Chapter 5
Emergent patterns of predicative clauses in spoken
Hebrew discourse
The ha'emet (hi) she- ‘the
truth (is) that’ construction
This study focuses on the Hebrew
construction ha'emet (hi) she- ‘the
truth (is) that’ in a corpus of informal audio and
video conversation. Taking an interactional
linguistics approach, I argue that the construction
serves as a metalingual fragment constituting a
projecting construction. Its employment is fixed and
formulaic, it occurs at a moment of shift in the
discourse and is used to project talk which does
three kinds of social work: displaying the speaker’s
stance; setting the record straight regarding the
speaker’s personal world; and revealing delicate
information. Each function emerges in a
context-sensitive manner, revealing the relationship
between the construction and its sequential
position. Employment of the construction illustrates
the ways grammar evolves from the interactions among
conversational participants.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Data
- 3.Analysis
- 3.1Structural analysis – The ha'emet (hi) she-
construction as a discourse marker
- 3.2Functional analysis
- 3.2.1Expressing the speaker’s opinion, stance or
evaluation
- 3.2.2Setting the record straight regarding the
speaker’s personal world
- 3.2.3Revealing personal, sensitive or delicate
information
- 4.Discussion
- 5.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
References
-
Appendix
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Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Floyd, Simeon
2021.
Conversation and Culture.
Annual Review of Anthropology 50:1
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