Dealing with Ambiguities in Informings: Finnish Aijaa as a “Neutral” News Receipt

This article discusses the use of the Finnish particle aijaa in responding to informings. As a news receipt, aijaa is neutral in the sense that it does not display affect nor explicitly topicalize the prior talk. However, it is not closing implicative either but can be followed by further talk by the informer. The article focuses on how the “neutrality” and sequential ambiguity of the particle are manifested in different stages of a news delivery. It will be shown that aijaa is an adequate response to initial announcements but nonaffiliative and thus insufficient when responding to possibly complete, valenced tellings. The data are in Finnish with English translation.