Conversational backoff

Authors

  • Kyle Rawlins Johns Hopkins University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v20i0.2550

Keywords:

questions, responses, disagreement, discourse, dynamics, conditionals.

Abstract

I explore and analyze a phenomenon ("conversational backoff") where, instead of accepting an assertion in the normal way, a speaker challenges its exhaustiveness, but not its content. The result is that speakers publicly back off of the exhaustivity of the claim. These challenges are typically triggered by special questions of a conditional type, and I focus in particular on the case of "what if" questions, developing a detailed analysis of their semantics and dynamics.

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Published

2010-08-14

Issue

Section

Articles