Italian tag questions and their conversational functions

This study examines the use of tag questions in Italian conversation. We propose a classification of their discourse functions, and provide an account of their syntactic and discourse contexts. The data used are recordings of conversation in several settings: experimental game settings, a reality TV show, and TV and radio talk shows, for a total of 60.4 h. The analysis uncovered seven main functions, some of which do not conform to existing classifications in the literature. We explore the relationship between these functions and the conversational settings in which they are used, their placement within the utterance, and their relationship with asymmetries in participants' leadership roles in specific settings.