5. The Bosnian discourse particle ono

This paper proposes a relevance-theoretic analysis of the discourse particle ono in Bosnian informal discourse. Basing her analysis on the distinction in accounting for the linguistic meaning and pragmatic contribution of a linguistic expression, Premilovac shows that ono is a non-truth conditional particle which encodes procedural information about a loosely used proposition and contributes to the explicit side of communication. In this respect, ono is similar to the English pragmatic marker like (Andersen 1998), but further research will have to explain why ono may freely co-occur with kao ‘like’, and with the focus particle baš ‘exactly’. Premilovac’s analysis of ono invites reanalysis of a host of discourse particles that originate from demonstratives (e.g. ovo, ovaj and ovi) that are also used as discourse particles in Bosnian informal discourse.