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Not having read the volume mentioned by Vladimir, I am not in a
position to provide a definition. However, here is a set of
potentially relevant criteria:<br>
<br>
Semantic scope: The meaning of a discourse marker relates what is
conveyed by the sentence containing it to utterances in the context
- above all, the preceding context, but possibly the context
following the sentence.<br>
<br>
Structural status: A discourse marker is typically a particle, but
possibly an affix. Whether it is independent or clitic does not seem
to matter.<br>
<br>
Given this, there is a set of neighboring concepts against which the
discourse marker should be delimited:<br>
<br>
<ul>
<li>An interjection is a substitute for a simple sentence. E.g.: <i>Gosh!</i></li>
<li>A sentence connective is a formative coding the
interpropositional relation in a paratactic construction of
sentences. I only know of sentence-initial connectives which
relate to the preceding context. (Clause connectives may, of
course, end their clause and connect them to the following
clause.) E.g.: <i>(So) (then)</i> ... and all the semantically
more specific "coordinative conjunctions" of the type <i>therefore,
nevertheless</i> etc.</li>
<li>An illocutionary operator is a formative coding the basic
illocutionary force of its sentence. E.g. Russian <i>li</i>
INTERROGATIVE, Latin <i>ne</i> INTERROGATIVE and <i>utinam</i>
OPTATIVE.</li>
<li>A modal particle is a formative coding the modality of its
sentence. E.g. Russian <i>by</i>.</li>
<li>Information structure formatives, like topic and focus markers
and emphasizers, indicate the role of segments of a sentence in
information structure. (They may be subsumable under scope
particles.) E.g. Japanese <i>wa</i>, Yucatec Maya <i>=e'</i>
TOPIC.</li>
<li>Furthermore, there are, of course, more kinds of formatives
like modal adverbs, negators and scope particles (Engl. <i>only,
even</i>), with which discourse markers are less likely to be
confounded and which I therefore refrain from defining.</li>
</ul>
The purpose of the above enumeration is not to whip out definitions,
but instead to identify a set of concepts of long standing in the
discipline which appear to me to be relatively well delimited, so
there would be no need to use the word (it is not yet a term) <i>discourse
marker</i> to cover them.<br>
<br>
There remain, then, at least two kinds of formatives not subsumed by
any of the above concepts which may be named 'discourse marker':<br>
<ul>
<li>Particles at the beginning of a sentence which afford nothing
of the above but simply mark a transition point in the
discourse. E.g.: English <i>well</i>, Russian <i>nu</i>,
Spanish <i>pues</i>.</li>
<li>Formatives coding the relation of what is designated by their
sentence to the universe of discourse. E.g.: Russian <i>ved'</i>,
German <i>eben</i>. In Russian and German linguistics, these
have traditionally been called modal particles. (The German ones
have also been called <i>Abtönungspartikeln</i>, but that does
not seem to be a word apt for a technical linguistic term.)
However, unless I am mistaken, their function does not seem to
be covered by our concept of modality. Thus, if we opt for a
controlled change of terminology, we may wish to call these (a
kind of) 'discourse markers'.</li>
</ul>
I would be interested to see if people share my intuitions so we can
make some progress towards delimiting the concept for a term that
has been often used as a waste basket.<br>
<br>
Christian<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<p style="font-size:90%">Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann<br>
Rudolfstr. 4<br>
99092 Erfurt<br>
<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Deutschland</span></p>
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