Vocal and visual boundaries in speech: insights from spontaneous conversation

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In this talk, I will give an overview of my work that looks specifically at the expression of boundaries in speech. I will refer to different groups of studies. First, a series of observational studies investigating the use of boundaries to signal parentheticals and appositive relative clauses in spontaneous speech (Lelandais & Ferré 2014; Lelandais & Ferré 2016; Lelandais 2020). Second, an experiment which investigates the role of prosody and gesture in the perception of boundaries in speech (Lelandais & Thiberge, submitted). Third, an ongoing exploratory study in which I propose an alternative view of coordination to that of traditional syntax, based on the presence or absence of boundaries. The goal of this project is to build a multiparameter framework that accounts for coordination in different interactional contexts. Finally, I will mention short-term developments and perspectives.