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Imperatives, interruption in conversation and the rise of discourse particles: a study of Italian guarda

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Richard Waltereit

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Abstract

This paper investigates the history of discourse markers, with special reference to Italian guarda. This discourse marker has arisen from the imperative guarda! ‘look!‘. The imperative ‘look!’ may entitle the speaker to an interruption, because it conversationally implicates that she has to say something extremely important which requires the immediate attention of the conversation partners. It is argued that speakers will tend to use this imperative even in situations where they do not have something important to have the others look at. They will do so simply because this imperative is so useful for floorbegging. At this point, guarda! is no longer an imperative, but a discourse marker. The variety of DM functions can be shown to be already present as sideeffects of the imperative use. Furthermore it will be argued, contrary to most current work, that the genesis of discourse markers is not an instance of grammaticalization.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Waltereit R

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Linguistics

Year: 2002

Volume: 40

Issue: 5

Pages: 987-1010

Date deposited: 07/01/2009

ISSN (print): 0024-3949

ISSN (electronic): 1613-396X

Publisher: Mouton de Gruyter

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ling.2002.041

DOI: 10.1515/ling.2002.041

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