Cover not available

In:Pragmatic Markers and Peripheries
Edited by Daniël Van Olmen and Jolanta Šinkūnienė
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 325] 2021
► pp. 19–48

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

Chapter 1
Discourse markers at the peripheries of syntax, intonation and turns

Towards a cognitive-functional unit of segmentation

ORCiD logo with link | Université catholique de Louvain
ORCiD logo with link | Université catholique de Louvain
Published online: 13 October 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.325.01deg
Abstract
In this study, we analyze to what extent the type of unit influences the position and function of discourse markers (DMs). By comparing DM use across peripheries and across units, we aim to identify which linguistic level (syntax, intonation, turns) is most functionally and cognitively motivated. Our corpus-based analysis reveals that clauses best account for the systematic variation of DMs: initial uses are dedicated to marking discourse relations, medial uses express the speaker’s subjectivity and final uses call out to the addressee. The distribution of DMs in turns is fairly similar but this interactional unit is not fine-grained enough. Intonational peripheries, in turn, seem to perform other functions that are not reflected in a systematic variation of DM uses.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Discourse markers and peripheries
    • 2.1Functions of discourse markers (beyond peripheries)
    • 2.2Division of labor between peripheries (beyond discourse markers)
    • 2.3Peripheries of what?
  • 3.Data and method
    • 3.1The LOCAS-F corpus
    • 3.2Segmentation in LOCAS-F
    • 3.3Discourse marker annotation
  • 4.Analyses and results
    • 4.1Syntactic level – DMs at clause peripheries
    • 4.2Prosodic level – DMs at intonation peripheries
    • 4.3Interactional level – DMs at turn peripheries
    • 4.4Towards a process-based unit
      • 4.4.1DMs as boundary markers
      • 4.4.2Beyond the functional asymmetry
  • 5.Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
References (76)
References
Auchlin, Antoine, and Angela Ferrari. 1994. “Structuration prosodique, syntaxe, discours: Evidences et problèmes [Prosodic structuration, syntax, discourse: Obvious and problematic aspects].” Cahiers de Linguistique Française 15: 187–216.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Auer, Peter. 2009. “On-line Syntax: Thoughts on the Temporality of Spoken Language.” Language Sciences 31 (1): 1–13. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Auer, Peter, and Jan Lindström. 2015. “Left/right Asymmetries and the Grammar of Pre- vs. Post-positioning in German and Swedish Talk-in-interaction.” InLiSt – Interaction and Linguistic Structures 56: 1–35.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beeching, Kate, and Ulrich Detges. 2014a. “Introduction.” In Discourse Functions at the Left and Right Periphery: Crosslinguistic Investigations of Language Use and Language Change, ed. by Kate Beeching, and Ulrich Detges, 1–23. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(eds). 2014b. Discourse Functions at the Left and Right Periphery: Crosslinguistic Investigations of Language Use and Language Change. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Benzitoun, Christophe, Anne Dister, Kim Gerdes, Sylvain Kahane, Paola Pietrandrea, Frédéric Sabio, and Jeanne-Marie Debaisieux. 2010. “Tu veux couper là faut dire pourquoi. Propositions pour une segmentation syntaxique du français parlé [You want to cut here gotta say why. Propositions for a syntactic segmentation of spoken French].” In 2ème Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française, 139. EDP Sciences. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berrendonner, Alain. 2002. “Les deux syntaxes [The two syntaxes].” Verbum 24 (1–2): 23–36.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul, and David Weenink. 2017. “Praat: Doing Phonetics by Computer.” Computer program. Version 6.0.29. URL: [URL]
Bolly, Catherine, Ludivine Crible, Liesbeth Degand, and Deniz Uygur-Distexhe. 2017. “Towards a Model for Discourse Marker Annotation: From Potential to Feature-based Discourse Markers.” In Discourse Markers, Pragmatic Markers and Modal Particles: New Perspectives, ed. by Chiara Fedriani, and Andrea Sansó, 71–97. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Briz, Antonio, and Salvador Pons Bordería. 2010. “Unidades, marcadores discursivos y posición [Units, discourse markers and position].” In Los estudios sobre marcadores del discurso en español, hoy, ed. by Oscar Loureda Lamas, and Esperanza Acin Villa, 327–358. Madrid: Arco Libros.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chafe, William. 1987. “Cognitive Constraints on Information Flow.” In Coherence and Grounding in Discourse, ed. by Russell Tomlin, 21–51. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1994. Discourse, Consciousness, and Time. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. 2006. “Prosodic Cues of Discourse Units.” In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (Second Edition), ed. by Keith Brown, 178–182. Oxford: Elsevier. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth, and Margaret Selting. 1996. “Towards an Interactional Perspective on Prosody and a Prosodic Perspective on Interaction.” In Prosody in Conversation, ed. by Elizabeh Couper-Kuhlen, and Margaret Selting, 11–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crible, Ludivine, and Liesbeth Degand. 2019. “Domains and Functions: A Two-dimensional Account of Discourse Markers.” Discours 24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cuenca, Maria Josep. 2013. “The Fuzzy Boundaries between Discourse Marking and Modal Marking.” In Discourse Markers and Modal Particles. Categorization and Description, ed. by Liesbeth Degand, Bert Cornillie, and Paola Pietrandrea, 191–216. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davidse, Kristin, Lieven Vandelanotte, and Hubert Cuyckens (eds). 2010. Subjectification, Intersubjectification and Grammaticalization. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Debaisieux, Jeanne-Marie. 2016. “Toward a Global Approach to Discourse Uses of Conjunctions in Spoken French.” Language Sciences 58: 79–94. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Degand, Liesbeth. 2014. “‘So Very Fast Very Fast Then’ Discourse Markers at Left and Right Periphery in Spoken French.” In Discourse Functions at the Left and Right Periphery: Crosslinguistic Investigations of Language Use and Language Change, ed. by Kate Beeching, and Ulrich Detges, 151–178. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Degand, Liesbeth, and Benjamin Fagard. 2011. “Alors between Discourse and Grammar: The Role of Syntactic Position.” Functions of Language 18 (1): 29–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Degand, Liesbeth, Laurence Martin, and Anne Catherine Simon. 2014. “LOCAS-F: Un corpus oral multigenres annoté [LOCAS-F: An annotated multi-genre spoken corpus].” In CMLF 2014 – 4ème Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française, 2613–2626.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Degand, Liesbeth, and Anne Catherine Simon. 2005. “Minimal Discourse Units: Can We Define Them, and Why Should We?” In Proceedings of SEM-05. Connectors, Discourse Framing and Discourse Structure: From Corpus-based and Experimental Analyses to Discourse Theories, ed. by Michel Aurnague, Myriam Bras, Anne Le Draoulec, and Laure Vieu, 65–74.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009a. “On Identifying Basic Discourse Units in Speech: Theoretical and Empirical Issues.” Discours 4. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009b. “Mapping Prosody and Syntax as Discourse Strategies: How Basic Discourse Units Vary across Genres.” In Where Prosody Meets Pragmatics: Research at the Interface, ed. by Anne Wichmann, Dagmar Barth-Weingarten, and Nicole Dehé, 79–105. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Degand, Liesbeth, Anne Catherine Simon, Noalig Tanguy, and Thomas Van Damme. 2014. “Initiating a Discourse Unit in Spoken French: Prosodic and Syntactic Features of the Left Periphery.” In Discourse Segmentation in Romance Languages, ed. by Salvador Pons Bordería, 243–273. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Di Cristo, Albert. 2013. La prosodie de la parole [The prosody of speech]. Bruxelles: De Boeck Supérieur Solal.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Estellés, Maria, and Salvador Pons Bordería. 2014. “Absolute Initial Position.” In Models of Discourse Segmentation. Explorations across Romance Languages, ed. by Salvador Pons Bordería, 121–155. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fabricius-Hansen, Catherine, Wiebke Ramm, and Liesbeth Degand. 2009. “Linearization and Segmentation in Discourse: Introduction to the Special Issue.” Discours 4.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fitzmaurice, Susan. 2004. “Subjectivity, Intersubjectivity and the Historical Construction of Interlocutor Stance: From Stance Markers to Discourse Markers.” Discourse Studies 6 (4): 427–448. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ford, Cecilia, and Sandra Thompson. 1996. “Interactional Units in Conversation: Syntactic, Intonational, and Pragmatic Resources for the Management of Turns.” In Interaction and Grammar, ed. by Elinor Ochs, Emanuel Schegloff, and Sarah Thompson, 134–184. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, Raymond. 2014. “Is a General Theory of Utterance Interpretation Really Possible?” Belgian Journal of Linguistics 28 (1): 19–44. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gonzalez, Maria Josep. 2005. “Pragmatic Markers and Discourse Coherence Relations in English and Catalan Oral Narrative.” Discourse Studies 77 (1): 53–86. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hannay, Mike, and Caroline Kroon. 2005. “Acts and the Relationship between Discourse and Grammar.” Functions of Language 12: 87–124. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haselow, Alexander. 2012. “Subjectivity, Intersubjectivity and the Negotiation of Common Ground in Spoken Discourse: Final Particles in English.” Language and Communication 32 (3): 182–204. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. “A Processual View on Grammar: Macrogrammar and the Final Field in Spoken Syntax.” Language Sciences 54: 77–101. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. Spontaneous Spoken English: An Integrated Approach to the Emergent Grammar of Speech. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heim, Johannes. 2019. “Turn-peripheral Management of Common Ground: A Study of Swabian Gell.” Journal of Pragmatics 141: 130–146. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Higashizumi, Yuko, Noriko Onodera, and Sung-Ock Sohn. 2016. “Periphery.” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 17 (2): 163–177. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holmes, Virginia. 1995. “A Crosslinguistic Comparison of the Production of Utterances in Discourse.” Cognition 54 (2): 169–207. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Horne, Merle, Petra Hansson, Gösta Bruce, Johan Frid, and Marcus Filipsson. 1999. “Discourse Markers and the Segmentation of Spontaneous Speech: The Case of Swedish Men ‘But/and/so’.” Lund University Linguistics Working Papers 47: 123–139.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001. “Cue Words and the Topic Structure of Spoken Discourse: The Case of Swedish Men ‘But’.” Journal of Pragmatics 33 (7): 1061–1081. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaltenböck, Gunther, Bernd Heine, and Tania Kuteva. 2011. “On Thetical Grammar.” Studies in Language 35 (4): 852–897. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kim, Hyeri, and Satomi Kuroshima. 2013. “Turn Beginnings in Interaction: An Introduction.” Journal of Pragmatics 57: 267–273. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levelt, Willem. 1983. “Monitoring and Self-repair in Speech.” Cognition 14: 41–104. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mel’cuk, Igor Aleksandrovic. 1988. Dependency Syntax: Theory and Practice. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mertens, Piet, and Anne Catherine Simon. 2013. “Towards Automatic Detection of Prosodic Boundaries in Spoken French.” In Proceedings of the Prosody-Discourse Interface Conference 2013 (IDP-2013), 81–87.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moeschler, Jacques, and Anne Reboul. 1994. Dictionnaire encyclopédique de pragmatique. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mulder, Jean, and Sandra Thompson. 2008. “The Grammaticization of But as a Final Particle in English Conversation.” In Crosslinguistic Studies of Clause Combining: The Multifunctionality of Conjunctions, ed. by Ritva Laury, 179–204. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norris, Dennis, James McQueen, Anne Cutler, Sally Butterfield, and Ruth Kearns. 2001. “Language-universal Constraints on Speech Segmentation.” Language and Cognitive Processes 16 (5–6): 637–660. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Park, Joseph Sung-Yul. 2002. “Cognitive and Interactional Motivations for the Intonation Unit.” Studies in Language 26 (3): 637–680. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Petukhova, Volha, and Harry Bunt. 2009. “Towards a Multidimensional Semantics of Discourse Markers in Spoken Dialogue.” Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Computational Semantics, 157–168. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pons Bordería, Salvador. 2008. “La combinación de marcadores del discurso en la conversación coloquial: interacciones entre posición y función [The combination of discourse markers in colloquial conversation: Interactions between position and function].” Estudios Lingüísticos 2: 141–160.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. “Paths of Grammaticalization: Beyond the LP/RP Debate.” In Beyond Grammaticalization and Discourse Markers. New Issues in the Study of Language Change, ed. by Salvador Pons Bordería, and Oscar Loureda, 334–383. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rhee, Seongha. 2012. “Context-induced Reinterpretation and (Inter)subjectification: The Case of Grammaticalization of Sentence-final Particles.” Language Sciences 34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roulet, Eddy. 1984. “Speech Acts, Discourse Structure, and Pragmatic Connectives.” Journal of Pragmatics 8 (1): 31–47. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Salameh, Shima, Maria Estélles, and Salvador Pons Bordería. 2018. “Beyond the Notion of Periphery: An Account of Polyfunctional Discourse Markers within the Val.Es.Co. Model of Discourse Segmentation.” In Positioning the Self and Others. Linguistic Perspectives, ed. by Kate Beeching, Chiara Ghezzi, and Piera Molinelli, 105–125. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah. 1987. Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schmid, Hans-Jörg. 2012. “Generalizing the Apparently Ungeneralizable. Basic Ingredients of a Cognitive-pragmatic Approach to the Construal of Meaning-in-context.” In Cognitive Pragmatics, ed. by Hans-Jörg Schmid, 3–22. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2000. “The Construction of Units in Conversational Talk.” Language in Society 29 (4): 477–517. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simon, Anne Catherine. 2001. “Le rôle de la prosodie dans le repérage des unités textuelles minimales [The role of prosody in the identification of minimal textual units].” Cahiers de Linguistique Française 23: 99–125.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steen, Gerard. 2005. “Basic Discourse Acts: Towards a Psychological Theory of Discourse Segmentation.” In Cognitive Linguistics: Internal Dynamics and Interdisciplinary Interaction, ed. by Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, and Maria Sandra Peña Cervel, 283–312. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Strobl, Caroline, Anne-Laure Boulesteix, Achim Zeileis, and Torsten Hothorn. 2007. “Bias in Random Forest Variable Importance Measures: Illustrations, Sources and a Solution.” BMC Bioinformatics 8 (25). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tanghe, Sanne. 2016. “Position and Polyfunctionality of Discourse Markers: The Case of Spanish Markers Derived from Motion Verbs.” Journal of Pragmatics 93: 16–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tanguy, Noalig, Thomas Van Damme, Liesbeth Degand, and Anne Catherine Simon. 2012. “Projet FRFC ‘Périphérie gauche des unités de discours’ – Protocole de codage syntaxique [FRFC Project ‘Left periphery of discourse units’ – Syntactic coding scheme].” Available online: [URL]
Tesnière, Lucien. 1959. Eléments de syntaxe structurale [Elements of structural syntax]. Paris: Klincksieck.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thompson, Sandra, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen. 2005. “The Clause as a Locus of Grammar and Interaction.” Discourse Studies 7 (4–5): 481–505. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth. 2010. “(Inter)subjectivity and (Inter)subjectification: A Reassessment.” In Subjectification, Intersubjectification and Grammaticalization, ed. by Kristin Davidse, Hubert Cuyckens, and Lieven Vandelanotte, 29–71. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 2012. “Intersubjectification and Clause Periphery.” English Text Construction 5 (1): 7–28. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Val.Es.Co Group. 2014. “Las unidades del discurso oral [Units of spoken discourse].” Estudios de Lingüistica del Español 35: 13–73.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vignaux, Georges. 1988. Le discours, acteur du monde: Enonciation, argumentation et cognition [Discourse, actor of the world: Enunciation, argumentation and cognition]. Paris: Ophrys.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ziegeler, Debra, Eric Mélac, and Volker Gast. 2019. “The Rise of Right Periphery Either in English.” Language Sciences 75: 15–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Coniglio, Marco & Sergio Monforte
2025. Peripheral versus non-peripheral optative particles. Folia Linguistica 59:2 ► pp. 351 ff. DOI logo
Klumm, Matthias & Augustin Speyer
2025. Left and right peripheries in discourse: an introduction. Folia Linguistica 59:2 ► pp. 255 ff. DOI logo
Lehmann, Nico, Vahid Mortezapour, Motahare Sameri, Elisabeth Verhoeven & Aria Adli
2025. Right-peripheral subjects in German and Persian across registers. Folia Linguistica 59:2 ► pp. 391 ff. DOI logo
WU, XIA & BIN SHAO
2025. Modeling subjectification in the category shift of the deverbal preposition considering: a multivariate approach. English Language and Linguistics ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Prévot, Laurent, Roxane Bertrand, Philippe Blache, Christine Meunier, Noël Nguyen & Berthille Pallaud
2022. Étudier la conversation pour mieux comprendre le langage. TIPA. Travaux interdisciplinaires sur la parole et le langage :38 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue