Non-grammatical C-units in discourse

Martin Weisser

Non-grammatical C-units in discourse

Vol.1,No.1(2008)

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Most standard grammars concentrate on describing grammatically well-formed units, such as “normal” declaratives, interrogatives, etc., and only handle non-grammatical units as irregular and somehow deviant from the norm. However, in spoken language, we often encounter especially smaller or fragmentary, non-clause-like textual units that do not easily fi t traditional descriptions. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of these non-grammatical units, to describe what their functions are, as well as to explain why they form such a necessary part of spoken interaction.

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