In conversation analytic and interactional studies, some responses are analyzed as being minimal.This article explores minimality in regard to two types of answers that appear to be used interchangeably as minimal responses to yes/no questions in Estonian. The answers represent typologically different formats, particles and echo answers. It is argued that minimality should be defined in a sequentially sensitive manner and that the two answer formats are used to display speakers’ understanding of the status of the social action implemented in (...) the preceding question. The data come from audio recordings of phone calls and face-to-face interaction. (shrink)

This article provides arguments to show that there is a form of syntax specific to the bodily movements of certain martial arts. This syntax of bodily mouvements is different from that usually identified in multimodal conversational analysis which consists of the addition of bodily extensions to speech turns Keevallik (Res Lang Soc Interact 46(1):1–21, 2013) and (Res Lang Soc Interact 51(1):1–21, 2018). Based on an analysis of video extracts from two martial arts (Aikido and Kenpo), the article shows that (...) martial arts movements, accomplished within a martial intercorporeality, acquire syntactic characteristics that make it possible to anticipate trajectories accomplished simultaneously, before and during body contact. The article presents the four movement-units common to these two martial arts and the way participants combine them, in a sequentiality of simultaneity. (shrink)