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The ‘Noun Phrase’ across Languages: An emergent unit in interaction
Edited by Tsuyoshi Ono and Sandra A. Thompson
[Typological Studies in Language 128] 2020
► pp. 93–118

Chapter 5
Noun phrases in other-repetitions

Observations of Swedish talk-in-interaction

| University of Helsinki
| University of Helsinki
| University of Helsinki

This study examines noun phrases in a specific sequential context: other-repetitions in Swedish conversation, including everyday as well as institutional interaction. Repeating the previous speaker’s words can have various interactional functions, e.g., initiating repair, indicating surprise or challenge, or registering information. Our distributional results show that the NP is the typical item in repetition turns. The original structures targeted by repetitions vary from a single NP to clausal units housing NPs. The analysis shows that the identification of the interactional function of other-repetitions builds on their sequential position, prosodic design, and contextual information. Other-repetitions serve the general function of promoting intersubjectivity and participation in conversation, and the NP is demonstrably a central vehicle for this.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data
  • 3.The distribution of grammatical elements in repetitions
  • 4.Targets and functions of repetitions
    • 4.1Head of a compound
    • 4.2Single noun phrase: Noun, pronoun, proper name
    • 4.3Object of a prepositional phrase
    • 4.4Object of a verb phrase
    • 4.5Constituent of a clause
  • 5.Summary on repetition forms, prosody and interactional function
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 15 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.128.05lin
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