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In:The ‘Noun Phrase’ across Languages: An emergent unit in interaction
Edited by Tsuyoshi Ono and Sandra A. Thompson
[Typological Studies in Language 128] 2020
► pp. 153–178

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Chapter 7
Multimodal noun phrases

 | Linköping University
Published online: 15 July 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.128.07kee
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.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The data and the collection
  • Simple NP-initiations: An article, a demonstrative, an adjective
    • Article
    • Demonstrative
    • Adjective
  • Complex NP-initiations
    • Article + adjective(s)
    • Demonstrative + adjective
  • Participant orientation to a multimodal noun phrase: Collaborative completion
  • Verbal completion of a multimodal noun phrase
  • Repair or re-completion?
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • Transcription conventions
  • References
References (34)
Transcription conventions
The paper uses multimodal transcription conventions developed by Lorenza Mondada: <[URL]>
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