Tone units as message blocks in natural discourse: Segmentation of face-to-face interaction by naive, native speakers

Abstract

The question pursued in this research is: How do naive, native speakers parse natural interaction when instructed to detect the messages the speaker tries to convey? The two studies reported here show conclusively that coders base their decisions as to where particular messages start and end on tone unit boundaries. That is, they give priority to intonative features as opposed to syntactic ones. Tone units can thus be regarded as corresponding to the implicit linguistic knowledge of naive, native speakers.