A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE ...

originating from discourse processes. Therefore, whether or not a suspected marker has
tonic stress or not cannot be a viable test for its status as a discourse marker. 31
Based upon the cross-linguistic behavior of discourse markers, I propose the
following definition for what expressions may serve as discourse markers, updating
Schiffrin’s prior tentative definition.
(19) Definition of discourse markers, an update
Any linguistic expression, whether it be a word, particle, lexicalized phrase, affix, or
TAM system, or whatever, may serve as a discourse marker, or discourse marking
device, if it operates at both local and global levels of discourse (i.e. bracketing
power), and operates on different planes of discourse (i.e. serves some discourse
function), contributing to either textual coherence or interpersonal/epistemic
meanings, or both simultaneously.
This definition essentially eliminates the first three requirements initially put forth by
Schiffrin (1987) since they are not substantiated by cross-linguistic data, namely, that
discourse markers be syntactically detached from a sentence, that they occur in initial
position, and that they have a range of prosodic contours. Note also that this definition
necessarily extends the status of discourse markers (or as I prefer to refer to this process,
“discourse marking”) to include TAM forms as well, if those forms are used for discourse
work, e.g. creating textual cohesion. In this way, it is the manner in which words are cast
31
Unless what is meant by Schiffrin’s observation that a marker “have a range of prosodic contours” is that
discourse markers show or exhibit a range of contours, such as appearing as stressed or not stressed. Then,
the cross-linguistic data does support this. It is unclear to me, however, how this helps to determine
whether an expression is a discourse marker or not. This was not made clear in her original 1987 work
either. In my research, whether there was a significant pause or not occurring directly after markers did not
appear to be diagnostic either. For languages like Ojibwe which make heavy use of affixes, pauses would
not be a significant factor in their determination as discourse markers, nor have I found any differences
between those markers which exhibited pauses, and those that did not.
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