Projection and Minimalistic Syntax in Interaction

Abstract

Projections of future linguistic events in time are a pervasive task in human interaction. Projection is always based on sequential knowledge (i.e., on how the elements of a superordinated category are serialized in online speech production). This knowledge can relate to the sequencing of actions, as extensively shown in conversation analysis. However, it can also be based on grammatical knowledge. Grammar is a conventionalized set of formal ways of making projections possible. This article explores how minimalistic syntax can become and still do its job as a projecting device. Four typically oral syntactic constructions of German are considered, and their tendencies toward asyndesis (when compared to their more canonical, written counterparts) are analyzed in terms of an online approach to spoken language.

Notes

¹Transcription follows the GAT (Gesprächsanalytisches Transkriptionssystem. cf. Selting et al. 1998); an online version can be found under http://www.mediensprache.net/de/medienanalyse/transcription/gat/

²The fact that line 3 of extract (2) is and remains a syntactic fragment is not equal to saying that the projection it brings into play is entirely lost, however. There is evidence that speakers use fragments in the beginning of complex turns in a systematic way to foreshadow the structure or the semantics of what they are about to say. The processing effort invested in them is, therefore, not always useless. In fact, the speaker reuses the verb phrase, to charge, again in line 11: na verl(h)angt=er.… The argument is developed in more detail in Auer (2005a).

³More on projection, retraction, and expansion in spoken syntax can be found in Auer (2009).

⁴It is unclear, of course, and needs to be investigated empirically, how long a projection can be “in play” in dialogical interaction before it is forgotten by the speaker, the recipient, or both. It seems likely that there is a certain time span that must not be exceeded, however.

⁵In the previous example, the forward-projecting character of the utterance is linguistically marked by the cataphoric pronoun, des (German das ‘that’); this linguistic device belongs to the macro-syntactic structure of the text. It is not necessary; the speaker could simply have prefaced his account with “I have a real problem,” without a cataphoric pronoun. This shows that the projective force of the utterance does not reside in its linguistic structure. The micro-syntactic equivalent of this macro-syntactic construction, the metapragmatic nominal construction, is discussed in the next section.

⁶The copula is optional before a complementizer phrase, but not before a noun phrase.

⁷For details, see Eisenberg (1999) and Auer (2006).

⁸For a full discussion, see Auer (2000); for non-adjoined, pre-positioned wenn and wo clauses, see Günthner (1999, 2005).