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oa Salience and shift in salience as means of creating discourse coherence
The case of the Chipaya enclitics
- Source: Pragmatics, Volume 31, Issue 4, Oct 2021, p. 533 - 559
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- 11 Feb 2020
- 12 Apr 2021
- 17 Aug 2021
Abstract
Abstract
The Chipaya language, an endangered isolate of the Bolivian highlands, has a set of three enclitics, =l, =m and =ʐ, which are coreferential with the subject of a clause but are not necessarily attached to it and are not obligatory. In this paper, I investigate the pragmatic function of these forms. The salience-marking enclitics (henceforth SMEs) occur at paratactic and hypotactic discourse transitions, where they indicate a shift in salience, thereby contributing to creating discourse coherence. Discourse transitions without a shift in salience are not accompanied by the enclitics. Those enclitics that occur at paratactic transitions have scope over at least the segment whose beginning and/or end they occur in, whereas SMEs at hypotactic transitions have scope over the clause they appear in. Use of the SMEs is genre-specific.