Point of View and Grammar: Structural Patterns of Subjectivity in American English Conversation (Studies in Discourse & Grammar)

203 Pages·2002·3.43 MB·English

by  Joanne Scheibman

<ATSKSWVIUIDUEOZTIBYDOTEFLJWFHTECESHHCOOIEN"ETTRRPFI"DoG1O"i""5SSHn4"0It"TD">""oAf"G22,V0iV"ewoluamnde1G1r"ammar:StructuralpatternsandsubjectivityinAmericanEnglishconversation"
PointofViewandGrammar
Studies in Discourse and Grammar
StudiesinDiscourseandGrammarisamonographseriesprovidingaforumfor
research on grammar as it emerges from and is accounted for by discourse
contexts. The assumption underlying the series is that corpora reflecting
language as it is actually used are necessary, not only for the verification of
grammaticalanalyses,butalsoforunderstandinghowtheregularitieswethink
ofasgrammaremergefromcommunicativeneeds.
Researchindiscourseandgrammardrawsuponbothspokenandwritten
corpora,anditistypically,thoughnotnecessarily,quantitative.Monographsin
theseriesproposeexplanationsforgrammaticalregularitiesintermsofrecur-
rentdiscoursepatterns,whichreflectcommunicativeneeds,bothinformational
andsocio-cultural.
Editors
SandraA.Thompson PaulJ.Hopper
UniversityofCaliforniaatSantaBarbara CarnegieMellonUniversity
DepartmentofLinguistics DepartmentofEnglish
SantaBarbara,CA93106 Pittsburgh,PA15213
USA USA
Volume11
PointofViewandGrammar:Structuralpatternsofsubjectivity
inAmericanEnglishconversation
byJoanneScheibman
Point of View and Grammar
Structural patterns of subjectivity
in American English conversation
Joanne Scheibman
OldDominionUniversity
JohnBenjaminsPublishingCompany
Amsterdam(cid:1)/(cid:1)Philadelphia
TM ThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstheminimumrequirementsofAmerican
8
NationalStandardforInformationSciences–PermanenceofPaperforPrinted
LibraryMaterials,ansiz39.48-1984.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Scheibman,Joanne
PointofViewandGrammar:StructuralpatternsofsubjectivityinAmericanEnglish
conversation/ JoanneScheibman.
p. cm.(StudiesinDiscourseandGrammar,issn0928–8929;v.11)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindexes.
1.Englishlanguage--SpokenEnglish--UnitedStates.2.Englishlanguage--Social
aspects--UnitedStates.3.Englishlanguage--UnitedStates--Grammar.4.Englishlanguage--
Discourseanalysis.5.Speechacts(Linguistics)6.Interpersonalrelations.7.Conversation.I.
Title.II.Series.
PE2808.8 S34 2002
401’.41-dc21 2002074558
isbn9027226210(Eur.)/1588112322(US)(Hb;alk.paper)
©2002–JohnBenjaminsB.V.
Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyform,byprint,photoprint,microfilm,orany
othermeans,withoutwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher.
JohnBenjaminsPublishingCo.·P.O.Box36224·1020meAmsterdam·TheNetherlands
JohnBenjaminsNorthAmerica·P.O.Box27519·Philadelphiapa19118-0519·usa
Contents v
To Miss Vick
vi Contents
Contents vii
Contents
List of tables xi
Chapter 1. Linguistic subjectivity and usage-based linguistics 1
1.1. Introduction to the study 1
1.2. Subjectivity, propositionality, and linguistic theory and practice 3
1.2.1 Linguistic subjectivity 3
1.2.2 SubjectiWcation in grammaticization 6
1.2.3 Functions of language and the privileged role
of propositional transmission in linguistic theory 7
1.2.4 Beyond propositionality 9
1.3. Emergence of linguistic structure and usage-based linguistics 10
1.3.1 Overview 10
1.3.2 Conversation and grammar 11
1.3.3 Local patterning 14
1.4. Summary 15
Chapter 2. ClassiWcation and coding of conversational data 17
2.1. Conversation as linguistic data 17
2.2. Sources of data 19
2.3. Transcription 20
2.3.1 Intonation units 20
2.3.2 Scope of the transcription system 21
2.3.3 Transcription and theory 22
2.4. Coding 23
2.4.1 Introduction 23
2.4.2 Utterance 24
2.4.3 Data source 29
2.4.4 Speaker 29
2.4.5 Sex of speaker 29
2.4.6 Syntactic type 29
2.4.7 Clause type 30
2.4.8 Connective 34
2.4.9 Other clause 35
2.4.10 Polarity 35
viii Contents
2.4.11 Subject 35
2.4.12 Third person singular subject type 36
2.4.13 Third person plural subject type 36
2.4.14 Lexical noun phrase subject 36
2.4.15 Animacy of subject 37
2.4.16 Referentiality of subject 37
2.4.17 Central modal 44
2.4.18 Intermediate function verb 44
2.4.19 Predicate type 45
2.4.20 MAVE/Unit verb 47
2.4.21 NonWnite verb 48
2.4.22 Main verb 48
2.4.23 Main verb type 49
2.4.24 Tense 52
2.4.25 Aspect 52
2.4.26 Predicate nominal 53
2.4.27 Noun type in predicate nominal 53
2.4.28 Adjective in predicate nominal 54
2.4.29 Predicate adjective 54
2.4.30 Adjective type in predicate nominal and predicate
adjective 54
2.4.31 Adverbial 55
2.4.32 Adverbial type 56
2.4.33 Other Wrst person singular expressions 58
2.4.34 Number of intonation units 59
2.4.35 Transitional continuity 59
2.5. Summary 59
Chapter 3. Patterns of subjectivity in person and predicate 61
3.1. Introduction 61
3.2. Global frequency patterns in the data 62
3.3. First person singular subjects 63
3.3.1 Introduction 63
3.3.2 Verbs of cognition with 1s subjects 64
3.3.3 Material verbs with 1s subjects 68
3.3.4 Verbs of verbal process with 1s subjects 72
Contents ix
3.3.5 Summary of utterances with Wrst person singular
subjects 73
3.4. Second person singular subjects 74
3.4.1 Introduction 74
3.4.2 Verbs of cognition with 2s subjects 74
3.4.3 Material verbs with 2s subjects 77
3.4.4 Summary of utterances with second person singular
subjects 79
3.5. Third person singular subjects 80
3.5.1 Introduction 80
3.5.2 Third person singular subject types and tense 83
3.5.3 Third person singular subject types and verb type 84
3.5.4 Humanness, verb type, and tense in 3s utterances 86
3.5.5 Summary of utterances with third person singular
subjects 92
3.6. First person plural subjects 94
3.6.1 Introduction 94
3.6.2. Verbs of perception with 1p subjects 95
3.6.3. Material verbs with 1p subjects 99
3.6.4. Summary of utterances with Wrst person plural subjects 101
3.7. Third person plural subjects 103
3.7.1 Introduction 103
3.7.2 Third person plural subject types 104
3.7.3 Material verbs with 3p subjects 105
3.7.4 Referentiality of third person plural subjects 108
3.7.5 Third person plural generic subjects 109
3.7.6 Summary of utterances with third person plural
subjects 113
3.8. Summary 114
Chapter 4. The evaluative character of relational clauses 119
4.1. Introduction 119
4.1.1 Description of relational utterances 119
4.1.2 Relational utterances and linguistic subjectivity 119
4.1.3 Analysis of relational clauses 121
4.1.4 Global distributional patterns of relational clauses 122
4.2. Referentiality 125