| Abstract: |
This report identifies a distinct, and distinctly positioned, element of the repair segment—the repair preface—and focuses on or-prefacing to introduce the practice of repair prefacing and to develop an analysis of one preface type. Although or-prefaced repairs do substitute one formulation for another, the or-preface shows that the trouble source formulation is not being discarded altogether, thereby mitigating the reparative character of the repair operation. We also examine expanded or-prefaced repair segments for what they reveal about the part or-prefacing plays in repair. Additionally, and as part of our explication of repair prefacing, we show how some same-TCU repairs (with and without or-prefaces) can be mounted without progressivity-disrupting hitches or alerts. Data are in American and British English. |