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Chapter 9. Multiple nominal expressions in Garrwa conversation

  • Ilana Mushin
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The ‘Noun Phrase’ across Languages
This chapter is in the book The ‘Noun Phrase’ across Languages

Abstract

Noun phrases have long been a contested category in studies of Australian language grammars. In this chapter I use a corpus of conversations in the Northern Australian language Garrwa to show how the syntactic and prosodic design of referring expressions consisting of a demonstrative nominal and a common nominal is highly sensitive to the place in and relevance to the unfolding interactional sequence in which the referring expression occurs. In particular, I show that the design of referential nominal expressions in Garrwa conversations display a systematic relationship between more phrase-like constructions and smooth, progressive talk, and less phrase-like formulations and sequential and topical boundaries.

Abstract

Noun phrases have long been a contested category in studies of Australian language grammars. In this chapter I use a corpus of conversations in the Northern Australian language Garrwa to show how the syntactic and prosodic design of referring expressions consisting of a demonstrative nominal and a common nominal is highly sensitive to the place in and relevance to the unfolding interactional sequence in which the referring expression occurs. In particular, I show that the design of referential nominal expressions in Garrwa conversations display a systematic relationship between more phrase-like constructions and smooth, progressive talk, and less phrase-like formulations and sequential and topical boundaries.

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.128.09mus

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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