Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T03:24:09.408Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Are apposition markers discourse markers?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Diane Blakemore
Affiliation:
University of Southampton

Extract

This paper aims to re-assess the notion DISCOURSE MARKER as it is applied to a subset of so-called apposition markers. It is argued that the classification of markers of reformulation as discourse markers alongside expressions like but and so is incoherent from a semantic point of view, since this ignores the distinction between PROCEDURAL and CONCEPTUAL meaning. Moreover, this classification is based on an account of discourse which is not only based on an insufficiently general account of context, but which is also difficult to maintain in the light of the use of these expressions in parenthetical nominal appositions. An alternative account is developed in the framework of Sperber & Wilson's Relevance Theory building on recent work on the meaning of parentheticals and sentence adverbials.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bar-Lev, Z. & Palacas, A. (1980). Semantic command over pragmatic priority. Lingua 51. 137146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blakemore, D. (1987). Semantic constraints on relevance. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Blakemore, D. (1988). The organization of discourse. In Newmeyer, F. (ed.) Linguistics: the Cambridge survey, Vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Blakemore, D. (1992). Understanding utterances. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Blakemore, D. (1993). The relevance of reformulations. Language and Literature 2.2. 101120.Google Scholar
Blakemore, D. (1994). Relevance, poetic effects and social goals: a reply to Culpeper. Language and Literature 3.1. 4959.Google Scholar
Blakemore, D. (1995). Relevance Theory. In Verschueren, J., Östman, J. & Blommaert, J. (eds.) Handbook of pragmatics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Blakemore, D. (forthcoming). The context for so-called discourse markers. In Malmkjaer, K. & Williams, J. (eds.) The context in language learning and language understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Blakemore, D. (1996). Elaboration and interpretation. Paper delivered at the Keio International Conference on the Interface between Linguistic Knowledge and Cognition. Keio University, Tokyo.Google Scholar
Blass, R. (1990). Relevance relations in discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Burton-Roberts, N. (1975). Nominal apposition. Foundations of Language 13. 391419.Google Scholar
Burton-Roberts, N. (1994). Apposition. In Asher, R. E. & Simpson, J. M. Y. (eds.) The encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 184187.Google Scholar
Carston, R. (1988). Implicature, explicature and truth-theoretic semantics. In Kempson, R. (ed.) Mental representation: the interface between language and reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 155182.Google Scholar
Carston, R. (1993). Conjunction, explanation and relevance. Lingua 90.2. 2748.Google Scholar
Espinal, M. (1991). The representation of disjunct constituents. Language 67.4. 726762.Google Scholar
Fabb, N. (1990). The difference between English restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. Journal of Linguistics 26.1. 5778.Google Scholar
Fraser, B. (1990). An approach to discourse markers. Journal of Pragmatics 14. 383395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, B. (1995). A set of conditions and observations on discourse markers. E-mail message to the Special Interest Group on Discourse Markers.Google Scholar
Haegeman, L. (1988). Parenthetical adverbials: the radical orphanage approach. In Chiba, S. et al. (eds.) Aspects of modern English linguistics: papers presented to Nasdano Uhagi on his 60th birthday. Tokyo: Kaitakushi. 232254.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Hand, M. (1993). Parataxis and parentheticals. Linguistics and Philosophy 16.5. 495508.Google Scholar
Hobbs, J. (1979). Coherence and coreference. Cognitive Science 3. 6990.Google Scholar
Hobbs, J. (1983). Why is discourse coherent? In Neubauer, F. (ed.) Coherence in natural language texts. Hamburg: Buske. 2970.Google Scholar
Hovy, E. & Maier, E. (forthcoming). Parsimonious or profligate: how many and which discourse relation structures? To appear in Discourse Processes.Google Scholar
Ifantidou, E. (1993a). Parentheticals and relevance. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 5. 193210.Google Scholar
Ifantidou-Trouki, E. (1993b). Sentential adverbs and relevance. Lingua 90. 6990.Google Scholar
Ifantidou-Trouki, E. (1994). Evidentials and relevance. Ph.D. thesis, University of London.Google Scholar
Jucker, A. H. (1993). The discourse marker well. Journal of Pragmatics 19.5. 435452.Google Scholar
Knott, A. & Dale, R. (1994). Using a set of linguistic phenomena to motivate a set of coherence relations. Discourse Processes 18.1. 3562.Google Scholar
Meyer, C. F. (1992). Apposition in contemporary English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Quirk, R. et al. (1985). A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Sanders, T., Spooren, W. & Noordman, L. (1993). Towards a taxonomy of coherence relations. Discourse Processes 15.1. 136.Google Scholar
Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1986). Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sperber, B. & Wilson, D. (1987). Precis of Relevance. Behavioural and Brain Sciences 10. 697754.Google Scholar
Urmson, J. O. (1960). Parenthetical verbs. In Flew, A. (ed.) Essays in conceptual analysis. London: Macmillan. 192212.Google Scholar
Wilson, D. & Sperber, D. (1993). Linguistic form and relevance. Lingua 90. 525.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, D. (1995). Relevance and understanding. In Brown, G. (ed.) Language and understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar