5 - Final adverbial clauses after ending intonation

Summary

Overview

In the previous two chapters I described the use of adverbial clauses presented in intonationally coherent packages with their associated main clauses. In the present chapter I examine cases involving grammatical connection through adverbial conjunctions, but in which the conjunction introduces a separate intonation unit. These adverbial clauses follow utterances ending in some form of final intonation, either low-falling or high-rising.

As described in chapter 4, final adverbial clauses following continuing intonation serve information-completing functions, narrowing clause meaning. Final adverbial clauses that follow ending intonation, though displayed through conjunctions to be extensions of previous units, also represent separate units in their own right. As will be seen in this chapter, these added-on adverbial clauses have clear interactional origins.

Adverbial clauses that are added after ending intonation have been referred to as “afterthoughts” (Chafe 1984). This term suggests that a unit of talk was originally planned not to include the adverbial clause, but that, after the unit was completed, the speaker decided to add another element of modification or elaboration. In the present chapter, I argue that, in addition to representing the editing of a speaker's talk based on her/his own thought process, such final adverbial clauses may also be the products of speaker–recipient negotiation specifically aimed at achieving interactional ends. There are specific conversational contexts in which speakers present a main clause plus adverbial elaboration in separated intonation units. The manner in which a speaker becomes aware that more might be added to an already completed unit often involves feedback from the other participants in the conversation.