Towards discourse markers

Ondertitel:a cross-linguistic study of grammatical constructionalization

This thesis takes an interest in the emergence and development of discourse markers. It develops within the theoretical framework of Construction Grammar and treats discourse markers as conventionalized form-function units and their diachronic change as a process of grammatical constructionalization. It addresses the following questions: (1) Which incremental changes are involved during the process that leads a linguistic element towards a discourse marker? (2) What motivational factors are behind specific constructional changes? (3) Are there cross-linguistic generalizations to be made, both in terms of the semantic and/or syntactic sources and the development paths? In order to approach these questions, the thesis draws on existing studies of grammaticalization and diachronic Construction Grammar that account for the case of discourse markers. It unites different theories and examines the formal and functional representations and especially changes of a construction on its way of becoming a discourse marker. In the search of cross-linguistically universal processes and/or patterns of change, it further develops a comparative approach. It examines a pair of linguistically heterogeneous expressions that typically function in the same pragmatic domain: i.e. topic-introducing discourse markers speaking of X (SPOX) in English and huashuo in Chinese. The study is corpus-based and includes both functional and frequency distributional analyses both panchronically and diachronically. The results show that SPOX and huashuo share quite a few formal-semantic properties as discourse markers and there are many overlaps in their functions and usage patterns. The major difference lies in their mechanisms in linking different topics together and establishing topical relevance. Diachronically, they share the semantic root of “speak” at the very beginning of their constructionalization and pragmaticalization processes, and both constructions were often used as clausal elements in a sentence prior to the emergence of discourse marking functions. But their individual development paths still have distinctive courses and specific motivating factors. On the basis of the observations made in this thesis, it appears that pragmatic strengthening, syntactic/prosodic detachment, scope expansion, and development of functional polysemy are universal processes during the constructionalization process of discourse markers, while formal reduction and semantic bleaching seem to be less categorical and more contingent upon the type of the discourse markers and differ from one case to another. The phenomena of layering, persistence, divergence, decategorialization and paradigmaticization seem to be universal common properties of emergent discourse markers as well.

Jaar van publicatie:2022

Trefwoorden:Doctoral thesis

Toegankelijkheid:Closed