"The chapters in this volume focus on how we might understand the concept of 'unit' in human languages. It is an analytical notion that has been widely adopted by linguists of various theoretical and applied orientations but has recently been critically examined by both typologically oriented and interactional linguistics. This volume contributes to and extends this discussion by examining the nature of units in actual usage in a range of genetically and typologically unrelated languages, English, Finnish, Indonesian, Japanese, and Mandarin, engaging with fundamental theoretical issues. The chapters show that categories originally created for the description of Indo-European languages have limited usefulness if our goal is to understand the nature of human language in general. The authors thus question the status of traditionally accepted linguistic units, especially their static understanding as a priori entities, and suggest instead that an emergent and interactional view of both structure and function offers a better fit with the data from the languages examined. Originally published as special issue 43:2 (2019) of Studies in Language"--.

• Usage-based and Typological Approaches to Linguistic Units
• Editorial page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Table of contents
• On the notion of unit in the study of human languages
  • Tsuyoshi Ono, Ritva Laury and Ryoko SuzukiUniversity of Alberta | University of Helsinki | Keio University
    • 1.Introduction
      • 1.1The notion of unit in linguistics
      • 1.2Unit in individual languages
      • 1.3Cross-linguistic perspective and functional motivation
      • 1.4Units and criteria to identify them in interactional linguistics
    • 2.Short summary of papers
    • Acknowledgements
    • References
• Understanding ‘clause’ as an emergent ‘unit’ in everyday conversation
  • Sandra A. ThompsonUniversity of California, Santa Barbara
    • 1.Introduction
    • 2.Problematizing ‘social action’
    • 3.Problematizing ‘clause’: ‘Clause’ as ‘predicate-plus’
    • 4.Clauses as vehicles for social action
      • 4.1Directive-commissive actions
      • 4.2Assessments
      • 4.3Informings
      • 4.4Assertions
      • 4.5Requests for information
    • 5.Social actions not done by clauses
    • 6.Scaffolding
    • 7.Conclusion and outlook
    • Acknowledgements
    • References
    • Appendix.Transcription symbols14.Much of the empirical material used for this study was originally transcribed by Gail Jefferson. I have retained her transcription in large part but I have normalized the orthography. For an overview of Jefferson’s system as it evolved over time, see Jefferson (2004). The materials used for this paper have by and large been transcribed using this system. For the layout of the transcription symbol list below we have been inspired by Hepburn & Bolden (2013).
• Linguistic units and their systemsCompleteness, self-reference, and contingency
  • Ross KrekoskiUniversity Blue Quills
    • 1.Introduction
    • 2.Social action, unit acts, interaction
    • 3.Systems and incompleteness
    • 4.Some deviant utterances
    • 5.Concluding remarks
    • References
• Free NPs as units in Finnish
  • Marja-Liisa HelasvuoUniversity of Turku
    • 1.Introduction
    • 2.Data
    • 3.Morphosyntactic features of free NPs
    • 4.Prosodic features of free NPs
    • 5.Interactional functions of free NPs
    • 6.Conclusions
    • Acknowledgements
    • References
• Referring expressions in categorizing activitiesRethinking the nature of linguistic units for the study of interaction
  • Patricia Mayes and Hongyin TaoUniversity of Wisconsin, Milwaukee | University of California, Los Angeles
    • 1.Introduction
    • 2.Key concepts and approaches to categorizing
      • 2.1Cognitive approaches to categorization
      • 2.2Previous work focusing on categorizing as social action
      • 2.3Rethinking categorizing as a socially-motivated activity
      • 2.4Methodological tools used in MCA
    • 3.Data and methods
    • 4.Data analysis
      • 4.1English data
      • 4.2Mandarin Chinese data
    • 5.Discussion
    • 6.Conclusions
    • Acknowledgements
    • References
• Questioning the clause as a crosslinguistic unit in grammar and interaction
  • Ritva Laury, Tsuyoshi Ono and Ryoko SuzukiUniversity of Helsinki | University of Alberta | Keio University
    • 1.Introduction
    • 2.Understandings of similar units in standard references in Finnish and Japanese
      • 2.1Finnish
      • 2.2Japanese
    • 3.Clauses and predicates as units in interaction
      • 3.1The clause as a unit in Finnish conversation
      • 3.2The predicate as a unit in Japanese conversation
    • 4.Summary and conclusions
    • Acknowledgements
    • References
• The predicate as a locus of grammar and interaction in colloquial Indonesian
  • Michael C. EwingUniversity of Melbourne
    • 1.Introduction
    • 2.Predicate configurations in conversational Indonesian
      • 2.1Verbal predicates
      • 2.2Non-verbal predicates
      • 2.3When there are no explicit arguments
    • 3.Frequency and distribution of predicate configurations in conversation
    • 4.Predicates in interaction
      • 4.1Turn constructions and predicates
      • 4.2Participant orientation and predicates
        • 4.2.1Next turn onset
        • 4.2.2Joint utterance completion
        • 4.2.3Turn continuations
    • 5.Conclusion
    • Acknowledgements
    • References
    • Glosses
      • Transcription conventions
• Index