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2.4 Defining discourse markers
Based upon these cross-linguistic data then, we can make several observations which
might aid in defining discourse markers. First, languages may use available lexical
and/or grammatical resources for discourse purposes. In other words, linguistic
categories which would lend themselves to discourse work based upon their lexical or
grammatical properties would make those categories prime targets for discourse work.
So, it is not surprising that in Ojibwe, as well as other languages, second position words,
clitics, affixes, and preverbs as possible candidates for discourse marker work, since
languages such as Ojibwe make heavy use of these items. Since English is not a heavily
inflected language, nor does it contain second position words, 28 English would not be
likely to contain second position discourse markers, nor those which occur as clitics or
affixes. What we do see for English, however, is the exploitation of existing lexical and
grammatical items for discourse work, e.g. the use of conjunctions and, but, or, because;
the use of adverbials now, then; and the use of lexicalized phrases y’know, I mean
(Schiffrin 1987). We see this behavior in other languages as well. In Israeli Hebrew, ye
‘and’ has a grammatical role as a sentence-level conjunction, but may “emerge as a
discourse marker” from interaction in conversation (Maschler 1997:197-198). In Niuean,
the lexical item mitaki ‘good’ may have a grammatical role as a modifier, as a predicate,
may form more complex words such as the adverb fakamitaki ‘well, properly’, and may
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But see Altenberg 2006 who shows that certain exemplifying connectors such as for example and for
instance, and certain contrastive connectors such as however often occur in parenthetic second position in
order to “highlight the initial element, syntactically and prosodically, thereby indicating a significant break
or shift in the development of discourse” (Altenberg 2006:35-36). This sort of second position work, I
argue, differs fundamentally from languages like Ojibwe which have discourse markers which are
syntactically restricted to second position and which must always occur there (to be discussed in the body
of this thesis). Altenberg’s data show that connectors such as for example, for instance, and however
clearly show a proclivity for initial position, but when they occur in second position, they “create specific
discourse-related orientations” (Altenberg 2006:12, citing Smits 2002:135).
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