General Extenders in Spoken Discourse

Abstract

General extenders are expressions such as in tako naprej 'and so on', pa to 'and such', pa tako 'and like that', ali pa nekaj takega 'or something like that'. The paper provides a survey of the forms and frequency of these expressions in various types of Slovene discourse and through a qualitative analysis sheds light on discursive roles of the most common formal general extender, in tako naprej 'and so on'. The authors find that these expressions are generally most commonly used in private discourse. The speaker uses them to mark the preceding propositional element as incomplete, hinted at with an example, or expressed just approximately, and at the same s/he is able to conclude the utterance or topic. In addition, these expressions have an important interactive role.