“Chunking” spoken language
(2021)
In this introductory paper to the special issue on “Weak cesuras in talk-in-interaction”, we aim to guide the reader into current work on the “chunking” of naturally occurring talk. It is conducted in the methodological frameworks of Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics – two approaches that consider the interactional aspect of humans talking with each other to be a crucial starting point for its analysis. In doing so, we will (1) lay out the background of this special issue (what is problematic about “chunking” talk-in-interaction, the characteristics of the methodological approach chosen by the contributors, the cesura model), (2) highlight what can be gained from such a revised understanding of “chunking” in talk-in-interaction by referring to previous work with this model as well as the findings of the contributions to this special issue, and (3) indicate further directions such work could take starting from papers in this special issue. We hope to induce a fruitful exchange on the phenomena discussed, across methodological divides.
The Final-over-Final Condition has emerged as a robust and explanatory generalization for a wide range of phenomena (Biberauer, Holmberg, and Roberts 2014, Sheehan et al. 2017). In this article, we argue that it also holds in another domain, nominalization. In languages that show overt nominalization of VPs, one word order is routinely unattested, namely, a head-initial VP with a suffixal nominalizer. This typological gap can be accounted for by the Final-over-Final Condition, if we allow it to hold within mixed extended projections. This view also makes correct predictions about agentive nominalizations and nominalized serial verb constructions.
Verum focus and negation
(2019)
The instrumental -er suffix
(2019)
Splits and Birds
(2019)