Linguists generally assume ‘clause’ to be a basic unit for the analysis of grammatical structure. Data from natural conversations, however, suggests that ‘clause’ may not be grammaticized to the same extent across languages. Understanding ‘clause’ as a predicate (plus any arguments, inferred or expressed), we can show that participants do indeed organize their talk around ‘clauses’. I argue that English-speaking participants in everyday interaction do indeed orient to clausal units as so defined, by building their turns around predicates, and that these turns do key interactional work. The data further reveal that these units must be understood as emergent structures, recurrent patterns in a given language that emerge from humans pursuing their ordinary interactional business of communicating information, needs, identities, attitudes, and desires.

中文翻译：

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将“子句”理解为日常对话中的一个新兴“单元”

语言学家通常假定“子句”是分析语法结构的基本单位。然而，来自自然对话的数据表明，“子句”在不同语言中的语法化程度可能不同。将“子句”理解为谓词（加上任何论证、推断或表达），我们可以证明参与者确实围绕“子句”组织了他们的谈话。我认为，在日常互动中，说英语的参与者确实通过围绕谓词构建他们的轮转来确定如此定义的从句单元，并且这些轮转做了关键的互动工作。数据进一步表明，这些单元必须被理解为特定语言中的涌现结构、反复出现的模式，这些模式源于人类追求其交流信息、需求、身份、态度和欲望的普通交互业务。