https://qz.com/1223179/linguist-nick-enfield-analyses-how-sophia-the-robot-does-and-doesnt-talk-like-us/

Perhaps few people have listened to as many conversations they weren’t actually a part of as Nick Enfield, professor of linguistics at the University of Sydney in Australia, and author of the recently published How We Talk: The Inner Workings of Conversation.

In it, Enfield talks about the rules for talking, based on his study of hours and hours of real-world conversation. No matter the country or language, certain patterns crop up everywhere. We are very consistent, he notes, when it comes to timing our conversational contributions, our commitment to answering a question (even if it’s with a non-answer), and how we repair a conversation that’s breaking down.