Discourse-pragmatic Functions Research Articles

Situated-‘instant’ metaphors

This paper studies the metaphorical expressions created as slogans by the Spanish protesters who gathered spontaneously in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol Square on May 15th 2011 to demand economic equality and democracy. The metaphors analysed aresituatedandcontext-induced, as well as ‘instant’, as they were produced in a very short, concrete period of time; in a specific physical location — the Puerta del Sol Square, Madrid; and within an equally specific socio-cultural situation — a political and economic crisis. In addition, the metaphors were created within a more general Spanish socio-cultural context, clearly shown in the slogans. The analysis reveals a variety of linguistic and multimodal mechanisms that interact with contextual factors resulting in a series of creative multimodal metaphors. This creativity actually fulfils a number of significant discourse-pragmatic functions, from attracting attention to etching in memory, but most of all, they are conceived as powerful rhetorical tools that help others to perceive reality in a new perspective and try to persuade people to join the movement and influence politicians and decision makers.

The discourse-pragmatic functions of factual conditional ‘-면’-focusing on relations between its morphological-syntactic meaning-

The discourse-pragmatic functions of factual conditional ‘-면’-focusing on relations between its morphological-syntactic meaning-

Tracking reference with null subjects

Null-subject languages are said to track reference and discourse-pragmatic information exploiting the array of specialized forms provided by their grammar. This argument is normally used as the baseline against which language acquisition and contact varieties (L1, 2L1, L2, L1-attrition) are evaluated. However, recent studies on Italian question the empirical validity of this pattern and call for an analysis of these issues from an empirical perspective. This paper presents the results of a study on mechanisms for introduction and tracking of reference in narratives (Frog Stories) in Italian L1/Dutch L2, Dutch L1/Italian L2, Italian/Dutch bilinguals and age-matched monolingual Italian controls. All utterances were scrutinized for form, antecedent, and discourse-pragmatic function. The results so far show an overextended use of null subjects, also in contexts of topic-shift, where overt subjects would be expected. These constructions are not ambiguous, as speakers make use of alternative devices for anaphora interpretation that exploit contextual cues.

To mark or not to mark the cause, that is the question: Causal marking in Taiwanese conversation

The present study investigates the discourse-pragmatic functions of the causal marker inui in Taiwanese Southern Min (TSM) conversation and compares them with unmarked causal utterances. It also explores the intonation patterning and distribution of overt and non-overt causal utterances in TSM. The functions of inui are categorized into five types: (1) pure-cause marking, (2) explanation marking, (3) justification marking, (4) understanding display, and (5) information interpolation. Among them, the information-interpolating function characterizes inui as a non-causal logical connector. The analysis shows that inui is interactively driven and used to achieve social comity. It is employed particularly when a speaker recognizes the need to provide the addressee with a better and friendlier ground for conversation in order to avoid face threat, to resolve a trouble of talk, or to fill an information gap. The occurrence of inui is sensitive to seriousness of topics, the social relation between interlocutors, and the speaker's attitude to the topic of talk. When the speech situation does not call for an explicitly marked account, inui is not used. The lower frequency of inui compared with that of English because and Mandarin yinwei in conversation data further corroborates the interactive nature of inui. As for the positioning and intonation patterning, the results conform to previous findings, i.e., causal clauses tend to occur after the materials they modify.

Focus Structure in Persian Interrogative Sentences: An RRG Analysis

The studies regarding information structure and its distribution in sentences are traced back to works of Prague School linguists such as Mathesius in 1920s. Recently, the issue of information structure has been dealt with by functionalists. In Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), information structure constitutes one of the main components of syntax. In this theory, information structure is mainly based on the Lambrechtiyan information structure which regards the formal structure of sentences as highly related to the discourse-pragmatic functions. Information structure investigates the way information is structured in clauses and sentences. This paper aims at dealing with information structure in interrogative sentences according to RRG. At first a brief introduction to works on information structure and RRG is presented. Then the theory is applied briefly to Persian language declaratives and dominantly to interrogatives.

What Determiners can do: Data from Mopan Maya

The word class Determiners and the functional category D are often characterized as encoding definiteness, specificity and/or uniqueness (Chomeshi-Paul-Wiltschko 2009). In Mopan Maya (Yukatecan), the noun classifiers and article are not sensitive to definiteness, but rather help specify that the associated lexeme be treated as a nominal rather than a predicate. This need arises from Mopan's "omnipredicativity" (Launey 1994): nouns, adjectives, and stative predicates may carry the same affixes, a phenomenon attested in several other indigenous American languages (Mithun 1999) . We describe the syntactic, semantic, and discourse-pragmatic functions of Mopan determiners, and argue for broadening typological definitions of "Determiner".

The distal demonstrative as discourse marker inBeowulf

The literature on the distal demonstrativesein Old English has mainly concentrated on its use as a marker of definiteness (referent identifiability) and deixis. In this article, I focus instead on demonstrative uses that have received much less attention in previous work. Drawing on data fromBeowulf, I argue that the distal demonstrative determiner also serves a variety of discourse-pragmatic functions, such as indicating the relative importance of referents; topic continuity; or chapter boundaries.

Argument Encoding and Pragmatic Marking of the Transitive Subject in Shiwilu (Kawapanan)

Shiwilu (a.k.a. Jebero) is a nearly extinct Kawapanan language from Peruvian Amazonia. The goal of this article is twofold. First, it investigates the obligatory crossreferencing of arguments in the complex Shiwilu verb. This system is predominantly nominative–accusative, with the caveat that main clause object markers coincide with those conveying subject in one type of clause involving nominal predicates, as well as subject and object of dependent clauses. Second, this article provides a first analysis of the enclitic =ler, which may attach to transitive subjects and thus exhibits an ergative-like distribution. Unlike the situation in languages with syntacticized ergative systems, omission of =ler does not yield ungrammatical utterances; however, transitive clauses displaying a =ler-marked subject NP are not unusual either. It is argued that =ler has discriminatory and discourse-pragmatic functions, and is comparable to instances of “optional” or pragmatic marking of the ergative/agentive in other langu...

Constructions and frames as interpretive clues

Drawing attention to a rather neglected domain in Construction Grammar analyses, this paper examines the multi-layered nature of speakers’ linguistic knowledge and its manifestation in the emergence of new linguistic structure. In particular, I show that the emergence of certain discourse-sensitive grammatical patterns can be systematically captured by appealing to an intricate interaction between fairly abstract constructional meanings based on metonymic transfer, lexical meanings of words (‘semantic’ frames), and particular discourse-pragmatic functions (‘discourse’ frames, understood as pragmatically grounded schematizations of communicative and discourse-structure conventions). It is the knowledge of all three dimensions that aids speakers in their interpretive tasks. The theoretical issues are demonstrated on a subset of discourse-functional and modal uses of the word jestli ‘if/whether’ in conversational Czech, as attested in the Czech National Corpus.

Variably future-marked conditionals in Greek

It has been proposed that future-marked conditionals have discourse-pragmatic functions other than future temporal reference (Comrie 1982, Fillmore 1990, Dancygier & Sweetser 2005). Through a corpus-based multivariate analysis we show that future-marked conditionals in Greek are associated with speech-act conditional uses and correlate systematically with formal contextual features of polarity and subject-person and form. We argue that some of these associations are entrenched enough to warrant constructional status and that the data support the emergence of specific conditional constructions, on a continuum between fixed formulas and schematic or more productive constructions, defined by particular tense-aspect combinations, preferred lexical fillers, and specialized functions, which are really of a discoursal nature. We suggest that construction grammar provides an appropriate framework for integrating discourse-pragmatic conventions, not merely semantics, into grammatical theory; we further propose some attributes and values that may be used for this purpose.

Agreement, acknowledgment, and alignment: The discourse-pragmatic functions of hao and dui in Taiwan Mandarin conversation

This study draws on Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1986/1995), Conversation Analysis (Sacks et al., 1974), and Politeness Theory (Brown and Levinson, 1987) in investigating a full range of discourse functions for hao and dui with reference to recurrent patterns, distributions, and forms of organization in a large corpus of talk. Special emphasis is placed on a comparison of hao and dui in combination with a small subset of discourse particles: in particular hao/hao le/ hao la/hao a/hao ba and dui/dui a/dui le in spoken discourse. We find that both of the markers signal special sequential relatedness in talk and carry information which is relevant in determining the boundaries of conversational exchange. However, in interaction hao is used for expressing acceptance of the other speaker’s move or act, whereas dui conveys acknowledgment of the propositional content of the utterance produced by the other speaker.

The particle ya in Colloquial Singapore English

ABSTRACT: It has been recently argued that the particles in Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) constitute a grammatical category that actively draws new members to it. Drawing on distributional and collocational evidence, this paper establishes that CSE has a new particle, ya. The paper then proceeds to analyse the discourse pragmatic function of the particle. It shows that a speaker uses the particle ya to (weakly) boost the illocutionary force of a statement, and to also signal that this is a statement that the speaker considers to be uncontroversial in nature. The paper then closes by discussing some observations – from the perspective of grammaticalization and sociolinguistic studies – that are consistent with the relative newness of this particle. Regarding grammaticalization, the paper shows that the particle ya is actually more grammaticalized than affirmative yes/ya. It is by comparison more expressive of the speaker's belief‐state or attitude. Regarding sociolinguistics, the paper observes that users of the particle ya seem to be mainly females who are in their late thirties or younger.

The birth of a particle: know in Colloquial Singapore English

The discourse marker you know has been widely noted and analyzed in different varieties of English. However, it is less widely recognized that Colloquial Singapore English (CSE), in addition to the marker you know, has also developed the particle know. This paper provides data showing that know has distributional and collocational properties that distinguish it from you know, even though their discourse–pragmatic functions are similar. The differences between you know and know indicate that the latter has become a member of a linguistic category, referred to in this paper as the discourse particle. This category is exemplified by more familiar forms such as lah, lor, and meh. The paper suggests that the mechanism by which know has joined the other particles is that of analogical change, made possible because (1) CSE already contains a rich inventory of such particles, and (2) it is a pro–drop language. The first feature motivates the extraction of a category where members are monosyllabic, occur in clause–final position, and perform discourse–pragmatic functions. You know possesses two of the three characteristics, but is excluded because it is not monosyllabic. However, the pro–drop feature allows the monosyllabic know to emerge and join the category of discourse particle.

The Representation of Speech in Biblical Hebrew Narrative: A Linguistic Analysis (review)

Book Reviews 153 The Representation ofSpeech in Biblical Hebrew Narrative: A Linguistic Analysis, by Cynthia Miller. Harvard Semitic Museum Monographs 55. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996. 466 pp. $44.95. While the field ofbiblical studies boasts many philologists, there are few linguistically trained biblicists or hebraists. Cynthia Miller is one of these few, and she is proving herself to be among the best of her generation. She has given us a book in which she combines her double-disciplinary knowledge to good advantage. Since linguistic analysis rarely makes easy reading, and this volume is no exception, I will attempt to simplify, at the risk of oversimplifying, Miller's accomplishment. Scholars ofbiblical narrative have noted the importance ofdialogue and other types of speech, and there have been some excellent studies of some aspects of speech in narrative. Miller has provided the most thorough linguistic analysis ofspeech in biblical narrative to date. Calling on grammar and pragmatics, she analyzes the syntax of a particular utterance, the context of that utterance in the conversation, and the broader context of the conversation in the narrative in which it is embedded. After surveying previous literature and presenting the central defmitions with which she will work, Miller analyzes the varieties of indirect speech. These varieties range from the possible recovery of the original locution (reported in indirect speech) to a general sense ofthe gist ofthe speech, to the mere report that speech occurred. The next chapter examines the varieties of direct speech, including the syntactic features of direct quotative frames. Chapter 5 discusses ways in which the forms of direct speech function in conversation and narrative. Chapter 6 deals with discourse-pragmatic functions of the three types ofdirect quotative frames (whether the use of a word other than .,Y.:lN? to introduce speech has significance). Miller uses extensive examples from throughout the Bible, and in the course ofher analysis she helps us realize that the representation ofspeech in narrative is much more complex than we thought. She has categorized many of these complexities according to linguistic models, in grammatical categories. She does not do a form-critical analysis; that is, she does not divide up types ofspeech according to social function (although she does mention royal speech). Future studies might investigate whether certain types of speech correlate with certain linguistic patterns of representation, for example, prose prayer (see M. Greenberg, Biblical Prose Prayer [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983]). Instead ofpresenting a selection of Miller's examples and her analysis of them, it would seem more useful for me to present a single passage-and it happens to be one that Miller does not discuss-that contains a number of complex representations of speech in narrative. The passage is Esther 3:2-4. 154 SHOFAR Summer 1999 Vol. 17,No.4 And all the king's servants at the king's gate were bowing and prostrating themselves to Haman for thus ordered the king concerning him, but Mordecai would not bow and would not prostrate himself. The king's servants at the king's gate said to Mordecai, "Why do you disobey the order of the king?" And when they spoke to him day after day and he did not heed them, they told Haman, to see ifMordecai's words would stand, for he had told them that he was a Jew. Miller's study has shown me just how complex the representation of speech in this passage is. Note, fIrst, that we do not have the actual words of the royal order to bow to Haman, only the fact that there was such an order. The wording of the order is not important; it is the existence ofthe order that the story wants to convey. When Mordecai refuses to bow, he is transgressing a royal order. Direct speech appears in the servants' question to Mordecai, for the precise phrasing oftheir speech has an impact on the narrative. They do not say, "Why do you not bow before Haman?" but rather "Why do you disobey the order of the King?" Their question emphasizes that the issue is obedience to the royal command. Moreover, their question is not a request for information, but an attempt to get Mordecai...

A discourse-pragmatic investigation of the interrelationship between the function and structure of Southern Sotho relative clauses

This article focuses on some pragmatic aspects of the function of Southern Sotho relative clauses. It acknowledges some overlap between the discourse pragmatic functions of direct and indirect clauses (Doke & Mofokeng 1957: 421), but points out that there is, in the majority of instances, a remarkable interrelationship between the structure and function of such clauses. The conclusion is drawn that the Southern Sotho indirect relative clause is used either to thematisise the referent of its head noun, or to restrict the reference of such a noun/noun phrase. The thematisising/restrictive nature of this type of clause is the result of an anchoring process whereby the referent of the head noun is associated in some or other way with another discourse entity. The direct relative clause, on the other hand, is used to characterise/describe the referent of its head noun by verbalising the identifying attributes of the referent of this noun/noun phrase. Such a description/characterisation does not involve any other entity than this referent itself. Such a clause is largely non-restictive in nature.

Southern Sotho verbal relative constructions

It transpires that Southern Sotho relative clauses can, on structural as well as functional grounds, be categorised as being either direct or indirect. The differences between the two categories pertain to the following: (a) differences in concordial agreement between the antecedent and the relative clause; and (b) differences in discourse-pragmatic function in as much as the direct relative predicates a characteristic feature or trait of the antecedent, while the indirect relative contextualises its antecedent by associating it with another referent. This article proposes that the direct relative should be regarded as a non-typical grammatical category, viz. a qualificative word with a clausal function.

The Representation of Speech in Biblical Hebrew Narrative: A Linguistic Analysis (review)

Hebrew Studies 38 (1997) 97 Reviews tional organizations. In addition to reviewing some of the classical and more recent works in these areas, Scanlin presents some of the material now available for computer as well as some of the Hebrew dictionary projects which are now under way. The bibliography (pp. 242-276) has been updated (as far as 1993) and presented in a more user-friendly way compared to the first English edition. There are well over a hundred new titles which are listed alphabetically by author rather than according to the chapter divisions of the introduction. It is, of course, impossible to take into account every title of the ever-growing literature on biblical textual criticism, but a few which are lacking would have been useful. With regard to the Septuagint, the French translation in the series La Bible d'Alexandrie has now completed the entire Pentateuch. With regard to the Beuron project for the Old Latin (cf. p. 92), it should .be noted that Sapientia Salomonis (completed 1985) and Esaias (completed 1993) are now available for the Old Testament. Under the section on the Vulgate (cf. p. 99), the comprehensive edition of the Old Testament undertaken by the Benedictine Monastery of St. Jerome, Rome, was completed in 1995 with the publication of 1 and 2 Maccabees. Some minor errata: on page 46, read "IJ;~ for clJ;~; on page 190, note 2, read "invenimus" for "invenimur" in the quotation from Jerome; in the bibliography on page 269, read "Eugene Charles Ulrich" for "Ernest Charles Ulrich." The scope of this new edition remains the same as its predecessors-an introduction to the use of the Biblia Hebraica rather than a comprehensive introduction to the more theoretical aspects of textual criticism. In its updated version, it continues to be a welcome tool for students of the Hebrew Bible. Stephen Pisano Pontifical Biblical Institute Rome 1-00187 Italy THE REPRESENTATION OF SPEECH IN BIBLICAL HEBREW NARRATIVE: A LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS. By Cynthia L. Miller. Harvard Semitic Monographs 55. Pp. xx + 466. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996. Cloth, $44.95. In the introduction, the author gives a brief survey of previous studies about reported speech and concludes that they are inadequate in two Hebrew Studies 38 (1997) 98 Reviews respects: syntactic fonns of direct and indirect speech have not been catalogued from a linguistic perspective, and the distribution and discoursepragmatic functions of reported speech have not been taken into consideration within the contexts of dialogic exchange and encompassing narrative. As a remedy for this deficiency it is proposed to present a linguistic theory for situating represented speech within a theory of contextsof -speaking, to examine the features of varieties of indirect and direct speech, to consider reported speech within the broader contexts of conversation and narrative, and, finally, to detennine the discourse-pragmatic functions of the syntactic varieties of direct quotative frames. The second chapter deals with pragmatics and metapragmatics. Pragmatics is defined as involving the relationship between the linguistic signal and its interpreters. However, reported speech is not only speech within speech, but also speech about speech, and therefore also metapragmatic , to use a subcategory of lakobson's "metalanguage." Both quotative frame and quotation are metapragmatic, and the verb chosen in the frame is metapragmatic as well because it reflects the reporting speaker's pragmatic analysis of the purpose/function of the original locution. One of the parameters for distinguishing direct and indirect speech in biblical Hebrew is deixis. Deictics index person, time, and spatial location relative to the speech event. For example, speaker-oriented elements relating to the deictic center of the reported speech event are excluded in indirect speech. A second important parameter seems to be syntactic incorporation; indirect speech is nowhere embedded within direct speech. Merging these two parameters, biblical Hebrew testifies to the presence of free indirect discourse in which the voices of the reporting and the reported speakers are combined. The next chapter examines the syntactic varieties of indirect speech. A large part of the discussion is devoted to the problem of the so-called ki recitativum, and the author concludes that ,:> should be understood as the first word of the quotation rather than as a complementizer (p. 116...

Strategies for discourse cohesion

This article compares the frequency with which ESL and non-ESL writers use because clauses for three different discourse-pragmatic functions: to enhance a sentence with information relevant only to that sentence, to make a cohesive link with prior discourse, or to introduce new information which becomes the discourse topic. The ESL writers in this study use significantly more because clauses than non-ESL writers, especially locally relevant because clauses. Non-ESL writers typically create cohesive ties with prior or subsequent discourse when they use because. The article suggests reasons for these differences and draws pedagogical implications. This research affirms the importance in language acquisition studies of examining the functional distribution of syntactic structures and their relevance to global dimensions of text. As this study shows, language learners employ because clauses where more proficient writers use other constructions, making the distribution of because clauses significantly different in ESL and non-ESL writing.

Theoretical Issues in Korean Linguistics. Edited by Young-Key Kim-Renaud. Stanford: CSLI Publications, 1994. xvi, 555 pp. $55.00 (cloth); $29.95 (paper).

Introduction Young-Key Kim-Renaud Part I. Phonology and Morphology: 1. On peripherality: a molecular approach Sang-Cheol Ahn 2. Verbal compounds in Korean Young-mee Yu Cho 3. Post-obstruent tensification in Korean and geminate inalterability Young-mee Yu Cho and Sharon Inkelas 4. A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding Eunjoo Han Liquid representation in Korean Gregory K. Iverson and Hyang-Sook Sohn The status of the lenis stop voicing rule in Korean Sun-Ah Jun On the obligatory contour principle related to sonority Hyunsoon Kim Onset analysis of Korean on-glides Yongsung Lee A re-analysis of consonant cluster simplification and s-neutralization Mira Oh Variation of vowel length in Korean Jeong-Woon Park The thematic nature of agentive Eykey in Korean Sung-Ho Ahn and Jung-Tag Lee The semantics of conditionals Sung-Yun Bak Functional projections and verb movement Dong-In Cho On scrambling: reconstruction, crossover and anaphor binding Jai-Hyoung Cho Syntactic WH-movement in Korean and licensing Hyon Sook Choe A non-spurious account of 'spurious' Korean plurals Yookyung Kim Definite/specific and case marking in Korean Chungmin Lee An event-structure analysis of the stative/non-stative distinction in periphrastic causative and Mit-type verb constructions in Korean Myung-Kwan Park Korean classifiers Barbara Unterbeck Pseudo-double negation Jae-Hak Yoon Part II. Historical Linguistics: Aspiration and voicing in old Sino-Korean obstruents Ik-sang Eom On the relation between Hyangchal and Kwukyel Pung-hyun Nam The accentuation of nominal stems in proto-Korean John B. Whitman Part III. Discourse, Pragmatics and Acquisition: The grammar of null arguments in early child Korean Sook Whan Cho Information flow and relative-clause constructions in Korean discourse Alan Hyun Oak Kim and Hyon-Sook Shin 'Speech-act' adverbial clauses in Korean Haeyeon Kim Discourse-pragmatic functions of sentence-type suffixes in informal discourse in Korean Hyo Sang Lee Contributors Index.

Discourse and interactional functions of the Japanese modal adverb Yahari/Yappari

This paper analyzes meaning and function of the Japanese modal adverb yahari/yappari within a proposed framework of Discourse Modality. Yahari signals the relevant semantic connection (on the basis of similarity and conformity) between the proposition being expressed and a piece of assumed knowledge by way of four knowledge association types: Textual Knowledge, Social Knowledge, Knowledge for Conclusion, and Knowledge for Selection. Yahari offers three discourse pragmatic functions: foregrounding of speaker subjectivity, cohesion marking and cohesiveness marking. On the interactional level, yappari offers interpersonally expressive functions: as a rapport seeker, a hesitation marker, and as a filler which sometimes functions as a planner. The theoretical framework. Discourse Modality (DM), is proposed as a model within which the results of this study are most meaningfully interpreted. Yahari/yappari is a DM indicator with primary functions in the areas of epistemic modality, discourse-organizational modality and interactional modality, all of which construct the overall DM effects which constrain the semantic interpretation of yahari in a specific context.