Cover not available

Article published In: Arabic Linguistics: Online-First Articles

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB

A case study of the features and functions of the Syrian discourse marker lak

ORCiD logo with link | Universität Wien
 | Universität Wien
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with the University of Vienna.

Published online: 2 October 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/arli.24018.lei
Abstract
This article presents the first small-scale corpus- and questionnaire-based case study of the Syrian Arabic lak. We investigate the nature of lak as a discourse marker as well as its specific functions by analysing corpus data and referring to previous studies on discourse markers. Our corpus data derives from two sources: the Syrian TV series əl-fuṣūl əl-ʔarbəʕa (‘The Four Seasons’) and the Syrian podcast əl-žahəbaḏ (‘The Connoisseur’). The questionnaire designed for this study was conducted with three native speakers of Syrian Arabic and provides the basis for a native speakers’ perception of the functions and characteristics of lak and thus provides information complementary to that gathered via literature review and corpus analysis. Comparison of our corpus data with previous studies on discourse markers in Arabic and in other languages shows that lak fulfils the criteria for being defined as a discourse marker and shares many commonly occurring discourse marker functions, such as marking boundaries in discourse, expressing attitudes, or signalling emotional involvement of any kind.
The paper also briefly discusses possible origins and cognate forms of lak and elaborates various syntactic characteristics of lak, such as its main collocations and in which sentence types it appears most in our data.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Methods, data and transcription
  • 2.An analytical framework for the discourse marker lak: Definitions, functions, and preliminary research findings
    • 2.1Definition and functions of discourse markers
    • 2.2lak as a discourse marker: Definition and functions
      • 2.2.1Marking a boundary in discourse (especially the introduction of a new topic and resumption or conclusion of a topic)
      • 2.2.2Initiating discourse
      • 2.2.3Exemplification, further elaboration
      • 2.2.4Expression of attitudes, judgments, demands, reproaches, and disagreement
      • 2.2.5Signalling emotional involvement (of any kind), affection, intimacy
      • 2.2.6Attracting the attention of the hearer
      • 2.2.7Confirming shared assumptions or knowledge
    • 2.3Syntactic qualities of the DM lak
    • 2.4Interpretation of the questionnaires regarding our preliminary research results
  • 3.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (26)
References
Aldoukhi, Rima, Stephan Procházka & Anna Telič. 2016. Lehrbuch des Syrisch-Arabischen 11. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Behnstedt, Peter. 1993. “Die demonstrativen Bildungen der syrisch-arabischen Dialekte.” Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik, no. 25, 76–94.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bergsträsser, Gotthelf. 1915. “Sprachatlas von Syrien und Palästina.” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina Vereins 381: 169–222.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bettega, Simone & Luca D’Anna. 2022. Gender and number agreement in Arabic (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 109). Leiden & Boston: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J. 1996. Pragmatic markers in English: grammaticalization and discourse functions (Topics in English Linguistics 19). Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2017. The Evolution of Pragmatic Markers in English: Pathways of Change. 1st ed. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brustad, Kristen. 2000. The Syntax of Spoken Arabic: A Comparative Study of Moroccan, Egyptian, Syrian, and Kuwaiti Dialects. Washington: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carranza, Isolda. 1993. “Contextualizacion y ‘Expresiones Pragmaticas’: ‘Che’ como Señal de Marco”, paper presented at Congreso Internacional de la Asociación de Filología y Lingüística de América Latina (ALFAL), Veracruz, Mexico.
Comrie, Bernard. 1989. Language universals and linguistic typology: syntax and morphology. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dermarkar, Cynthia. 2014. French meets Arabic in Cairo: discourse markers as gestures. In Juliane Besters-Dilger, Cynthia Dermarkar, Stefan Pfänder & Achim Rabus (eds.), Congruence in Contact-Induced Language Change, 275–293. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter. (5 July, 2023).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fischer, Wolfdietrich, and Otto Jastrow. 1980. Handbuch der arabischen Dialekte. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
German, Fady. 2023. Politische und kulturelle Satire im Irak: die Rolle der Al-Basheer-Show in einem Land zwischen Lachen und Leiden (MA thesis). University of Vienna.
Haddad, Youssef A. 2018. The Sociopragmatics of Attitude Datives in Levantine Arabic. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. 1970. Language Structure and Language Function. New Horizons in Linguistics, 140–165. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd, Gunther Kaltenböck, Tania Kuteva & Haiping Long (eds.). 2021. The rise of discourse markers. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hinds, Martin, and El-Said Badawi. 1986. A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic (Arabic-English). Beirut: Librairie du Liban.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leitner, Bettina. 2019. Khuzestan Arabic and the Discourse Particle ča. In Catherine Miller, Alexandrine Barontini, Marie-Aimée Germanos, Jairo Guerrero & Christophe Pereira (eds.), Studies on Arabic Dialectology and Sociolinguistics: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of AIDA held in Marseille from May 30th to June 2nd 2017 (Livres de l’IREMAM). Aix-en-Provence: IREMAM. [URL].
. 2022. Grammar of Khuzestani Arabic: A Spoken Variety of South-West Iran. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 108. Leiden & Boston: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marmorstein, Michal. 2016. Getting to the point: The discourse marker yaʕni (lit. “it means”) in unplanned discourse in Cairene Arabic. Journal of Pragmatics 961, 60–79. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mughazy, Mustafa A. 2003. Discourse particles revisited: the case of wallahi in Egyptian Arabic. In Dilworth B. Parkinson & Samira Farwaneh (eds.), Perspectives on Arabic linguistics XV: papers from the fifteenth annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, Salt Lake City 2001, 3–17. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Owens, Jonathan & Trent Rockwood. 2008. Yaʕni: What it (really) means. In Dilworth B. Parkinson (ed.), Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXI1, 83–113. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Procházka, Stephan. 2021. “Presentatives in Syrian and Lebanese Arabic.” In Libellules Arabes, Sémitiques, Italiennes, Berbères: Études Linguistiques et Littéraires Offertes à Jérôme Lentin Par Ses Collègues, Élèves et Amis, edited by Nadia Comolli, Julien Dufour, and Marie-Aimée Germanos, 217–37. Paris: Paul Geuthner.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sarig, Lea. 1995. Discourse Markers in Contemporary Arabic. Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik 301, 7–21.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah. 1987. Discourse Markers. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scivoletto, Giulio. 2022. Discourse markers in Sicily: a synchronic, diachronic, and sociolinguistic analysis. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Woodhead, D. R., and Wayne Beene. 1967. A Dictionary of Iraqi Arabic (Arabic-English). Washington D.C.: Georgetown Univ. Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue