Syntactic Projectability and Co-Participant Completion in Japanese Conversation

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate the role of syntax in projecting possible ends of utterances. Research on tum-taking and co-participant completion has concluded that co-participants use many concomitant features of talk-in-interaction in addition to grammatical structure to project the ends of utterances. My purpose is not to refute the contribution of these concomitant features, but rather to refine further the role of grammatical structure in syntactic projectability.