Discourse Particles Research Articles

Advice-Giving Roles and Strategies in Selected Faculty Member-Graduate Student Advising

In mentoring graduate students, it is hard to deny the ubiquity of graduate student advising. Faculty members, who are usually engaged in advising to tease out problems and suggest solutions, could often times be faced with negative attributions concerning faculty members’ competence, as well as receive unaligned responses rather than collaborative understanding of issues or recommendations. While previous studies on advising may have focused on specific, intricate, discourse particles and microscopic perspectives on advising, studies on advice giving exchanges that depart from these dimensions are insufficient. To fill in this lacuna, this paper proposes to explore strategies and participation roles in which faculty members assume in selected doctoral dissertation advising. Through discourse analysis, specifically focusing on discourse and situational identities grounded in identities-in-interaction (Zimmerman, 1998), the study illuminates some of the many advising roles and advising strategies that are revealed as legitimate, aligning doctoral student learning experience. In particular, advising roles and advising strategies, as illustrated in this study, link social and institutional context by proposing some of the many trajectories of how both faculty members and graduate students understand the relevance of advising exchanges. By focusing on these exchanges, the paper will also contribute to the growing body of literature on a range of different factors that may constitute advising in terms of content and manner in which advising takes place.

Discourse particles in Kurmanjî Kurdish-Turkish contact

ABSTRACT Exploring interaction among Kurdish speaking family members, this paper investigates the use of discourse particles in Kurmanjî-Kurdish in relation to the contact phenomenon between the Kurdish and Turkish languages. Corpus analysis of data obtained from audio and video recordings of family talk on the phone was carried out to examine semantic-pragmatic properties of discourse particles. Although some particles in the corpus seem to be unique to Kurdish, some others appear to be borrowed from Turkish and integrated into Kurdish by undergoing some phonological changes. The findings suggest that Kurdish speakers borrow some lexical items and integrate them into Kurdish with some changes at phonological level or combine them with some Kurdish particles. Even though Kurdish and Turkish languages have close contact and long-lasting coexistence in the linguistic setting of Turkey, which results in borrowing of some particles from Turkish and their use in daily interaction by Kurdish speakers, it is hard to reach a conclusion about language change at this level. Abbreviations: ADP: Adposition; COP: Copula; DAT: Dative; DP: Discourse Particle; IZF: Izafe; NEG: Negation; OBL: Oblique Case; 1SG: First person singular; OPT. FUT: Optative Future; 2SG: Second person singular; OPT.PRS: Optative Present; 3SG: Third Person singular; PRS: Present; 1PL: First person plural; PROG: Progressive; 2PL: Second person plural; PST: Past; 3PL: Third person plural

Parenthetical "I'm telling you" as a marker of private evidence

We present an analysis of parenthetical uses of the English expression I'm telling you as a discourse particle, i.e., an expression that conveys information about the epistemic states of discourse participants with respect to the propositional content of an utterance (Zimmermann 2011). The analysis connects I’m telling you to other discourse particles that mark the speaker’s assumptions about whether the (evidence for the) asserted proposition is shared knowledge between the speaker and addressee and whether or not the (evidence for the) proposition is ``verifiable on the spot'', e.g. German ja (Kratzer 1999, 2004), Mandarin de (Soh 2018).

Mandarin Chinese sentence final de as a marker of private evidence

In this paper, I present new empirical observations regarding discourse restrictions and interpretative effects associated with Mandarin Chinese sentence final de in a bare de sentence. I propose an analysis of de as a discourse marker that marks “private evidence”. I then consider a prediction of the analysis regarding the distribution of de in yes/no questions. I show that the pattern of restrictions observed with de in yes/no questions follows from the proposed analysis, coupled with a specific proposal about the syntax of de, and certain standard assumptions about the syntax of yes/no questions and modal auxiliaries. Specifically, I argue that de heads a projection below TP and above a modal projection for non-epistemic modals. I then discuss apparent counter-examples to the proposed discourse restrictions and suggest that the apparent counter-examples are not bare de sentences, but rather shi…de sentences with a silent shi. The proposed analysis has implications on the syntax of modal auxiliaries, the relation between bare de sentences and shi…de sentences, and the syntax of discourse particles. It connects de with discourse particles that mark the speaker’s belief about whether the (evidence for the) asserted proposition is shared knowledge between the speaker and the hearer and whether the (evidence for the) proposition is “verifiable on the spot” (e.g., German ja (Kratzer 1999, 2004; Gutzmann 2009); English parenthetical I’m telling you (Reese and Soh 2018)).

КРИТЕРИИ РАЗГРАНИЧЕНИЯ НЕМЕЦКИХ МОДАЛЬНЫХ И ДИСКУРСИВНЫХ ЧАСТИЦ В ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННОЙ И ЗАРУБЕЖНОЙ ЛИНГВИСТИКЕ

The article deals with the problems of distinguishing between modal and discourse particles in the German language. Particular attention is also drawn to the correlation of discourse markers and discourse particles. It is necessary to identify the combination fully and to describe discourse particles in the German language, since not all researchers consider this class of words as defined with its properties and characteristics. In addition, there is no list of the elements included in it. Thus, on the basis of the analysis of the Russian and foreign linguists’ research, the general and distinctive properties of this class of particles are proposed.

Comparison of "fei" and "aber"

This paper compares the modal particle fei (Schlieben-Lange, 1979; Thoma, 2009)with the modal particle/sentence adverb aber (not to be confused with the conjunction aber,‘but’). Intuitively, both items express some form of contrast and correction. We will show thatboth are special among discourse particles in the following sense: They make a contributionthat is interpreted at a level distinct from the level where at-issue content (Potts, 2005) isinterpreted, as is standard for modal particles (see Gutzmann, 2015 and the references therein).But more interestingly, they exclusively relate to propositions that have not entered theCommon Ground via being the at-issue content of an assertion made by the addressee.Keywords: discourse particles, assertions, at-issue content, presuppositions, conventionalimplicatures, conversational implicatures.

Pa/wa of imperative alternatives

This paper deals with topic markers interacting with discourse information in imperatives.It compares two topic markers from Slovenian (‘pa’) and Japanese (‘-wa’) and showsthat while they mostly match in terms of the foci they associate with, their functions differ inimperatives: only ‘pa’ may yield a concessive imperative reading. It is shown that this readingcan be derived while keeping a single entry for ‘pa’ by making attitudes of discourse participantspart of the focus ‘pa’ associates with. The split between Slovenian and Japanese can then beattributed to minor differences in terms of which foci ‘pa’ and ‘-wa’ may associate with.Keywords: imperatives, Slovenian, Japanese, alternative semantics, topic markers, focus,discourse particles, performative modality.

Information structuring of dialogic pairs from a cross-linguistic perspective

AbstractStarting from a critical evaluation of the Question-Answer (Q-A) test that has been used by many theoreticians for establishing the linguistic category of Rheme/Focus, this collective chapter, a by-product of our larger CNRS-project about Information Structuring and Typology (ISTY) introduces a methodology based on a Minimal Communicative Utterance (MCU – often an Answer) and its extensions – Binary Strategy 1 (Theme-Rheme) and Binary Strategy 2 (Rheme-Mneme) as dialogic information structuring (IS) constructions. Section 2 reviews the presentation of Polar and Referent Qs and their Answers in the grammars of several European languages – Finno-Ugric (Estonian, Finnish, Sami) and Indo-European (French, Swedish) – and emphasizes the necessity to take into account discourse typology. Section 3 investigates the formal and semantic correlations of Q-A pairs taken from authentic corpora in various dialogue situations (orally transmitted Northern Sami and its recent written variants, Estonian conversations, French political debates). Section 4 is dedicated to a survey of Qs and As in three Southeast-Asian languages (Mandarin Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese), and a comparison of discourse particles as IS devices in the two groups of languages. The general conclusion suggests new approaches to some unsolved research questions (prosody, “theme-prominence”, interaction of syntax and IS structures).

Functional Significance of Contextual Distribution: Discourse Particle ar in Bangla

This paper deals with Bangla indeclinable ar to explore its role in conversational discourse. In doing so, the paper provides a detail study about ar in the Bangla language. This, in turn, helps to conceptualize how the occurrences of ar motivate a conversation in a pragmatic domain, in particular. More specifically, multiple interpretations of ar pose a particular challenge to semantics and pragmatics, which can be taken care of through the incorporation of phonological context. Phonological context contains information about speaker’s intention and speaker’s approach to their utterance. The paper discusses several criteria, namely the traditional and polysemous nature, intonational pattern, evidentiality etc., which are crucial in determining its role in structuring a conversation.

ENGLISH INTERJECTIONS AS A WORD CLASS: A TRI-STRATAL DESCRIPTION

Traditionally known as interjections, the highly conventionalized linguistic forms like aha, hey, ouch, oh, sh, etc. have not been recognized as a word class in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). A proximate word class that does get acknowledged in SFL is the continuative (typically represented by well, oh, yes, no and now), while other members in the traditional class of interjections tend to be treated as bi-stratal forms in language, if not protolanguage. Studies that are non-SFL driven have affiliated interjections with routines, formulae, discourse particles, discourse markers, etc. Such terminological complexity can be solidified and cleared if interjections are perceived as a word class under the SFL framework. The present paper, thus, proposes to discuss interjections across the language strata – from below (phonology and graphology), from around about (lexicogrammar), and from above (semantics, in terms of the metafunctions). This holistic view will contribute to linguistic description of interjections and help enhance the understanding of interjections as a word class.

Is like like like?: Evaluating the same variant across multiple variables

Abstract We explore the linguistic variant – as opposed to the variable – as the object of sociolinguistic perception. The sociolinguistic principle of accountability, in centering the variable as a choice between variants, implicitly models variation from the perspective of the speaker, who makes that choice. But is it a good model for the perception of sociolinguistic meaning on the part of the listener? This paper reports the results of a matched-guise study designed to test eight distinct functions of the form like – as a verb, approximate adverb, discourse particle, etc. – in an attempt to determine whether listeners attach the same social meaning to this variant regardless of the variable it represents, and if so, whether this could be a partial explanation for why the use of like is increasing in apparent time in several variables at once. We do not find evidence to support the hypothesis that listeners evaluate the different functions of like in the same way. However, our results do offer empirical support for the division of like into sociolinguistically salient “vernacular” and non-salient “grammatical” categories. Moreover, we find a consistent pattern in which the more recently a function of like entered the speech community, the more salient it is to listeners.

Children’s felicitous use of intersubjective particles evidences sensitivity to constellations of perspectives

Discourse particles specify how interlocutors’ understandings converge and differ, and appropriate use requires ability to represent propositions from two perspectives simultaneously. This makes discourse particles a highly useful case for investigating developments in children’s ability to monitor and compare mental states, a controversial issue in child language research. Being neither salient, nor obligatory, the particles further allow us to assess children’s motivation to look for interpersonal meanings without strong linguistic incentives. By means of a corpus analysis of peer group conversations (123 hours, 19 children: 1;9–6;3 years), the present study examines at which ages Danish kindergarteners demonstrate stable mastery of the interpersonal contextual demands of five particles marking shared knowledge, disagreement and differential access to knowledge. As background for evaluating children’s particle use as well as order of occurrence, adult consensus on particle meanings was substantiated with a gap-filling test and relative input frequency estimated in caregiver speech. Children were significantly above chance in producing intersubjective particles in felicitous contexts and differentiated clearly between the particles. While there was a strong increase in token frequency over the kindergarten years, children evidenced sensitivity to context from their first productions, and particle felicity did not improve significantly with higher age or production experience. The results suggest that 3-to-6-year-olds routinely monitor and compare representational states, and that they are highly motivated to coordinate conversations as joint actions by pointing to interlocutor perspectives.This article is part of Special Collection: Perspective Taking

A feature-based analysis of the syntax of the clause-initial particle ʁedɪ in North Hail Arabic

AbstractThis paper provides a minimalist account of the syntax of the discourse particle

Nepali attention marker ni

This article is the first in-depth study of the Nepali discourse particle ni. The first part summarizes how ni has been treated in previous works on Nepali and shows how Östman’s (1981) analysis of the often-used English translation equivalent of ni, ‘you know’, gives a hint about the semantics of ni. Then, deriving data mainly from Narayan Wagle’s novel Palpasa café, which includes colloquial dialogues, but also from other sources, the paper illustrates the declarative, interrogative and imperative uses of ni. The common denominator between the various uses of ni is shown to be that the speaker brings something to the forefront of the addressee’s attention. The last section compares the concept of attention to the related concepts contrastive focus and mirative.

Prosodic universals in discourse particles

Recent prosodic research has shown that discourse particles such as hm or ah offer an optimal basis for exploring the functions of prosody in general. This study set out to answer four questions: are there prosodic universals in discourse particles, and if so, how many are there and which forms and functions do they have? These questions were analyzed using production and perception data of speakers from five different and non-related language families. The study consists of two parts. The first part aimed to gather spoken data and in doing so, create inventories of discourse particles from five different language families and then comparatively analyze the phonetic forms and phonological functions. The second part aimed to validate the functional categories, to which the units from the first part were allocated. Therefore, listeners’ statements on the functions from the first part were used to have naive speakers reproduce the phonetic forms.

Evidential coding in Lezgi

Evidentiality is “grammatical marking of how we know something” (Aikhenvald 2014:3). As evidentiality is a well-known feature in many Nakh-Daghestanian languages, this paper investigates the expression of evidential meanings in Lezgi, a language which has received less attention in this area. This paper compares evidential meanings of verb forms with the existing findings in a related language, Aghul (Majsak & Merdanova 2002a), and then considers other ways of conveying evidential meanings non-lexically. The language data were collected through elicitation and study of natural texts. Following Aikhenvald (2004), semantic labels were established for different evidential meanings.Regarding indirect evidentiality, the Lezgi Perfect was found to display the meaning of inference, thus largely coinciding with the inferential use of the Aghul Resultative. In addition, a verb construction involving a nominalized predicative and an equative particle conveys the meaning of inference accompanied by epistemic uncertainty. The Lezgi Aorist is in general evidentially neutral, but can acquire readings of direct, witnessed information source, accompanied by the modal meaning of reliability. However, the opposition displayed in Aghul between witnessed and reported meanings does not find reflection in the Lezgi past tense forms.In the area of speech reports, evidential meanings can be displayed in Lezgi by two markers, originating from the speech verb luhun: a grammaticalised clitic expressing hearsay, and a converb form expressing the meaning of quotative. Discourse particles display evidential and mirative meanings.

Conditional antecedents containing the German discourse particle denn: a corpus study

We discuss the semantic contribution and distribution of conditional antecedents containing the discourse particle denn (“antecedents with denn”, abbreviated as AWD). We propose that AWDs occur only in contexts where (i) the speaker does not believe the antecedent proposition p to hold, and (ii) the truth of p has been nonexplicitly (= tacitly) proposed. To gain a better understanding of (ii), we conduct two corpus studies. The first study investigates the relative location of AWDs with respect to their consequents. We find that unlike antecedents of regular hypothetical conditionals, AWDs occur significantly more often after the material in the consequent and parenthetically inside this material than before it. In a second study, we investigate the position of the tacit proposal relative to the AWD. We find that it typically precedes the AWD. Both results are in accordance with (ii). We then present a classification of the types of tacit proposals that we find with AWDs: speakers use AWDs to qualify their own statements or to doubt proposals of others, in both cases managing potential updates to the common ground.

Imperatives and politeness in Dutch

Abstract Imperatives are usually thought of as direct and therefore impolite. However, imperatives such as Have some coffee, Enjoy your holiday, or Sleep well are not considered impolite. The reason seems to be that these imperatives refer to actions that are beneficial to the hearer only. We make a distinction between two types of imperatives, those referring to actions that are beneficial to the speaker and those that are beneficial to the hearer. We have conducted an experiment in order to examine the relation between the two types of imperatives and how they are perceived by speakers of Dutch. The results show that there is indeed a significant difference in interpretation between the two types of imperatives in Dutch. In addition, we have tested the effects of adding a politeness marker alsjeblieft ‘please’ or discourse particles to the imperatives.

Intonation and Particles as Speech Act Modifiers: A Syntactic Analysis

AbstractThis study investigates how discourse particles and intonation contribute to the modification of speech act. In particular, it focuses on the interplay between the speaker’s and the addressee’s commitment toward the proposition in assertions, biased questions, and requests for confirmation. A syntactic analysis is proposed, in whichspeaker commitmentandcall on addresseeare represented as two functional projections of the speech act structure. Data from nontonal (Canadian English) and tonal languages (Cantonese and Medumba) are analyzed for cross-linguistic comparison. In Canadian English, the particle “eh” and rising intonation are associated with speaker commitment and call on addressee, respectively. In Cantonese, a single particle associates with these. In Medumba, the two positions are occupied by two distinct particles. This neo-performative approach toward speech act structure differs from Ross’s 1970 original insight by positing a high functional layer calledgrounding, rather than a higher matrix clause of the familiar type.

Partículas discursivas y cognición: por tanto y la conexión argumentative

Abstract In this paper we present experimental evidence on how the Spanish consecutive connective por tanto (en. “furthermore”) rearranges inferential routes in comprehension processes and guides the reader towards amental representation. Por tanto does not generate an argumentative relation between the discourse segments it combines. Rather, under normal circumstances, it simply makes such a relation explicit, since the segments are already argumentatively co-oriented due to their lexical content. In an eye-tracking reading experiment we compared the processing patterns of utterances in which discourse segments were connected by means of por tanto versus utterances with juxtaposed segments. A speed-up effect of por tanto on the second segment was found for the total reading time, thus confirming that, due to their procedural meaning, discourse particles add information to utterances, while, at the same time, they guide, facilitate and rearrange processing.