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What do people do with sniffs, lip-smacks, grunts, moans, sighs, whistles, and clicks, where these are not part of their language's phonetic inventory? They use them, we shall show, as irreplaceable elements in performing all kinds of actions—from managing the structural flow of interaction to indexing states of mind and much more besides. In this introductory essay we outline the phonetic and embodied interactional underpinnings of language and argue that greater attention should be paid to its nonlexical elements. Data are in English and Estonian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article navigates the findings of conversation analysis, interactional linguistics, and related multimodal studies to summarize what we know about the grammar-body interface. It shows how grammar is fitted to sequences and trajectories of embodied activities, as well as deployed interchangeably with bodily displays, resulting in truly multimodal patterns that emerge in real time. These findings problematize both the paradigmatic and syntagmatic structures documented in verbal-only linguistics. They call for a reconceptualization of grammar as an assembly of routinized methods for the organization of vocal conduct, capable of incorporating aspects of participants’ bodily behavior. Data are in Estonian, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Swedish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the Estonian three-way phonological quantity distinction by secondgeneration Swedish Estonians. Production of the three phonological quantities has been measured in informal interviews with four speakers, all active members of the Estonian exile community. Comparisons with native Estonians show that three of the four Swedish Estonians had retained the length difference between quantity 2 and 3 in all disyllabic word types. All four displayed native-like pitch contours while two were somewhat inconsistent. The same speakers and four additional ones were then tested for perception of the quantities with re-synthesized speech stimuli. For Estonians in Estonia the temporal cue and the pitch cue are effective in combination, while the Swedish Estonian group shows extensive variability. Some speakers only display the effect of the temporal cue, similarly to fluent Estonian L2 speakers. Others have reduced the three-way system to a binary one. In this pilot study we can thus observe either incomplete acquisition in a foreign environment or language attrition in the first Swedish-born generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negative polar particles have generally been characterized as items for expressing disagreement or responding negatively to polar questions. What has been lacking in these accounts is attention to embodied activities. This paper studies the usage of the Estonian negative particle ei as a preface in real-time activities, showing that it halts the ongoing action, often for the sake of achieving intersubjective understanding and establishing epistemic authority. The paper shows how other matters besides logic and truth-conditions define the meaning of the negative particle. Analysis of linguistic function demands transgressing the boundaries of language and scrutiny of co-present interaction in its temporal emergence. The paper argues that several discourse functions of ei are also more accurately described from the vantage point of its usage in multimodal face-to-face settings than from the logical properties that the item happens to display in limited sequential contexts after yes/no interrogatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cataphoric pronouns have been characterized as being co-referential with a word that comes later. Considering that talk is produced in real time, with little benefit of knowing what is yet to come, participants understand cataphoric pro-forms to be projecting more talk. Projection is a crucial interactive resource, as it enables speakers to align with the ongoing talk and to initiate subsequent contributions in a timely manner. The study looks at how Estonian pro-forms are systematically used to project either a word (phrase) or a clause in interaction. The patterns discussed are not universal and it will be suggested that projecting word (phrases) with pro-forms is a characteristic of a nonprepositional language with no articles, and that pro-form projection can be especially useful in a free word order language. As many pro-forms do not end up with a co-referential word, projection provides a better account of their function. The article underlines the necessity of studying grammar as a temporal phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In conversation analytic and interactional studies, some responses are analyzed as being minimal. This article explores minimality in regard to two types of answers that appear to be used interchangeably as minimal responses to yes/no questions in Estonian. The answers represent typologically different formats, particles and echo answers (verb repeats). It is argued that minimality should be defined in a sequentially sensitive manner and that the two answer formats are used to display speakers' understanding of the status of the social action implemented in the preceding question. The data come from audio recordings of phone calls and face-to-face interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]