3. Discourse deixis, Discourse Markers

Question 1

Discourse Deixis

Answer 1

Used to refer to a part of an utterance

- mentioned before, in the next chapter, in this article

Question 2

Discourse Markers (DM)

Answer 2

• DMs are linguistic expressions which have a core meaning which can be enriched by the context
• DMs impose a relationship between some aspect of the discourse segment they are part of and some aspect of a prior discourse segment
• Markers add meaning to a discourse (oh - something new) or reflect a meaning that is already semantically accessible
• DMs do not contribute to the propositional meaning

Question 3

DMs are not

Answer 3

Pause markers
Focus participles (even, only, just)
Obviously, stupidly

Question 4

Sources of DMs

Answer 4

Conjunctions
Adverbs - well, now
Prepositional phrases - after all
Idioms
Interjections - oh
Degraded clauses

Question 5

DMs in a relation to pragmatics

Answer 5

• Context-bound, context-sensitive
• Contribute to the communicative-regulative function and to polite conversation
• Not pragmatically optional - without them the discourse may be awkward