Journal of Historical Pragmatics - Volume 17, Issue 2, 2016

This paper examines how utterance-final interrogative particles in Chinese contribute to the management of local and global coherence in conversational discourse. Using Schiffrin’s (1987) model of discourse coherence, and focusing in particular on the Cantonese particle ho2 we show how an interrogative particle is often also used as an interactional particle. In the case of ho2, we show how this information-seeking particle is frequently recruited as an affirmation-seeking and solidarity-enhancing device. Special attention is given to the extended uses of ho2 in terms of Schiffrin’s exchange and action structures, as well as participation frameworks and information states. Our analysis highlights how speakers effectively use utterance particles as exemplified by ho2 to convey their (inter)subjective footing and in the process negotiate meaningful affiliative/disaffiliative interaction among interlocutors, and thereby achieve discourse coherence for effective communication.

This paper compares the functions and development of right peripheral (RP) alors, donc and then in French and English. These items developed historically from temporal expressions, they express consequence and can serve, intersubjectively, as an appeal to the addressee to confirm previous assumptions. An analysis of the frequency and positions of alors, donc, so and then in contemporary spoken corpora of standard British English and French shows that, though these terms are similar in consequential function, they have different distributions. From a diachronic perspective, drawing on recent theories which highlight the crucial role of contact with Anglo-French in the history of the English language (e.g., Ingham 2012a,b), this paper adduces evidence from the Manières de langage (1396; see Kristol 1995), which suggests that the final positioning of then in English may have arisen as a sense/pragmatic extension on analogy with French donques.

This study examines the diachronic and synchronic development of the discourse marker kulentey (‘but, by the way’). Etymologically, having derived from the sequence of the deictic predicate and the clause-final suffix –nuntey (‘but, in the circumstance that’), kulentey is frequently used as a turn-initiator in spoken discourse. While each source form of kulentey is attested in the earliest text written in Korean (fifteenth century), the form itself is found only in early-twentieth-century texts. The development of kulentey at peripheries shows unique features in terms of discourse functions and prosody. There exists a functional asymmetry between the left and the right peripheral kulentey. Prosodically, LP kulentey forms a salient disjuncture, while the RP kulentey is integrated into the preceding element. Using both written and spoken corpora, this study investigates the emergence and development of kulentey at peripheries, and its interaction with prosody.

This paper describes the development of two different DMs that emerged from the interrogative pronoun mwe (literally ‘what’). Both DMs acquired discursive functions as their source structures were used rhetorically (i.e., not to solicit an answer but to elicit attention). The DM mwe shifted from its original argument position to non-argument positions including LP, and then later to RP. On the other hand, the DM mwenyamyen (literally, ‘if (you) ask (me) what (it) is’), which originated from a subordinate clause, now invariably occurs at LP as a DM. From analyses with respect to (inter)subjectification, and exchange and action structures, I argue that even though peripheries are associated with (inter)subjectivity, the hypothesized correlation between LP versus RP and subjectivity versus intersubjectivity (Beeching and Detges 2014a) is not supported. Nor is the hypothesis supported that subjectified linguistic elements will shift their positions leftward in OV languages (Traugott 2010).

In present-day colloquial Japanese, daro(o)/desho(o), the conjectural forms of the copulas that are agglutinated to at the right periphery (RP) of the clause, are detached from the clause and are used as the stand-alone confirmation/agreement markers. This paper explores the developmental pathway from the RP daro(o)/desho(o) to the stand-alone discourse-pragmatic items, addressing how they serve “exchange structure” and “action structure”-related functions in Schiffrin’s (1987) model of discourse coherence. Evidence from corpus studies of these items in the early 1900s and in present-day Japanese suggest that the stand-alone uses developed from their uses at the RP through the anaphor. This paper provides further evidence for Onodera’s (2014, and elsewhere) suggestion that discourse-pragmatic items tend to be recruited from the RP items in the history of Japanese.

This study compares the development of the Latin and Italian politeness markers quaeso and prego (‘please’). The markers, originally performative verbs meaning ‘I ask, I pray’, have developed politeness-related functions which index the action structure (i.e., polite requests) and the exchange structure (i.e., management of turns). Such developments correlate closely with the degree of integration of the markers and with their position within the sentence. In our analysis we describe these developments in both languages using diachronically balanced corpora of texts compiled at regular intervals. We discuss the pragmaticalization paths of politeness markers considering the role of left and right peripheries against the background of Schiffrin’s (1987) model of discourse and subsequent developments (the Val.Es.Co. model). The emergence of politeness-related functions can be accounted for by considering the interaction of exchange and action structures, the type of unit of discourse where prego and quaeso appear, and the position they occupy.