Discourse markers in the making

Abstract

This study examines the discourse-pragmatic functions of the discourse marker (DM, hereafter) jijitsujoo ‘as a matter of practice, practically speaking’ in comparison with another DM jijitsu ‘in fact, the fact is’ in the history of Japanese. The gist of the survey results is that, while jijitsu serves to introduce telling evidence for the preceding statement, jijitsujoo reformulates the preceding statement with what the speaker regards to be relevant, while disregarding irrelevant information. In other words, jijitsujoo plays a more subjective role as a DM than jijitsu in that the former can provide the speaker’s own stance toward an immediate topic. These DM functions can be fully fulfilled in sentence-initial position, presumably because they are connective in essence.