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Feature 3: Tails

Tails, also known as right-dislocation, are comments that are added to the end of a phrase. For example:

“My teacher is really nice, the one from America.” (With tail)

“My teacher from America is really nice.” (No tail)

Tails can be a whole phrase, as in the example, “It’s very nice, that road up through Skipton to the Dales” (McCarthy and Carter 1995, 211), or they can consist of just one word, as in the example, “It’s a serious picture, that” (Timmis 2010, 333).

Tails have a range of functions, including clarifying a comment, expressing a personal attitude or judgment of an item, or serving an interpersonal function (Timmis 2010). Tails enable speakers to deal with the real-time processing and interactiveness of speech by allowing speakers to both edit their comments and give evaluative statements of topics (Rüh- lemann 2006).