Outside the clause: Functions of the Persian na ‘no’

Abstract

Despite its significance, the pragmatics of negation remains an unexplored area in Persian. This study utilizes a discourse analytic and functional methodology to identify, classify, and explain the functions of the response signal na ‘no’ in Contemporary Standard Persian. The analysis of its frequent uses reveals its variation in response to previous questions or statements. Prototypically, na can function conceptually as a negative or even an affirmative response. Furthermore, it can serve procedurally to signify mirativity, causativity, contrast, preference of a speaker's perspective, turn negotiation, misunderstanding management, earlier topic resumption, and emotion expression. By endorsing the inherent association between negation and indexicality, the study extends its examination to pinpoint textual, participant, cognitive-(inter)subjective, and physical categories for the antecedents of na. In short, this paper represents an initial step toward developing a unified functional method to analyze extra-clausal constituents, in particular discourse markers.