Storytelling, lists, and the role of Catalan final particle <i>iau</i>

Abstract Interactional research into storytelling has focused on the telling, the sequential organization of the narration in the turn-at-talk, while research on lists looks at their structure in interaction. The present study contributes to the scarce work on telling-endings and on generalized list completers by focusing on the grammaticalized Catalan final particle i au . Drawing from a vast corpus of oral narrations in Catalan (58 hours), I show how speakers use i au in narrations to end a series of actions and progress to the rest of the story. In lists, speakers employ i au to put an end to an enumeration of similarly related items, to indicate that no more may be added. Both ending functions are achieved due to a pragmatic resignification of the core meanings of the components of i au . The linking conjunction i facilitates a sequential connection to the last element of the series, and the functional use of au as an interjection contributes in conveying an ending. Consequently, i au appears in structurally similar contexts such as tellings and lists.