A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE ...

occur in a variety of non-initial positions throughout sentences and clauses. As a
discourse marker (they use the term “discourse particle”), mitaki ‘right’ occurs in
utterance-initial position, and has a discourse function as an affirmation marker, i.e.
acknowledgment of information (see Massum, Starks, and Ikiua 2006:194-195).
Second, while the foregoing markers all have double lives, one as a grammatical or
lexical item, and another as a discourse marker, the cross-linguistic data also show
discourse markers which have no (or very little) referential meaning, and have only one
function as interpersonal markers, or as I prefer to call them, MYSTERY PARTICLES
(following Longacre 1976). These markers work full-time as discourse markers, and are
notoriously hard to define. What both types of markers have in common is that they are
multifunctional, able to function on different planes of discourse, and do work above the
level of the sentence.
Third, since discourse markers are not limited to the initial position, but appear to
occur in all positions cross-linguistically, as well within the morphological environment
as affixes, location cannot be a test for identifying linguistic items as discourse markers.
Yet, despite this fact, the cross-linguistic data appears to suggest that languages do have
predispositions or affinities for certain positions as docking spots for discourse markers.
For example, English discourse markers show an affinity for initial position (Schiffrin
1987). Cantonese discourse markers show an affinity for final position, having been
labeled by modern Chinese grammars as “sentence-final particles” (Kwong 1989:39).
Various Danish discourse markers have been analyzed as “positionally restricted to the
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