Although previous studies of postposing have demonstrated its varied functions, they did not compare the use of postposing across age and genre. In this study, I compare/contrast the use of postposing in two discussions, two lunch conversations, and two task conversations (one each among four women in their 20's and in their 50's/60's, respectively). I address the following questions: 1) How does postposing differ between the two age groups and across the three genre, 2) How does its use relate to utterance function.
Hinds (1982) demonstrated that postposing functioned to disambiguate, clarify, justify and/or make the host more prominent, mark (sub)topics, and emphasize the postposed element. Maynard (1989) showed that it aided comprehension, compensated for production/memory limitations, foregrounded the host, and reduced imposition. Clancy (1982, 1985) found that when postposing was used to prevent misunderstanding, the host had final falling intonation followed by a pause. In contrast, when the postposed element had low flat intonation it defocused information, gave more precise specification, and if a repetition, emphasized the postposed element. Ono & Suzuki (1992) demonstrated that when followed by pause, postposing was used for specification and repair, and without pause it had discourse-pragmatic and emotive functions, which are becoming grammaticalized.
Results of my analysis showed that although the younger women used postposing at a similar rate across the three genre (1/30 utterances), the older women used the least amount in the discussion (1/100), more in the lunch conversation (1/60) and a similar amount as the younger women in the task. While the younger women used postposing in statements(51%)> agreement requests(32%)>questions(17%), the older women used it more in agreement requests (60%)>statements(30%)>questions(10%). Results suggest that the use of postposing may be increasing over time, and its increased use in statements suggests that a wider range of postposed structures have become grammaticalized.