A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE ...

via the processes of tense, aspect, and mode, which are targets for discourse, rather than
the individual linguistic form itself. Therefore, an inflectional paradigm may be
exploited for discourse work in much the same way that individual lexical or grammatical
items are exploited for the same reason if that inflectional paradigm has a function which
might be exploited, used, or borrowed for discourse work. As the cross-linguistic data
show, this is typical discourse marker behavior. Therefore, while unintuitive at first, the
inclusion of “word shape” (the use of inflectional systems, or TAM forms) must be
included within our definition of discourse markers, otherwise we would not be able to
account for a large number of languages which make productive use of TAM forms in
order to accomplish a variety of discourse functions. Until now, the literature has largely
ignored the use of TAM forms within their definitions of discourse markers. This
definition includes them.
Put simply, this definition says that any linguistic item or TAM form may serve as a
discourse marker (or discoure marking device) if it contributes to the textual organization
of a narrative, or contributes some interpersonal or epistemic meaning in a way that
accomplishes some kind of discourse work, whether it be negotiating a turn at talk,
realizing some speech act, establishing some distance from a proposition, or whatever.
The criteria that discourse markers operate on both local and global levels of discourse
means that discourse markers may link (or bracket) adjacent units of discourse or link
units across wider spans of discourse, respectively. Recall that we have already seen this
at work for the discourse marker because in (8) above where it linked adjacent utterances,
as well as linking an utterance with a whole narrative. What is at the heart of this
definition, however, is Schiffrin’s observation that discourse markers are multifunctional,
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