Abstract The study explores Chafe’s one-new-idea constraint in two short extracts of natural multimodal interaction in two Trans-Himalayan (Tibeto-Burman) languages: Burmese and Anal Naga. It corroborates the overall tendency in both extracts for one new idea per intonation unit on average. However, the examination of frequent exceptions to this tendency indicates that this is not a cognitive constraint, as informatively much denser intonation units are processed with no challenge for interactants. The counterexamples suggest that the phenomenon emerges from more basic factors, and primarily from attention allocation, joint attention alignment and its interactional monitoring, and intonational partitioning for turn-management. As such, the observed tendency is a joint product of communicative and cognitive factors that shape conversation structure into sequences of locally monitored attention shifts.
Abstract This paper examines the register variation of negative conditionals in English. The main expression types for English negative conditionals are negative if -conditionals and unless -conditionals. These two constructions were studied in five registers of the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The results show that negative if -conditionals differ from unless -conditionals in several respects. Unless -conditionals contain few of the hallmarks of conditional constructions: they seldom appear in initial position, they shun the use of past tense or subjunctive morphology to indicate hypotheticality or counterfactuality, and their main clauses are almost never introduced by then . Different registers are found to be associated with differences in clause order, the syntactic rank of the clause, tense choice in both protasis and apodosis, and the polarity of the apodosis. There are also phraseological patterns that are highly register-specific, such as scalar if not or the if not for construction. The grammar of unless -conditionals is found to be less variable, and unless -conditionals also display less phraseological patterning. The findings highlight the interplay between register variation and degrees of schematicity.
Abstract This paper offers an analysis of rising-intoned éi in Mandarin conversation, specifically as it is produced in the wake of question-answer sequences. Examining the particle’s use both as a stand-alone unit implementing its own action, and as a preface to additional turn components and the actions thereby implemented, we argue that éi in third position is best conceived of as a change-of-state token marking an epistemic discrepancy. Paralleling what has been argued for Japanese eh , Mandarin éi flags something in the talk or environment as departing from the speaker’s pre-existing knowledge, supposition, expectation, or orientation. In third position of a question-answer sequence, it is the answer (produced in second position) that the éi targets and problematizes in this way, making relevant subsequent conduct that works to resolve the discrepancy. In light of the fact that prior interactional research on Mandarin éi has focused largely on the particle’s use in sequence-initiating actions, the paper concludes with a discussion of three possible theoretical accounts for the apparent diversity of its interactional functions.
It is generally agreed that intonation units tend to correspond to processing units (Chafe 1979, 1987, 1994, 2018; Inbar et al. 2023; and many others). As noted by other authors in this collection, the one new idea at a time pattern shows up robustly across typologically quite different languages. It is seen, for example, in languages with complex nominal expressions (Louagie & Rein & ouml;hl 2022) and those with serial verb constructions (Pawley 1987, 2009; Giv & oacute;n 1991; Rein & ouml;hl et al. this volume). Similar prosodic packaging can also be seen in languages with very elaborate morphologies. It can, furthermore, account for the formation of some of their typological structure. Such effects are illustrated here with conversational data from Mohawk, a polysynthetic language indigenous to northeastern North America.
Abstract The process of anticausativization is well known in the functional and typological literature as involving a morphological affix on the head, i.e. the verb. In this article, we introduce to the field a different type of anticausatives which are dependent-marked and not head-marked. That is, the subject of the intransitive carries the same morphological case, namely accusative, as the object of the corresponding transitive, while the verb remains unmarked in both alternants. This research is based on 119 causative–anticausative pairs of this type in Old Norse-Icelandic, of which 80 are presented in the literature for the first time. Since the head, the verb, is morphologically unmarked, the question arises as to the directionality of the alternation. We argue that the causative alternant is the basic one, while the intransitive anticausative is ‘derived’, due to both morphological and semantic considerations, in particular the fact that many accusative anticausatives have developed metaphorical meanings. We couch our analysis in the formalism of CxG, showing how changes in the productivity of the alternation may be modeled. While the data discussed here are mostly confined to Old Norse-Icelandic, the distinction between head-marking and dependent-marking anticausativization is clearly of relevance for general linguists, functionalists and typologists alike.
We investigate a notion related to Chafe's One New Idea Constraint (ONICON), namely that clauses only contain one new idea at a time. We investigate both the nominal and the verbal domain in discourse production data from 16 diverse languages. We find no convincing evidence for a hard constraint on the number of new ideas per clause, nor for speakers actively managing information flow in discourse. The absence of an underlying ONICON is suggested by (1) the fact that NPs co-occurring in a single clause do not have more accessible referents, (2) that observed distributions of information can likewise be reproduced by a randomised mechanism, and (3) the absence of a presentational referent activation pattern. A more likely account of observed discourse production pattern is producers' overall goal to be both contentful and coherent, the former implying the mentioning of a considerable number of entities and the latter implying predications about these entities. It is in this sense that there is audience
This paper offers an analysis of rising-intoned & eacute;i in Mandarin conversation, specifically as it is produced in the wake of question-answer sequences. Examining the particle's use both as a stand-alone unit implementing its own action, and as a preface to additional turn components and the actions thereby implemented, we argue that & eacute;i in third position is best conceived of as a change-of-state token marking an epistemic discrepancy. Paralleling what has been argued for Japanese eh, Mandarin & eacute;i flags something in the talk or environment as departing from the speaker's pre-existing knowledge, supposition, expectation, or orientation. In third position of a question-answer sequence, it is the answer (produced in second position) that the & eacute;i targets and problematizes in this way, making relevant subsequent conduct that works to resolve the discrepancy. In light of the fact that prior interactional research on Mandarin & eacute;i has focused largely on the particle's use in sequence-initiating actions, the paper concludes with a discussion of three possible theoretical accounts for the apparent diversity of its interactional functions.
The study explores Chafe's ONE-NEW-IDEA constraint in two short extracts of natural multimodal interaction in two Trans-Himalayan (Tibeto-Burman) languages: Burmese and Anal Naga. It corroborates the overall tendency in both extracts for one new idea per intonation unit on average. However, the examination of frequent exceptions to this tendency indicates that this is not a cognitive constraint, as informatively much denser intonation units are processed with no challenge for interactants. The counterexamples suggest that the phenomenon emerges from more basic factors, and primarily from attention allocation, joint attention alignment and its interactional monitoring, and intonational partitioning for turn-management. As such, the observed tendency is a joint product of communicative and cognitive factors that shape conversation structure into sequences of locally monitored attention shifts.
The one-new-idea constraint (ONICON) is a hypothesis about how much information we can package in one intonation unit (Chafe 1982, 1992, 1994). Chafe (1994) suggests that constructions containing multiple new content words do not necessarily violate the ONICON. Examples include prefabs as well as constructions consisting mostly of LOW-CONTENT elements, and no more than one HIGH-CONTENT word (as in, e.g. light verb constructions). We argue in this paper that there is another construction type-functor-argument metaphors (Reinohl & Ellison 2024)-which does not violate the ONICON, even while they can also consist of more than one new content word. In metaphorical functor-argument constructions, such as to arrive at a conclusion, the functor arrive loses semantic features-in this case, movement in space-through the clash of its literal sense with a non-spatial `goal: The resultant lowered content of the functor renders functor-argument constructions like ones containing maximally one high-content lexeme to start with. We will show that functor-argument metaphors also share certain properties with prefabs. We conclude that functor-argument metaphors need to be added as a third pseudo-exception type, leading us to an enriched understanding of the ONICON, ideahood, and holistic processing of multi-word construction types in speech.
Representing a comedic genre where language, identity, ideology are performed and negotiated through discursive strategies, stand-up comedy provides a socially revealing site for studying humour as a discourse practice. This study focuses on the phenomenon of English as bilingual creativity in Chinese stand-up comedy performances, exploring how it operates as a speech style in the Chinese context. Drawing upon theoretical insights from sociolinguistics, discourse pragmatics and humour studies, this paper examines how the use of English serves as a resource for audience engagement and humour construction in Chinese stand-up comedy discourse. The study identifies linguistic mechanisms and discursive strategies of bilingual creativity featured in the Chinese context. Linguistically, the practice of bilingual creativity includes intra-/inter-sentential code mixing and three types of English usage: unmarked, marked, and referential. These various uses of English perform two major discursive functions: they may function as direct punchlines or discursive mockery to entertain the audience, or they can alternatively deliver judgmental or appreciative comments to align with the audience. Finally, this paper discusses social issues associated with bilingual creativity, such as language style, emotionality, and multicultural identity branding in contemporary Chinese cultural discourse.
The process of anticausativization is well known in the functional and typological literature as involving a morphological affix on the head, i.e. the verb. In this article, we introduce to the field a different type of anticausatives which are dependent-marked and not head-marked. That is, the subject of the intransitive carries the same morphological case, namely accusative, as the object of the corresponding transitive, while the verb remains unmarked in both alternants. This research is based on 119 causative-anticausative pairs of this type in Old Norse-Icelandic, of which 80 are presented in the literature for the first time. Since the head, the verb, is morphologically unmarked, the question arises as to the directionality of the alternation. We argue that the causative alternant is the basic one, while the intransitive anticausative is 'derived', due to both morphological and semantic considerations, in particular the fact that many accusative anticausatives have developed metaphorical meanings. We couch our analysis in the formalism of CxG, showing how changes in the productivity of the alternation may be modeled. While the data discussed here are mostly confined to Old Norse-Icelandic, the distinction between head-marking and dependent-marking anticausativization is clearly of relevance for general linguists, functionalists and typologists alike.
This paper offers a conceptual clarification and an operationalization of a classic functionalist generalization: the one-new-idea constraint (Chafe 1982, 1987, 1994). While often referenced, this constraint has not, to date, been sufficiently spelled-out or made sufficiently precise to become testable. This paper aims to fill this gap by, first, differentiating the concept of idea into discourse-level and lexical-semantic ideahood. Secondly, we propose that the one-new-idea constraint (onicon) should be investigated in Chafe's (1994) original encompassing sense, where not only referents, but also states and events are tracked. The third clarification applies to the unit of application: As a constraint on speech, this should be the intonation unit as suggested by Chafe, rather than the clause or sentence as suggested elsewhere (e.g. Giv & oacute;n 1990). Based on these conceptual refinements, we develop an operationalization for testing the onicon: the tonic (Testing the One-New-Idea Constraint) annotation scheme. This scheme not only allows for in-depth investigation into the robustness of the onicon, but also into information flow on both discourse as well as lexical-semantic levels more broadly. tonic thus serves as a new tool for more holistic research into information flow.
This paper examines the register variation of negative conditionals in English. The main expression types for English negative conditionals are negative if-conditionals and unless-conditionals. These two constructions were studied in five registers of the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The results show that negative if-conditionals differ from unless-conditionals in several respects. Unless-conditionals contain few of the hallmarks of conditional constructions: they seldom appear in initial position, they shun the use of past tense or subjunctive morphology to indicate hypotheticality or counterfactuality, and their main clauses are almost never introduced by then. Different registers are found to be associated with differences in clause order, the syntactic rank of the clause, tense choice in both protasis and apodosis, and the polarity of the apodosis. There are also phraseological patterns that are highly register-specific, such as scalar if not or the if not for construction. The grammar of unless-conditionals is found to be less variable, and unless-conditionals also display less phraseological patterning. The findings highlight the interplay between register variation and degrees of schematicity.
The One-New-Idea-Constraint (ONICON) is proposed to be an absolute universal on human cognitive capabilities. While the ONICON predicts that we maximally realise one new idea at a time, it does not account for the maximal amount of information that can be realised at any point in discourse. To help us better understand factors influencing information flow in discourse, we may instead wish to turn our focus to verbalisation, the cognitive process behind this act. Examining verbalisation more closely can in turn allow us to better assess the extent to which the ONICON can hold. Using corpus data from three Trans-Himalayan languages, I explore how we choose to verbalise particularly information-rich intonation units and what factors may influence this process. Through investigating how information-rich intonation units are verbalised, I highlight ways in which the ONICON may be refined or challenged to better capture everyday language use.
