Turn-taking and Verbal Affixes in Korean Conversation

Abstract

This paper tries to characterize tum-taking in Korean conversation through an examination of grammatical aspects of tum constructional units, basically in tenns of sequential production approach. To explore the Question of what constitutes tum-constructional units and how transition relevance places are predicted in Korean conversation, I examined types of tum constructional units in tenns of some grammatical categories. The examination shows that sentence-enders such as -e(yo) and -ci function as the most significant predictors of tum-taking in Korean. The analysis of the data shows that clausal connectives except -nuntey do not play a significant role in detennining TRPs. The examination of the data shows that lexical or phrasal elements that function as reactive tokens also play a role in signaling TRPs. Finally I will show that the apparent violation of turn-taking rules has the functions such as the display of affiliation or disagreement with an ongoing tum.