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In: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

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The re-examination of so-called ‘clefts’

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

Published online: 10 June 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.156.14mor
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.
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