Preinvitation
Definition:
A preinvitation is a presequence that is likely to be understood by the respondent as a signal of a coming invitation. The coming invitation may be a question-answer sequence concerning the availability of the participant to be invited.
Examples:
The second and third turns of the following exchange are a preinvitation:
- A: Hi, John.
- B: Say, what’re you doing?
- A: Well we’re going out. Why?
- B: Oh, I was just gonna say come over here this evening.
Source:
This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library. Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003.