From 'looking' to 'seeing': Indexing delayed intelligibility of an object with the Danish change-of-state token n↑å↓:

•A change-of-state can be perceptual.•In Danish a perceptual shift can be indexed with n↑å↓:.•Perceptual shifts are indexed after extended and intense periods of scrutiny.•A n↑å↓: after such scrutiny index that an object is now intelligible.

This paper focuses on a particular type of change-of-state, namely one involving a shift from looking to seeing. In Danish, this change-of-state is indexed by producing a prosodically modified version of the more standard change-of-state token, nÃ¥, with longer duration and rise-fall pitch, as n↑å↓:. The paper demonstrates how n↑å↓: can be employed to index a particular type of delayed now-understanding, namely that an object which a participant had earlier failed to see for what it is has now - and only now - become intelligible to that participant. I identify two sequential contexts in which the intelligibility of an object can be made relevant; (a) as an a priori concern by virtue of questions such as “what is that?” and (b) as gradually emerging through interactional relevancies. For both contexts I demonstrate that the production of n↑å↓: is systematically organized to conclude extended periods of intense scrutiny and that n↑å↓: thus serves to claim that its producer has undergone a shift from simply looking at an object to now seeing what that object is.