+ Models PRAGMA-4226; No. of Pages 15 Please cite this article in press as: Kasterpalu, R., Hennoste, T., Estonian aa: [1_TD$DIFF]A multifunctional change-of-state token. Journal of Pragmatics (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.06.010 Estonian aa: [1_TD$DIFF]A multifunctional change-of-state token Riina Kasterpalu * [2_TD$DIFF] , Tiit Hennoste [3_TD$DIFF]Laboratory of Spoken and Computer Mediated Communication, Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics, University of Tartu, [4_TD$DIFF]Jakobi Str 2-407, 50090 Tartu, Estonia Received 31 October 2015; received in revised form 17 June 2016; accepted 21 June 2016 Abstract The aim of the article is to show that Estonian aa is a multifunctional change-of-state particle. The audio data comes from the Corpus of Spoken Estonian of the University of Tartu and comprises 204 instances sourced from face-to-face conversations as well as phone calls, including both everyday and institutional interaction. As a response to the information given in the prior turn, aa functions as a marker of understanding in four contexts mentioned in the previous literature. Aa indicates change from not-knowing to now-knowing as a response to information and to question-elicited information, the solution of the problem in a repair sequence and change from being wrongly informed to rightly informed. In addition, aa is used as a marker of sudden recollection. We introduced a new kind of change-of-state not described in literature: aa as a marker of delayed realization. In the first position, we described four functions of aa: a marker of independent now remembering, independent noticing, successful outcome of a search[6_TD$DIFF], and a new variant of independent delayed realization. Our analysis indicates that participants rely on the sequential position of aa to determine the change-of-state functions. We compare the usage of aa with the change-of-state tokens of English, German and Finnish. © 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V. [46_TD $DIFF] Keywords: Change-of-state; Estonian aa; Independent; Understanding; Information receipt; Now-knowing; Delayed realization; Now- remembering; Noticing; Successful outcome of the search; Sudden recollection 1. Introduction In his seminal article on the English oh, [189_TD$DIFF]Heritage (1984) opened up a new inquiry of certain response particles as change- of-state tokens. Since then, particles flagging information receipt have been studied in a variety of languages. In English, the change-of-state token is oh (Heritage, 1984, 1998, 2005; see overview in Golato, 2012:248--249). In other languages, like Finnish, German, Danish, and Japanese, several different particles are used to indicate a change-of-state ([9_TD$DIFF]inter alia Betz and Golato, 2008; Golato, 2010, 2012; Golato and Betz, 2008; Emmertsen and Heinemann, 2010; Heinemann, 2009, 2015; Hayano, 2011; Koivisto, 2013, 2015a,[10_TD$DIFF]b; Sorjonen, 1999, 2001). Estonian belongs to this group as well. As far as we know, there is no generally accepted typology of change-of-state functions. In the following paragraphs, we introduce functional and contextual variants presented in previous research of English, German and Finnish, which are relevant to the analysis of Estonian change-of-state tokens. Most of the studies devote their attention to change-of-state tokens produced as a response to information given by a co-participant in the prior turn. The tokens and their uses have been classified either by sequential contexts or by functions. Our study uses a functional approach according to which change-of-state tokens [11_TD$DIFF]fulfil three interactional functions (cf. Golato, 2010:149; Koivisto, 2015a:141). In two of the functions, the token treats the prior talk as news. In the www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Journal of Pragmatics xxx (2016) xxx--xxx * Corresponding author. E-mail address: riina.kasterpalu@ut.ee (R. Kasterpalu). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.06.010 0378-2166/© 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.