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Chapter 7. Multimodal noun phrases

  • Leelo Keevallik
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The ‘Noun Phrase’ across Languages
This chapter is in the book The ‘Noun Phrase’ across Languages

Abstract

In co-present interaction, our bodies are continuously available for sense-making. Linguists, however, have generally analyzed grammatical patterns, such as noun phrases, separately from the rest of human behavior. This chapter looks at a collection of cases in Swedish, English, and Estonian, where the speaker initiates a noun phrase but completes it with an embodied demonstration. Other participants treat this multimodal structure as complete and comprehensible. Building on earlier research on syntactic-bodily units (Keevallik 2013, 2017) this study calls into question the analytic boundary between language and the body and argues that grammatical projection cross-cuts modalities even within the assumedly robust noun phrase.

Abstract

In co-present interaction, our bodies are continuously available for sense-making. Linguists, however, have generally analyzed grammatical patterns, such as noun phrases, separately from the rest of human behavior. This chapter looks at a collection of cases in Swedish, English, and Estonian, where the speaker initiates a noun phrase but completes it with an embodied demonstration. Other participants treat this multimodal structure as complete and comprehensible. Building on earlier research on syntactic-bodily units (Keevallik 2013, 2017) this study calls into question the analytic boundary between language and the body and argues that grammatical projection cross-cuts modalities even within the assumedly robust noun phrase.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Languages from Europe
  5. Chapter 2. The Finnish se että initiated expressions 11
  6. Chapter 3. Emergent complex noun phrases 43
  7. Chapter 4. The noun phrase as an emergent unit in Finnish 71
  8. Chapter 5. Noun phrases in other-repetitions 93
  9. Chapter 6. Asserting no-problemness in Spanish 119
  10. Chapter 7. Multimodal noun phrases 153
  11. Chapter 8. Nouns and noun phrases in other-initiated repair in English atypical interaction 179
  12. Part II. Languages from other parts of the world
  13. Chapter 9. Multiple nominal expressions in Garrwa conversation 211
  14. Chapter 10. The pragmatics of ‘light nouns’ in Besemah 237
  15. Chapter 11. NP clustering in Mandarin conversational interaction 271
  16. Chapter 12. What can Japanese conversation tell us about ‘NP’? 315
  17. Chapter 13. Robust argument phrases (DPs) but unruly NPs in Maa 329
  18. Index 363
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.128.07kee

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Languages from Europe
  5. Chapter 2. The Finnish se että initiated expressions 11
  6. Chapter 3. Emergent complex noun phrases 43
  7. Chapter 4. The noun phrase as an emergent unit in Finnish 71
  8. Chapter 5. Noun phrases in other-repetitions 93
  9. Chapter 6. Asserting no-problemness in Spanish 119
  10. Chapter 7. Multimodal noun phrases 153
  11. Chapter 8. Nouns and noun phrases in other-initiated repair in English atypical interaction 179
  12. Part II. Languages from other parts of the world
  13. Chapter 9. Multiple nominal expressions in Garrwa conversation 211
  14. Chapter 10. The pragmatics of ‘light nouns’ in Besemah 237
  15. Chapter 11. NP clustering in Mandarin conversational interaction 271
  16. Chapter 12. What can Japanese conversation tell us about ‘NP’? 315
  17. Chapter 13. Robust argument phrases (DPs) but unruly NPs in Maa 329
  18. Index 363
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