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In:Grammar in Action: Building comprehensive grammars of talk-in-interaction
Edited by Jakob Steensig, Maria Jørgensen, Jan Lindström, Nicholas Mikkelsen, Karita Suomalainen and Søren Sandager Sørensen
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 37] 2025
► pp. 332–365

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Chapter 11
An interactional grammar of insubordination

The case of French si ‘if’-clauses

 | University of Neuchâtel
 | University of Neuchâtel
Published online: 3 June 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.37.11doe
Abstract
We take French si ‘if’-clauses as an exemplary case to reflect on how questions about the structures of a language can be fruitfully addressed by considering the conversational actions that speakers accomplish by means of these structures. We demonstrate that an interactional perspective has the potential (a) to shed light on interactional motivations for the formal implementation of ‘if’-clauses, (b) to deepen our understanding of the workings of insubordination, and (c) to open a window onto continua of (in)subordination. Scrutinizing grammatical patterns in relation to temporality/emergence, to the grammar-body interface, and to social action has profound implications for understanding core features of grammar — such as clause-combining and (in)subordination — and for how these features should be represented in a grammar of language use.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1A cline of (in)subordination
    • 2.2Parameters for examining and describing ‘if’-clauses
      as they occur in social interaction
      • 2.2.1Position of main and subordinate clause
      • 2.2.2Degrees of syntactic integration, co-construction, and incrementation
      • 2.2.3Free-standing ‘if’-clauses
      • 2.2.4Grammar and the body
      • 2.2.5In sum: Parameters for analysis
  • 3.Analysis
    • 3.1Incremental composition
    • 3.2Co-construction
    • 3.3Free-standing si ‘if’-clauses: A continuum of insubordination
      • 3.3.1Fully insubordinate si ‘if’-clauses
      • 3.3.2Pseudo-autonomous si ‘if’-clauses based on structural latency
      • 3.3.3Pragmatically dependent si ‘if’-clauses based on contextual inferences
      • 3.3.4Highly routinized formulaic si ‘if’-clauses akin to particle-like status
      • 3.3.5Upshot: A cline of (in)subordination
    • 3.4Embodied and other non-lexical completions
  • 4.Discussion and conclusion
    • 4.1A grammar entry for ‘if’-clauses
    • 4.2Beyond the case of ‘if’-clauses: Grammar entries for subordination, insubordination, clause-combining
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
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