Turn construction unit

A transition relevance place (TRP) is a point of possible completion (or potential end) of an utterance (hence a TCU) where speaker change is a possible next action. ==Turn allocation==

Each time a turn is over, speakers also have to decide who can talk next, and this is called turn allocation. The rules for turn allocation is commonly formulated in the same way as in the original Simplest Systematics paper, with 2 parts where the first consists of 3 elements: • a. If the current speaker selects a next one to speak at the end of current TCU (by name, gaze or contextual aspects of what is said), the selected speaker has the right and obligation to speak next. • b. If the current speaker does not select a next speaker, other potential speakers have the right to self-select (the first starter gets the turn) • c. If options 1a and 1b have not been implemented, current speaker may continue with another TCU. • At the end of that TCU, the option system applies again. Some types of turns may require extra work before they can successfully take place. Speakers wanting a long turn, for example to tell a story or describe important news, must first establish that others will not intervene during the course of the telling through some form of preface and approval by the listener (a so-called go-ahead). The preface and its associated go-ahead comprise a pre-sequence. Conversations cannot be appropriately ended by 'just stopping', but require a special closing sequence. == Classifications ==

Role types Four types of TCU can be distinguished through the form of the utterance: • Lexical TCU: e.g. "Yes", "There" • Phrasal TCU: e.g. "In the basket", "out of here" • Clausal TCU: e.g. "When I am free", "If I got the job" • Sentential TCU: e.g. "I am working on my thesis", "He has got my car" Unit design types TCUs can be created or recognized via four methods, i.e. types of unit design: • Grammatical methods, i.e. morphosyntactic structures. • Prosodic methods, e.g. pitch, speed and changes in pronunciation. • Pragmatic methods: turns perform actions, and at the point where listeners have heard enough and know enough, a turn can be pragmatically complete. • Visual methods: Gesture, gaze and body movement is also used to indicate that a turn is over. For example, a person speaking looks at the next speaker when their turn is about to end. Scholars debate over the relative significance of the above four resources as signifiers of the end of an utterance. == Types of silence ==

Based on the turn-taking system, three types of silence may be distinguished: • Pause: A period of silence within a speaker's TCU, i.e. during a speaker's turn when a sentence is not finished. • Gap: A period of silence between turns, for example after a question has been asked and not yet answered • Lapse: A period of silence when no sequence or other structured activity is in progress: the current speaker stops talking, does not select a next speaker, and no one self selects. Lapses are commonly associated with visual or other forms of disengagement between speakers, even if these periods are brief. ==References==