It's funny because …: From clause-combining pattern to projector construction in French talk-in-interaction

This paper offers an interactional multimodal analysis of linguistic usage patterns comprising parce que ‘because’ in conversational French, focusing on instances that can be schematized as [assessment + parce que + clause/multi-unit stretch of talk]. While because-clauses represent a prototypical case of subordination, previous research has shown that these are not always grammatically subordinate but can be used in pragmatic ways to perform stand-alone social actions. This paper expands on these findings by identifying two distinct usage patterns of the focal structure. In pattern I, parce que links two actions—an assessment and an account for the assessment—hence working as a pragmatic marker. Pattern II, in turn, shows a highly routinized format, the first part of which, [c'est + adjective + parce que], works as a semi-fixed, formulaic projector construction that serves to orient co-participants' attention to upcoming talk and to frame that talk in terms of the speaker's stance. Parce que here is semantically strongly reduced and has become part of a pragmatic projection routine. We further suggest that occurrences of a similar structure—[c'est + adj] without parce que (e.g., c'est intéressant ’it's interesting’, followed by a (multi-unit) stretch of talk)—may be placed further down the path on a continuum of pragmaticalization. We discuss implications of these findings for the relationship between what “on prima facie grounds” (Evans, 2007: 367) formally appear to be main and subordinate clauses, and suggest that pattern II (and its variant without parce que) may have evolved through repeated implementation of the conversational assessment-account routine materializing in pattern I.