Phraseology and Culture in English

5. Conversational routines as stems 
Frames are linked to ‘stems’ rather than to sentences or words (Pawley and 
Syder 1983: 210). (Cf. the similar use of ‘construction’ in Fillmore et al. 
1988.) According to Pawley and Syder (1983: 210): 
A sentence stem consists either of a complete sentence, or, more commonly, 
an expression which is something less than a complete sentence. In the lat- 

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Karin Aijmer 
ter case, the sentence structure is fully specified along with a nucleus of 
lexical and grammatical morphemes which normally include the verb and 
certain of its arguments; however, one or more structural elements is a class, 
represented by a category symbol such as TENSE, NP or PRO. For exam-
ple, in the conventional expressions of apology: 
(20) I’m sorry to keep you waiting. 
I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting. 
Mr X is sorry to keep you waiting all this time. 
a recurrent collocation can be isolated together with a grammatical frame: 
(21) NP be-TENSE sorry to keep-TENSE you waiting.
There are stems for self-identification, for requests, questions and for clos-
ings (Aijmer 1996). For example a self-identification in the form of the 
name can be derived from a sentence stem, ie an abstract representation of 
the sentence permitting deletions, rearrangements and expansions. 
Thank you has the form of a lexicalised sentence stem with optional 
elements (cf. Aijmer 1996: 44). From the stem below both thank you and 
thank you very much (thank you so much, etc.) can be derived. Stems can 
also combine with other stems (thank you good bye):
thank you (INTENSIFIER) 
A stem has a form which can be varied depending on who the recipient is, 
how the situation is conceptualised and the degree of politeness which is 
required. Parts of the stem can be deletable. For example we can use the 
stem 
(this is) NAME 
to explain that the simple name can be used for self-identification (‘This is 
Henry’-> Henry). 
The stem can be associated with a certain prosody, a literal or strategic 
meaning and a function in addition to the situtional meaning.