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In:Temporality in Interaction
Edited by Arnulf Deppermann and Susanne Günthner
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 27] 2015
► pp. 27–56

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The temporality of language in interaction

projection and latency

Published online: 20 March 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.27.01aue
This paper focuses on two basic principles in the dialogical emergence of self-contained linguistic units (‘sentences’) in interaction: projection and latency. Both are elementary for the synchronization of participants’ minds in what I call the online emergence of syntax. Projection enables speakers and recipients to predict – on the basis of what has been said so far – structural slots in the emer­gent syntactic gestalt. Latency, on the other hand, re­lates a new utterance to the structure of the preceding one(s). It links the struc­ture of an emergent syntactic gestalt to that of previous, already complete syn­tactic gestalts. Projection and latency can easily be observed in mundane con­versational phenomena that happen time and again in everyday interaction.
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