As if that wasn't enough: English <i>as if</i> clauses as multimodal utterance constructions

The following article reports on a multimodal corpus study of English as if constructions. results this suggest that formulaic and insubordinate constructions are prosodically chunked clauses, with uttered significantly higher pitch lower when being compared subordinate uses. In addition, clauses occasionally accompanied by frowns. It is argued that, although both convey an ironic interpretation, markers irony play only minor role in explaining the findings. Instead, it non-verbal features construction-specific can reasonably be explained cross-modal collostructions. As such, present provides description accompanying theoretical explanation. doing so, some modest evidence for Utterance Construction Grammar also presented.