Jim Miller and Regina Weinert investigate syntactic structure and the organization of discourse in spontaneous spoken language. Using data from English, German, and Russian, they develop a systematic analysis of spoken English and highlight properties that hold across languages.
The authors argue that the differences in syntax and the construction of discourse between spontaneous speech and written language bear on various areas of linguistic theory, apart from having obvious implications for syntactic analysis. In particular, they bear on typology, Chomskyan theories of first language...

The authors examine the types of clauses used by people when they are speaking off the cuff. They also analyze the devices speakers use when organizing larger chunks of language, such as conversations. Using data from English, German, and Russian, they develop a systematic analysis of spoken English and highlight cross-language properties. They argue that there are major and systematic differences between spoken and written language, and conclude by exploring the implications of their findings for typology, first-language acquisition, and education.