Jah ning jaa kinnitusküsimuse vastusena noorte argivestlustes
Jah and jaa as responses to requests for confirmation in young people’s everyday conversations

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the use of the particles jah and jaa ’yes’ as minimal responses to requests for confirmation in ordinary spoken interaction among Estonian-speaking youth aged 10–13.Previous research on adult spoken interaction has shown that although both jah and jaa confirm the accuracy of the proposition presented in the question, the particles are not functionally equivalent. The analysis demonstrates that both the structure of question–answer sequences and the distribution of jah and jaa in youth interaction differ from adult conversational norms.First, jaa occurs significantly more frequently than jah in the youth data (59 vs. 9 occurrences, 87%), whereas in adult interaction, jah is slightly more frequent than jaa. Second, no systematic functional distinction between the two particles emerges in the youth corpus. One difference concerns the attitudinal stance of the question. Jah is used similarly to adult interaction, occurring in response to both neutral and non-neutral questions. In contrast, jaa occurs more frequently in response to neutral than to stance-marked questions in youth interaction, indicating a neutralization of its function. A further difference concerns sequence organization. In adult conversations, after jah, the local sequence is closed, while after jaa, the sequence is expanded by the questioner. In the youth data, however, neither particle reliably predicts sequence closure or continuation. These differences can be interpreted in two ways. One explanation is developmental: the youth may not yet have fully acquired the pragmatic norms governing the respective particle use. Another possibility would be ongoing language change, whereby the functional distinctions between jah and jaa would be neutralized, with jaa expanding at the expense of jah.

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