The development of discourse and pragmatic markers

Abstract

This methodological chapter is a contextualizing and theoretical introduction. It aims at setting the premises for the theoretical and methodological framework adopted in the volume, as it gives an overview of research on the rise of pragmatic markers in Romance and other languages, but at the same time it introduces notions and terminology relevant for the discussion. The developments of functional markers have been studied moving from very different theoretical positions and call into question widely debated notions as grammaticalization and pragmaticalization, as well as subjectification and intersubjectification. Similarly, the terminological choices made by different scholars to refer to functional markers (e.g. discourse markers and/or pragmatic markers) also subsume diverging theoretical approaches, which are described in detail. All these issues are considered and discussed in this chapter.