Commentary

While I make interesting claims in this paper, it suffers from the problem that the instances represent not one phenomenon but a variety of phenomena. I was intrigued by several fragments of interaction in which participants reported their source or basis for their assertions, and I started collecting more instances of that. However, in making the collection, I neglected to take into account the sequential contexts in which speakers report their sources, and I shortchanged my analysis of the actions accomplished by reporting the source or basis. The result is that the paper has different sections describing various uses rather than being an entire paper dedicated to one phenomenon. In this commentary, I clarify the various sequential contexts in which participants report a source or basis for an assertion, sequential contexts that are essential for understanding their uses....