Analysing everyday conversation 145element R/I, i.e. it tends to occur in Inform and bound-Elicit exchanges. (It
is also common in primary knower initiated Elicit exchanges, which are
discussed in the next section.)
There is, however, a further possibility: an exchange in which the
act informative does occur twice, but where the occurrences can be
distinguished from each other in terms of the lexical items which realize
them. According to our definitions, an informative may be realized in
two ways:
(a) an assertion of major information, such as would be elicited by a wh-
question. It may occur at I or at R.
(b) an assertion of polarity in answer to a neutral proposal. It occurs at R.
Polarity answers to marked proposals are coded concur, confirm, qualify
or reject, depending on whether and how far they confirm the underlying
presuppositions of the proposal. A neutral proposal, which expects no
particular answer, contains no such presuppositions, or at least not overtly.
We therefore take informative to be the more appropriate coding. An
example of this sort of informative is:
Example 17 act
B: Are you still in NS n.pr
A: No i
We propose that an exchange may contain one of each type of informative,
for example:
Example 18 act e.s move e.s
A: It’s red i h informin gI
B: Dark red? n.pr h elicitin gR/I
A: Yes i h informin gR
In exchange and move terms, therefore, this is coded in the same way as:
Example 19 act e.s move e.s
A: It’s red i h informin gI
B: Dark red I suppose m.pr h elicitin gR/I
A: Yes (mid key) conc h informin gR
PREDICTABILITY AND THE EXCHANGE
The elements of structure of the exchange, I, R/I, R and F, are defined by
Coulthard and Brazil in terms of predictablity. The definitions may be summarized
as follows: