This article explores the interconnection between grammar and the performance of preferred and dispreferred responses in Japanese. As is well known, dispreferred format turns are structurally more complex than preferred format turns, regularly delayed, accompanied by prefaces and accounts, mitigated, or made indirect. Owing to the flexibility of Japanese grammar, participants have expanded intra-turn capacity to maximize or minimize compliance with such formats. On one extreme, a dispreferred action can be massively delayed until near the turn-ending through opting for so-called canonical predicate-final word order and minimization of ellipsis. On the other extreme, a preferred action can be expedited to the very opening of a turn through non-canonical predicate-initial word order by taking advantage of word order variability and ellipsis. Such syntactic practices are interactionally managed for calibrating the timing of social action. It emerges that the canonical word order – assumed to be the generically unmarked alternative – is actually optimally tailored for the implementation of marked (dispreferred) responses, as opposed to a non-canonical word order for unmarked (preferred) responses, in the given sequential environment.

This article employs conversation analysis to investigate the role of adverbials in Japanese talk-in-interaction for the projection of further talk and some implications this has for interactional styles. Through examination of naturally occurring talk, it is first observed that a typical usage of adverbials is in some position preceding the predicate, although they are also appended as post-predicate additions. Second, when adverbials are produced prior to a predicate, evidently they can strongly project a forthcoming predicate within the particular interactional context. Given the importance of predicates within Japanese turns, adverbials have a major part to play, not only in assisting participants to foreshadow a probable unfolding of an utterance, but also to enable recipients to achieve early alignment with emerging talk and to expedite the implementation of subsequent actions. These features are shown to be a powerful resource in the facilitation of seemingly implicit styles of communication.