Discourse marker compositionality:

yeah-no and no-yeah

Russell Lee-Goldman
rleegold@berkeley.edu
University of California, Berkeley

12th International Pragmatics Conference

Manchester, 38 July 2011

RLG (UC Berkeley)

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Outline
1

Introduction

No: More familiar functions

No: other functions

Yeah in brief

Yeah-no and No-yeah

Discussion

Wrap-up

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Introduction

Outline
1

Introduction

No: More familiar functions

No: other functions

Yeah in brief

Yeah-no and No-yeah

Discussion

Wrap-up

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Introduction

Goals

Introduce some under-recognized uses of no as a discourse

marker (DM).
Illustrate how and when yeah and no are used together.
Discuss the possibility for the lexicalization of a compound DM:
yeah-no.

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Introduction

Yeah-no: a preview

Yeah and no are usable in combination. More commonly as yeah no:

David: that it really was lower, although sometimes
as you say, it would.
Susan:Yeah, no, that was - That was a jok- or a sort of [Bmr009]
[audio]

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Introduction

No-yeah: a preview

Sometimes as no yeah:
L: To grow money, besides like supporting an industry thats basically a
sin industry and
R: Well, [alcohol] is too.
L:
[you know]
L: No, yeah, definitely.
R: Alcohol is more so than cigarettes.
[audio]

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Introduction

The questions

To what extent are combinations of yeah and no understandable

as instantiating uses (functions, or senses) of the two words which
are observable when they appear in isolation?
Are there non-compositional uses of the combinations?
Are there any differences between yeah-no and no-yeah?

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Introduction

Data
Corpora:
ICSI Meeting Recorder Corpus (multiparty, face-to-face,
colleagues)
English Fisher Corpus (dialogue, telephone, strangers)
Data extraction:
ICSI: Extracted all instances of yeah followed immediately by no
(and vice versa) within two seconds from a single speaker.
Yeah-no: 78

No-yeah: 11

Fisher: Extracted all instances of yeah followed immediately by

no, with possible intruding punctuation.
Yeah-no: 1153 (600 excludedno audio)
No-yeah: 277 (86 excludedno audio)

Random samples for analysis. yeah-no: 61

RLG (UC Berkeley)

Yeah-no and no-yeah

no-yeah: 35.
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No: More familiar functions

Outline
1

Introduction

No: More familiar functions

No: other functions

Yeah in brief

Yeah-no and No-yeah

Discussion

Wrap-up

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No: More familiar functions

Response token

No is a potential response to certain types of speech acts, such as

polar questions, commands, and requests.
A: Are you coming?
B: No. (I cant).
A: Open the door please.
B: No. (You do it).

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No: More familiar functions

Extensions

Disagree with a statement:

A: Shes a lawyer.
B: No, shes not
Negative exclamation or command:
No! I cant believe it!
No! Dont do that!

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No: other functions

Outline
1

Introduction

No: More familiar functions

No: other functions

Yeah in brief

Yeah-no and No-yeah

Discussion

Wrap-up

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No: other functions

Acknowledgement

No is usable as an acknowledgement token if the prior (triggering) turn

was negative. (Jefferson, 2002)
A: I dont see how someone could do forty hours a week on
transcription.
B: No. Youre right. Its - i- it would be too taxing. [Bmr010]

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No: other functions

Topic-shift

No marks a shift to a prior topic, or an earlier-projected topic. In (1),

the end of the meeting was almost underway when the discussion was
briefly turned towards scheduling.
[audio]

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No: other functions

Joke-to-serious

One special case of topic-shift is to mark a transition from joking

to serious discourse. (Schegloff, 2001).
In (2), one participant initates a humorous sequence (I think you
should demand things from him), which is concluded by the
groups leader no-initial utterance.
[audio]

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No: other functions

Clearing up misunderstandings

No can operate on one of a multiple of levels to reject a

presupposition or implicit belief that the speaker believes an
interlocutor holds.
In (3), the worries of one participant, evident in his behavior, are
rejected by another participant.
[audio]

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No: other functions

...and many others

There are of course many other functions, or senses, of no, alone

and in combination with other DMs.
In terms of combination with yeah, the acknowledgement,
topic-shift, and misunderstanding-related uses are sufficient.

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No: other functions

...and many others

There are of course many other functions, or senses, of no, alone

and in combination with other DMs.
In terms of combination with yeah, the acknowledgement,
topic-shift, and misunderstanding-related uses are sufficient.

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Yeah in brief

Outline
1

Introduction

No: More familiar functions

No: other functions

Yeah in brief

Yeah-no and No-yeah

Discussion

Wrap-up

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Yeah in brief

The multifunctionality of yeah

Response to a question (sometimes as a marker of a more

detailed response) (Drummond & Hopper, 1993)
Make an assessment or mark an agreement/affiliation...with
regard to the prior talk (Tao, 2003)
A: Where did you go yesterday?
B: Yeah, where did you go yesterday?

A shift in topic, and in speakerhood (Fuller, 2003; Jefferson, 1984)

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Yeah in brief

The multifunctionality of yeah

Response to a question (sometimes as a marker of a more

detailed response) (Drummond & Hopper, 1993)
Make an assessment or mark an agreement/affiliation...with
regard to the prior talk (Tao, 2003)
A: Where did you go yesterday?
B: Yeah, where did you go yesterday?

A shift in topic, and in speakerhood (Fuller, 2003; Jefferson, 1984)

RLG (UC Berkeley)

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Yeah in brief

The multifunctionality of yeah

Response to a question (sometimes as a marker of a more

detailed response) (Drummond & Hopper, 1993)
Make an assessment or mark an agreement/affiliation...with
regard to the prior talk (Tao, 2003)
A: Where did you go yesterday?
B: Yeah, where did you go yesterday?

A shift in topic, and in speakerhood (Fuller, 2003; Jefferson, 1984)

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Yeah-no and No-yeah

Outline
1

Introduction

No: More familiar functions

No: other functions

Yeah in brief

Yeah-no and No-yeah

Discussion

Wrap-up

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Yeah-no and No-yeah

Previous research

Burridge & Florey (2002) present a detailed analysis of many

instances from Australian English.
They discern three classes of use: propositional, textual, and
personal.
The current project aims to see what can be learned by trying to
understand instances of yeah-no and no-yeah in terms of their
parts.

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Yeah-no and No-yeah

Compositionality - I

(4): no-yeah
A tells B about what it is like in England during a holiday.
The description includes a negatively-framed description.
a lot of people have those days off their job, which doesnt really
happen here

B uses both yeah and no to express agreement/understanding.

[audio]

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Yeah-no and No-yeah

Compositionality - II

(5): Yeah-no
Susan had proposed an idea, initially presenting it as unlikely (not
in clip)
David (group leader) discusses it for a while, but is somewhat
skeptical
Susan shows uptake of the criticism/comments with yeah, and
rejects the group leaders understanding of her claim with no
Would be possible with just no (or, with a different feel, just yeah).
[audio]

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Yeah-no and No-yeah

Compositionality - III

(6): Yeah-no
A group member offers Alice a larger role in the project.
A joking discourse emerges.
At the end, Alice brings it back to the question at hand. No marks
the transition to serious talk. Yeah is polyfunctional, indicating one
or more of: uptake, topic wrap-up, positive response to an offer.
[audio]

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Yeah-no and No-yeah

Interim summary

Most instances of yeah-no and no-yeah are compositional.

But are there any combinations that are not understandable as a
simple sequence of yeah and no?
Yes. (Probably).

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Yeah-no and No-yeah

Interim summary

Most instances of yeah-no and no-yeah are compositional.

But are there any combinations that are not understandable as a
simple sequence of yeah and no?
Yes. (Probably).

RLG (UC Berkeley)

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Yeah-no and No-yeah

Interim summary

Most instances of yeah-no and no-yeah are compositional.

But are there any combinations that are not understandable as a
simple sequence of yeah and no?
Yes. (Probably).

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Yeah-no and No-yeah

Dealing with differences

Several tokens of yeah-no surround differences cropping up

between the speakers (primarily in the telephone corpus). The
yeah-no appears at a juncture where one speaker has mentioned
an opinion, judgment, etc., and the other decides to admit to the
difference.
In (7) the difference is in experience with keeping fish.
[audio]
Other points of difference: weather, minimum wage, treatment of
dogs, automatic transmission.

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Yeah-no and No-yeah

Dealing with differences

Several tokens of yeah-no surround differences cropping up

between the speakers (primarily in the telephone corpus). The
yeah-no appears at a juncture where one speaker has mentioned
an opinion, judgment, etc., and the other decides to admit to the
difference.
In (7) the difference is in experience with keeping fish.
[audio]
Other points of difference: weather, minimum wage, treatment of
dogs, automatic transmission.

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Yeah-no and No-yeah

Radio interviews
Yeah-no is common in (news) radio interviews, especially after the
host has just prompted a guest for an opinion.
[after a listener calls in with a series of observations, including the
frequency of robust in recent public discourse]
Neal Conan: Any thoughts on those, Geoffrey?
Geoffrey Nunberg: Yeah. No. I think robust, for example, is an
instance of one of those vogue words that for one reason or another is
just picked up and people like the sound of it. Youre right. I dont know
if its erudition but theres a kind of pleasure in saying a word like that
and everybody plugs into it.
NPR, Talk of the Nation, 2 June 2004: Language Use in
Confrontational Times
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Discussion

Outline
1

Introduction

No: More familiar functions

No: other functions

Yeah in brief

Yeah-no and No-yeah

Discussion

Wrap-up

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Discussion

Does the order matter?

Not all uses of no and yeah are attested or equally frequent in the
two orders.
No in the two orders:
agree disagree misunderst. response
y-n 7
3
19
0
n-y 13
0
4
3
Yeah: Categorization is extremeley difficult.

topic-shift
8
4

Acknowledgement tokens are more common with yeah-no, while

response tokens dominate with no-yeah.
Indicates pragmatic specialization of yeah-no towards high-level
interactional management.

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Discussion

Does the order matter?

Not all uses of no and yeah are attested or equally frequent in the
two orders.
No in the two orders:
agree disagree misunderst. response
y-n 7
3
19
0
n-y 13
0
4
3
Yeah: Categorization is extremeley difficult.

topic-shift
8
4

Acknowledgement tokens are more common with yeah-no, while

response tokens dominate with no-yeah.
Indicates pragmatic specialization of yeah-no towards high-level
interactional management.

RLG (UC Berkeley)

Yeah-no and no-yeah

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Discussion

Does the order matter?

Not all uses of no and yeah are attested or equally frequent in the
two orders.
No in the two orders:
agree disagree misunderst. response
y-n 7
3
19
0
n-y 13
0
4
3
Yeah: Categorization is extremeley difficult.

topic-shift
8
4

Acknowledgement tokens are more common with yeah-no, while

response tokens dominate with no-yeah.
Indicates pragmatic specialization of yeah-no towards high-level
interactional management.

RLG (UC Berkeley)

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Discussion

Specialization

Some further evidence for pragmatic specialization in yeah-no.

The two group leaders accounted for 55% (Chuck) and 53%
(David) of tokens, while only accounting for 35% and 32% of the
total speech (by amount of time speaking).
In the ICSI corpus, yeah-no is heavily skewed towards managing
the flow of conversation and common ground.
No-yeah was much less common and was not dominated by any
individual.

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Discussion

Specialization

Some further evidence for pragmatic specialization in yeah-no.

The two group leaders accounted for 55% (Chuck) and 53%
(David) of tokens, while only accounting for 35% and 32% of the
total speech (by amount of time speaking).
In the ICSI corpus, yeah-no is heavily skewed towards managing
the flow of conversation and common ground.
No-yeah was much less common and was not dominated by any
individual.

RLG (UC Berkeley)

Yeah-no and no-yeah

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Discussion

Specialization

Some further evidence for pragmatic specialization in yeah-no.

The two group leaders accounted for 55% (Chuck) and 53%
(David) of tokens, while only accounting for 35% and 32% of the
total speech (by amount of time speaking).
In the ICSI corpus, yeah-no is heavily skewed towards managing
the flow of conversation and common ground.
No-yeah was much less common and was not dominated by any
individual.

RLG (UC Berkeley)

Yeah-no and no-yeah

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Discussion

Why does yeah-no predominate?

Yeah-no is by far more common than no-yeah (Fisher: 4.83:1.

ICSI: 7.09:1)
Speculation: The speaker first acknowledge the prior contribution,
then either address problems it raises or attempt to move back to
a prior topic.
Holds true for no-yeah: the first DM functions to agree with,
disagree with, or acknowledge the prior utterance.

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Wrap-up

Outline
1

Introduction

No: More familiar functions

No: other functions

Yeah in brief

Yeah-no and No-yeah

Discussion

Wrap-up

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Wrap-up

Summary

Combinations of yeah and no are frequent...

...but not very surprising, especially when considering the wide
range of functions available to no
Yeah-no is more frequent than no-yeah. It is or is becoming
specialized for certain discourse flow- and common
ground-related tasks, especially in meetings and interviews.
Beyond specialization, there are indications that a lexicalized DM
yeah-no is developing its own properties, semi-independently of
yeah and no.

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Wrap-up

Summary

Combinations of yeah and no are frequent...

...but not very surprising, especially when considering the wide
range of functions available to no
Yeah-no is more frequent than no-yeah. It is or is becoming
specialized for certain discourse flow- and common
ground-related tasks, especially in meetings and interviews.
Beyond specialization, there are indications that a lexicalized DM
yeah-no is developing its own properties, semi-independently of
yeah and no.

RLG (UC Berkeley)

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Wrap-up

Summary

Combinations of yeah and no are frequent...

...but not very surprising, especially when considering the wide
range of functions available to no
Yeah-no is more frequent than no-yeah. It is or is becoming
specialized for certain discourse flow- and common
ground-related tasks, especially in meetings and interviews.
Beyond specialization, there are indications that a lexicalized DM
yeah-no is developing its own properties, semi-independently of
yeah and no.

RLG (UC Berkeley)

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Wrap-up

Summary

Combinations of yeah and no are frequent...

...but not very surprising, especially when considering the wide
range of functions available to no
Yeah-no is more frequent than no-yeah. It is or is becoming
specialized for certain discourse flow- and common
ground-related tasks, especially in meetings and interviews.
Beyond specialization, there are indications that a lexicalized DM
yeah-no is developing its own properties, semi-independently of
yeah and no.

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Wrap-up

Future work

Implications for DM research

Interesting patterns of DM combination are made more interesting
by examining their (lack of) compositionality.
Research should fit into a wider task of the grammar of DMs.

As always, more data from different interactional contexts.

Investigate connections to social and power structure in the
interaction.
Whats so special about yeah and no? How about yes, yep,
uh-huh, mm-mm, nah, nope, ...

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Wrap-up

Acknowledgements

Thank you!

Thanks also to Eve Sweetser, Alice Gaby, Michael Ellsworth, and audiences
at UC Berkeley for fruitful discussion and criticism. Thanks to ICSI for making
available the ICSI and Fisher corpora.
Slides available at http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~rleegold

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Wrap-up

References
Burridge, K., & Florey, M. (2002). Yeah-no hes a good kid: A Discourse
Analysis of Yeah-no in Australian English. Australian Journal of
Linguistics, 22(2), 149171.
Drummond, K., & Hopper, R. (1993). Some Uses of Yeah. Research on
Language and Social Interaction, 26(2), 20312.
Fuller, J. M. (2003). The influence of speaker roles on discourse marker use.
Journal of Pragmatics, 35, 2345.
Jefferson, G. (1984). Notes on a Systematic Deployment of the
Acknowledgement Tokens Yeah and Mmhm. Papers in Linguistics,
17(2), 197216.
Jefferson, G. (2002). Is no an acknowledgment token? Comparing
American and British uses of (+)/() tokens. Journal of Pragmatics,
34, 13451383.
Schegloff, E. A. (2001). Getting serious: Joke serious no. Journal of
Pragmatics, 33, 19451955.
Tao, H. (2003). Turn Initiators in Spoken English: A Corpus-Based Approach
to Interaction and Grammar. In P. Leistyna & C. F. Meyer (Eds.), (pp.
187208). Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi.
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Wrap-up

Compositionality - IV

(7): No-yeah
A asks B a leading question about the actions of George W. Bush,
which B hesitates to react to.
A clarifies, and B responds first by indicating with no that he
rejects the implication of disagreement, then by indicating with
yeah his agreement with the proposition.
[audio]

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Wrap-up

Radio interviews

BLOCK: I gather you knew that the team leader who was killed, Tom
Little, in your work in Afghanistan. I imagine this hits especially close to
home for you.
Dr. FANGE: Yeah, no, it was a very tragic thing and, of course,
everybody who knew Tom and also who knew the others who were
murdered, and so everybody are very upset, of course.
NPR, All Things Considered, 10 August 2010: Aid Groups Weigh
Work In Afghanistan After Killings

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Wrap-up

Popular observations

Yeah-no is noticable.
Urban Dictonary: A phrase that people now use to start
sentences for some goddamn reason.
Facebook page entitled: Please stop beginning your statements
with yeah, no.
A blog reader submits a most hated phrase: Answering a
question with Yeah, No. Contradictory much?

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Wrap-up

Popular observations
A slew of observations by the authors and readers of Language
Log and Language Hat.
[This particular token] covers all the interactional bases it
acknowledges the interlocutor and (ambiguously) suggests
agreement, while simultaneously (and ambiguously) indicating
novelty in the form of divergence from (perhaps shared)
presuppositions or expectations. (Mark Liberman, blogger at
Language Log)
"Yes, I acknowledge what you said and I accept the criticism or
clarification you have proposed regarding my previous
statement, or regret that I have not made myself clear, and so I
hereby retract, amend, or amplify my position on the subject."
(Field Interviewee No. 47, commenter at languagehat)

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