"On the hierarchical ordering of discourse constituents in a corpus of spontaneous English speech".

Our research is concerned with certain phenomena relative to the structure of conversational English. Particularly interested in how different types of segments are organised by syntax and prosody, it describes the hierarchical layout of discourse constituents from a thematic, intersubjective and interactional point of view.

Attention to causal subordination reveals the apparition of new forms and usages specific to spontaneous speech. Among them, cos can be distinguished from because on distributional and intersubjective grounds. Overall, syntactic dependency between clauses tends to be looser, allowing the markers involved to serve thematic purposes.

Pitch, intensity and pauses are essential building material in verbal interaction at various levels. Our study indeed shows to what extent intonation contributes to the construction of the consensus on which a conversation is built, as well as to its thematic and interactional organisation.

A pdf version of my PhD dissertation is available for download from here (2 volumes).