Rhetorical motivations for the emergence of discourse particles, with special reference to English of course

Abstract

This paper investigates the influence of discourse context on the historical development of discourse particles. In particular, it examines the role of the rhetorical relations between idea units in generating implicatures that eventually crystallize into new discourse meanings. Many discourse markers/particles can be seen to have developed from extant lexemes or phrases. The semantic change involved is in the direction of greater subjectification, increased discourse function and increased scope. It claims that the emergence of discourse particles out of certain English adverbials is conditioned by the co-occurrence of the adverbial expression with particular sequences of rhetorical relations and corresponding patterns of information structure. This is illustrated by the history of of course and its discourse contexts. Of course is traced, via successive functional splits and reanalyses, from proposition-level adverbial in Early Modern English to multifunctional particle in present-day English. Current usage, it is argued, has resulted from discourse-level rhetorical dependencies. Analysis of present-day English patterns of use suggests possible future directions of functional split.

Obviously undergoing change: Adverbs of evidentiality across time and space

“…The emergence and subsequent development of adverbs of evidentiality have been investigated in-depth in a number of studies (e.g., Lenker, 2010;Lewis, 2002). Although debate remains about when exactly the various adverbs entered the language, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) provides indicative dates.…”

The expectation marker of course in a cross-linguistic perspective

“…Communication does not take place in a vacuum but speakers express relations or attitudes to the preceding discourse, which are clarified in the upcoming interaction. Concession and result are implicatures, which, through frequent occurrence in particular rhetorical patterns have become stabilised and coded as pragmatic meanings of the particle conveyed by a combination of lexicogrammatical, prosodic and pragmatic factors (Lewis 2003). The contrastive data discussed below (Section 4) throw more light both on the constraints on the core meaning of of course and on the various contextual meanings which it may convey.…”

“…In cases such as well, the grammaticalisation into a discourse particle has gone so far that the link with the adverb of manner is no longer salient (see Aijmer and Simon-Vandenbergen 2003). In the case of of course, the development from proposition-level adverbial to pragmatic marker (as traced by Lewis 2003) has not led to a radical disjunction between the modal adverb and the discourse particle, and there is a great deal of positional flexibility. Not only can of course occur in clause-initial and clause-final position, but it is also flexible in its medial position: after the subject, after the auxiliary or simply next to the item it has in its scope.…”

“…9 Intralinguistically, naturally would in many cases be a poor gloss for of course (Lewis 2003), as it is its synonym in some functions only (see further Section 5). The weak intertranslatability is also shown by the fact that the English translation of Dutch natuurlijk is most frequently of course, rather than naturally (see Appendix 4 Table 1.…”

The Use and Functions of English Discourse Markers (EDMs) in EFL Students Writing at University in Indonesia

“…Discourse Markers (DMs) have traditionally been restrained because they are viewed as elements which do not give to the truth-conditional meaning of an utterance, or to the syntax and semantics of a sentence. Dealing with DMs in this way is likely to stimulate a "risk of creating a ragbag class of leftovers" [3]. Susanto states that English discourse markers which are used by students at university in Indonesia mostly was still less in making the paragraph coherence and cohesion [4].…”