract
Abstract
Turns-at-talk often do not start with their main business but rather with a pre-start (Sacks et al., 1974). This paper investigates the correlation of pre-starts with inserts, one of three major word classes (Biber et al., 1999). Based on the BNC’s mark-up, I investigate how inserts are positionally
distributed in large amounts of turns of varied lengths. The analysis shows that inserts are overwhelmingly attracted to turn-first
positions, the likely location of pre-starts. Further, in a subsample of 1,000 ten-word turns manually coded for pre-starts, 86% of all
inserts serve a pre-start function. The findings call into question current speech processing models that fail to factor in turn structure.
Further, pre-starts have crucial sequential and interactional implications as early indicators whether the new turn “agrees” with the prior
turn and are likely key signals aiding listeners’ action ascription.
Publisher
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Subject
Linguistics and Language,Language and Linguistics
Cited by
3 articles.
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