[ExI] You know what?

[Lee Corbin]

Damien and Stephano are discussing "you know?".

> Stefano Vaj wrote:
> 
>> An alternative implication might be "You know what I mean,
>> so I would not really need to elaborate this point any further, but I
>> am doing it anyway".
> 
> It's not just a filler, it's a phatic act# eliciting agreement, or at 
> least openness to persuasion. A British don might say equivalently 
> "don't you think?" or "wouldn't you say?" or "Is it not the case 
> that?" or "I think that we can agree that..."

Evidently it serves three roles. You do see people using it to "gain
time" as someone explained, and also to appear inarticulate, as well
as to solicit agreement.

> And because we're a social species that's so mutually attuned and 
> suggestible that we all start yawning when someone in the group does, 
> that speech act blurs from its phatic status into the 
> *performative*--an item of utterance that *enacts* or enforces what 
> it declares.##

So two phatic purposes, and one non-phatic one, if I've understood you

    gain time                               - non phatic
    to diminish social distance     - phatic
    to solicit agreement               - phatic

Lee

> Damien Broderick
> 
> #"a phatic expression is one whose only function is to perform a social task"
> ##"Relating to or being an utterance that performs an act or creates 
> a state of affairs by the fact of its being uttered under appropriate 
> or conventional circumstances, as a justice of the peace uttering `I 
> now pronounce you husband and wife' at a wedding ceremony, thus 
> creating a legal union, or as one uttering `I promise,' thus 
> performing the act of promising."