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Usage-based Approaches to Japanese Grammar: Towards the understanding of human language
Edited by Kaori Kabata and Tsuyoshi Ono
[Studies in Language Companion Series 156] 2014
► pp. 193–222

The re-examination of so-called ‘clefts’

A study of multiunit turns in Japanese 
talk-in-interaction

Using conversation analysis as a central tool for analysis, this chapter examines how conversational participants utilize a cleft construction, which begins with -no wa topic clause, as a resource to construct and process their turns at talk. Unlike the well-formed structure of this construction described in reference grammar, it is rare for the speakers in talk-in-interaction to end the unit initiated with the -no wa topic clause with a clause marked by a nominalizer. The current analysis demonstrates how the the -no wa topic clause serves as a prospective indexical that pre-announces the nature of the forthcoming extended talk and provides the recipients an interpretive framework, and thereby contributes to the investigation of the mutual relationship between interaction and grammar.
Published online: 10 June 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.156.14mor
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