Discourse Marker Sequencing and Grammaticalization

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt:This paper deals with the grammatical properties of discourse markers (DMs), specifically their ordering preferences relative to one another. While the data presented here are synchronic, we approach the topic of DM sequencing from the perspective of grammaticalization. From this perspective, DMs can be understood as the result of a process in which elements serving other functions, for example grammatical functions at the level of sentential syntax, come to be conventionally used as markers of discourse-level relations, or what Schiffrin (1987: 31) operationally defined as “sequentially dependent elements which bracket units of talk.” Here we are concerned with the final outcome of this process. We ask: to what degree do fully formed DMs retain or lose the grammatical properties associated with their previous role, specifically their syntactic co-occurrence constraints? In other words, what degree of syntactic decategorialization (in the sense of Hopper 1991) do DMs display?