This paper focuses on ‘clause’, a celebrated structural unit in linguistics, by comparing Finnish and Japanese, two languages which are genetically, typologically, and areally distinct from each other and from English, the language on the basis of which this structural unit has been most typically discussed. We first examine how structural units including the clause have been discussed in the literature on Finnish and Japanese. We will then examine the reality of the clause in everyday talk in these languages quantitatively and qualitatively; in our qualitative analysis, we focus in particular on what units are oriented to by conversational participants. The current study suggests that the degree of grammaticization of the clause varies cross-linguistically and questions the central theoretical status accorded to this structural unit.

中文翻译：

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质疑从句作为语法和交互中的跨语言单元

本文通过比较芬兰语和日语这两种在基因、类型和区域上彼此不同的语言以及与英语的比较，重点讨论语言学中著名的结构单元“子句”，该结构单元所基于的语言最常被讨论。我们首先研究芬兰语和日语文献中如何讨论包括子句在内的结构单元。然后，我们将定量和定性地检查这些语言日常谈话中条款的现实性；在我们的定性分析中，我们特别关注会话参与者所面向的单元。目前的研究表明，从句的语法化程度因跨语言而异，并质疑赋予该结构单元的中心理论地位。