South Slavic Discourse Particles (Pragmatics and Beyond. New Series)

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South Slavic Discourse Particles

Pragmatics & Beyond New Series (P&BNS) Pragmatics & Beyond New Series is a continuation of Pragmatics & Beyond and its Companion Series. The New Series offers a selection of high quality work covering the full richness of Pragmatics as an interdisciplinary field, within language sciences.

Editor

Associate Editor

Anita Fetzer

Andreas H. Jucker

University of Würzburg

University of Zurich

Founding Editors Jacob L. Mey

Herman Parret

University of Southern Denmark

Belgian National Science Foundation, Universities of Louvain and Antwerp

Jef Verschueren Belgian National Science Foundation, University of Antwerp

Editorial Board Robyn Carston

Sachiko Ide

Deborah Schiffrin

Thorstein Fretheim

Kuniyoshi Kataoka

University of Trondheim

Aichi University

Paul Osamu Takahara

John C. Heritage

Miriam A. Locher

University College London

Japan Women’s University

University of California at Los Angeles

Universität Basel

Susan C. Herring

Indiana University

Masako K. Hiraga

St. Paul’s (Rikkyo) University

Georgetown University Kobe City University of Foreign Studies

Sandra A. Thompson

Sophia S.A. Marmaridou University of Athens

University of California at Santa Barbara

Srikant Sarangi

Teun A. van Dijk

Cardiff University

Marina Sbisà

University of Trieste

Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona

Yunxia Zhu

The University of Queensland

Volume 197 South Slavic Discourse Particles Edited by Mirjana N. Dedaić and Mirjana Mišković-Luković

South Slavic Discourse Particles Edited by

Mirjana N. Dedaić Georgetown University

Mirjana Mišković-Luković University of Kragujevac

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdamâ•›/â•›Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data South Slavic discourse particles / edited by Mirjana N. Dedaic ; Mirjana Miskovic-Lukovic. p. cm. (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, issn 0922-842X ; v. 197) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Slavic languages, Southern--Discourse analysis. 2. Slavic languages, Southern--Phonology, Comparative. 3. Slavic languages, Southern--Grammar. I. Dedaic, Mirjana N., 1958- II. Miskovic-Lukovic, Mirjana. PG459.S68 2010 491.8’10141--dc22 2010010769 isbn 978 90 272 5601 0 (Hb ; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 8812 7 (Eb)

© 2010 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

Table of contents

Preface Acknowledgement and dedication South Slavic �ï¿½ï¿½�ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½�ï¿½ï¿½�ï¿½�ï¿½ï¿½ discourse particles: �ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½�� Introduction 1. �ï¿½�ï¿½�� Mirjana Mišković-Luković and Mirjana N. Dedaić

vii ix 1

2. Ama, a Bulgarian adversative connective Grace E. Fielder

23

3. Kamo, an attitudinal pragmatic marker of Macedonian Alexandre Sévigny

45

4. Markers of conceptual adjustment: Serbian baš and kao Mirjana Mišković-Luković

65

5. The Bosnian discourse particle ono Aida Premilovac

91

6. Reformulating and concluding: The pragmatics of the Croatian discourse marker dakle Mirjana N. Dedaić

109

7. Pa, a modifier of connectives: An argumentative analysis Igor Ž. Žagar

133

Note on contributors

163

Index

165

Preface

It is a pleasure to introduce this pioneering collection of studies on discourse particles in South Slavic languages. It should draw the attention of teachers and students of general linguistics and South Slavic alike. Research on discourse particles, and more broadly on discourse markers, has flourished in recent decades, but a large proportion of the contributions have concerned German and Russian, which are, on the one hand, languages with large communities of linguists working on them, and, on the other, languages frequently taught to foreign learners. One might have expected discourse particles to take a prominent part in analyses of English as well, given the great size of its community of linguists and the intensity with which it is taught, but English is remarkably poor in discourse particles and not rich in markers either; much of the work that they do in German and Russian is taken over by intonation contours, a part of the language system that researchers find even more elusive than the markers themselves. The studies in this book have several features in common. They are based on authoritative data. The authors of the six articles are linguists and at the same time native speakers of the standard or variety that they consider, apart from the specialist on Bulgarian who has scrutinized immense quantities of Bulgarian text for many previous projects. But none of them rely only on intuition; all bring in data from interviews or corpora. Each study treats one out of the respective language’s repertory of markers. In doing so, they cite and apply one of two recent approaches to discourse research: the relevance theory of Sperber and Wilson, or Ducrot and Anscombre’s theory of argumentation and topoi. Differences between these approaches of course exist, but a reader may well wonder if the articles using Sperber/Wilson could not have reached similar conclusions if they had chosen Ducrot/Anscombre instead, and vice versa. A shared feature in their conclusions is that the various particles have multiple uses and that they function on more than one level in the structure of the language. Discourse is only one of these levels; others are sentence-internal, or stylistic, or even world-view oriented. A reader might wonder whether it is always true that discourse particles are etymologically derived from function words or content words that do not have discourse relevance. The articles are in general not historically oriented, but one might propose such a line of research for the future.

viii South Slavic Discourse Particles

The book will surely spur further work in a variety of other directions. The results gained so far will aid pedagogy of the South Slavic languages and permit inter-Slavic and inter-Balkan comparisons. We may hope for contributions from South Slavic data to the question of how far particles can be considered a welldefined subset within discourse markers. The syntax/discourse marker interface will be a fruitful area for research.

Wayles Browne Cornell University, Ithaca, New York [email protected]

Acknowledgement and dedication

The editors are grateful to the contributors for their work and patience with the production of this volume, to Ranko Bugarski for his helpful comments, to Ljuba Veselinova for her help in reviewing a number of grammatical glosses, to Carlos Martinez for help with a picture file, and to Zia Morales for the careful proofreading of the whole manuscript. We would also like to thank our families, Dan Nelson, Christina Needham & Nina Nelson, and Vladan, Predrag & Nenad Luković, for their love and support. We dedicate this book to them.

chapter 1

South Slavic discourse particles Introduction Mirjana Mišković-Luković and Mirjana N. Dedaić

This book is a collection of articles on discourse particles in the South Slavic languages: Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian and Slovenian. These linguistic phenomena, which are typically known as discourse/pragmatic markers and discourse/pragmatic particles, have been a fruitful field of research in many Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages and have proven to be a legitimate testing ground for theories of utterance interpretation. The aim of this volume is twofold: to fill the lacuna in the current scholarship on particles in South Slavic, and to contribute to a better understanding of the semantic meaning and pragmatic roles of these communicative vehicles par excellence. Although this volume is largely descriptive in orientation, the studies nevertheless reflect the underlying assumptions of the theoretical frameworks in which they are couched (argumentation theory, relevance theory and coherence-based approaches). For this reason, we find it necessary to review issues that are relevant to the study of discourse particles in relation to the semantics/ pragmatics interface. The title of the present volume raises important questions in two arenas: namely, linguistic pragmatics and politics, especially language policy. The latterÂ€– an uncomfortable and politically-charged issue which mostly questions which languages actually comprise the South Slavic group – will be expounded on later. Dealing with the former, we ask two questions: first, is there any such class of phenomena that can be properly called discourse particles? Second, is there any rationale for selecting this over other competing terms, namely, pragmatic particles, discourse markers, pragmatic markers, discourse connectives and pragmatic connectives? After all, the contributors themselves refer to the objects of . Mišković-Luković (2006:â•›47) lists a host of terms that are currently on the market, such as conversational markers, phatic connectives, sentence connectives, discourse operators, metalinguistic operators, semantic conjuncts, pragmatic formatives, pragmatic expressions, pragmatic

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Mirjana Mišković-Luković and Mirjana N. Dedaić

their study interchangeably as (discourse and pragmatic) particles, markers and connectives. Moreover, this practice is far from being uncommon in the scholarly literature (see, for instance, Hansen 1998a; Jucker & Ziv 1998; Schourup 1999; Andersen & Fretheim 2000 and Blakemore 2002). The answers to these two questions are interdependent and controversial. Given the diversity of approaches, they also seem to be, at present, quite irreconcilable. Although this book cannot settle these issues, it can bring into focus various proposals that have been put forward in the literature. In order to do this, we will start by explaining the reasons for our title selection.

1.

Discourse particles

One the one hand, there is a relation between the modifiers discourse and pragmatic, which begs the question as to whether or not their denotation is identical, overlapping or different. The relation between the heads particles and markers raises similar questions. Do they refer to the same range of linguistic phenomena? Or does one subsume the other? Unfortunately, there is no clear consensus on either of these issues, nor is it clear whether their study should fall within the domain of semantics or that of pragmatics, given that there is no agreed upon boundary between the two. What seems uncontroversial, though, is the versatile nature of such linguistic phenomena – morphologically, syntactically, distributionally and functionally, they do not form a class. However, they do form a “class” in another important respect – these linguistic encoders facilitate the process of utterance understanding not as syntactically-integrated constituents of the proposition expressed by an utterance, but as pointers to the ways the basic proposition or message should be taken by the addressee. At the risk of oversimplification, we might say that a sociopragmatist starts from an assumption about the conceptuality of semantic meaning and considers discourse markers as part of language-in-use, by investigating their pragmatic meanings or functions as they are exhibited in discourse. In contrast, a cognitive pragmatist starts from the assumption that pragmatic markers have semantic, albeit procedural, meaning and examines the ways they constrain inferential processes that are involved in utterance comprehension. Given that both semantic meaning and pragmatic role figure in the latter approach, it is not altogether clear whether discourse/pragmatic markers should then be studied within semantics or pragmatics. Andersen & Fretheim (2000:â•›2) consider a study of the meaning devices, extrasentential links, cue phrases, discourse signaling devices, indicating devices, utterance indicators and conversational greasers. See also Brinton (1996), and Hansen (1998a).

Chapter 1.â•‡ Introduction

of a contextualized linguistic item to belong to the domain of pragmatics, “because part of the utterance meaning of the item can only be derived as a result of the addressee’s extra-linguistic inferential processing of the stimulus containing it”. They equalize the semantic meaning of a marker with its encoded meaning, but in a way that “its encoded meaning only represents a very useful (and occasionally quite necessary, so it seems) constraint on the kinds of pragmatic, or extralinguistic inferences that the addressee processing an utterance will draw in his effort to comprehend the message communicated” (Andersen & Fretheim 2000:â•›2). Blakemore, on the other hand, finds the explanation for these phenomena in the grammar, since the information is always linguistically encoded. She, however, argues that these expressions simultaneously encode information about pragmatic processes, and therefore the analysis of these phenomena has to make reference to semantics and pragmatics, but within the approach she characterizes as the theory of semantic competence (Blakemore 2002:â•›9). To make it more complex, for those who think that there is such an entity that can be called discourse, this term need not have a unique reference (see, for instance, McHoul 1998; Jaworski & Coupland 2006). For others, its very existence is called into question: This is not an argument for simply replacing the notion of discourse coherence by relevance so that we can speak of the encoding of relevance relations rather than discourse relations. Discourse, whether it is construed in structural or interactional terms, is an artifact with no psychological reality, and coherence is a property of that artifact. Relevance is not a property of discourse, but rather of an interpretation which is mentally represented and derived through cognitive processes. (Blakemore 2002:â•›5–6)

Regarding the discourse/pragmatic distinction, Andersen and Fretheim (2000:â•›3) tie it to a specific theoretical-methodological provenance: ‘[D]iscourse markers’ is a term which has come to be associated predominantly with discourse analysis and such markers are assumed to play a key role in establishing coherence relations in discourse […]. The emphasis on corpus based data is a salient feature of discourse analysis and is therefore also seen to prevail in studies which are professedly concerned with the function of so-called discourse markers […]. By choosing the term ‘pragmatic marker’ instead of ‘discourse marker’ we believe we do not run the risk of evoking unintended connotations.

Fraser (1996:â•›169), on the other hand, considers the discourse/pragmatic distinction to be an issue of content: the class of pragmatic markers, as linguistically encoded signals of the speaker’s communicative intentions, comprises four distinct

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subtypes (one of which is called discourse markers) which reflect four different ways a message may be conveyed by a sentence: [A] basic marker signals the force of the basic message, a commentary marker signals a message which comments on the basic message, a parallel marker signals a message in addition to the basic message, and a discourse marker signals the relationship of the basic message to the foregoing discourse.

Turning now to the terminological dilemma surrounding marker/particle, the central concern revolves around the issue of whether this is a case of one class/two terms, two distinct classes, or a class and its subclass. Jucker & Ziv (1998:â•›2), for instance, distinguish the class of discourse connectives (e.g. so and therefore) from that of discourse particles (e.g. German, Dutch and Norwegian focus and modal particles) and choose discourse marker as “a convenient cover term […] one that enables us to include a broad variety of elements under a single conceptual umbrella”. A similar sort of explanation is given by Andersen & Fretheim (2000:â•›1) who deem the term marker to be broader than particle, although they acknowledge that the latter term “has been variably used with reference to a morphologically rather disparate set of linguistic expressions, including grammaticalized phrases as well as monomorphemic words”. In contrast, Hansen (1998a) points out that the functionally and distributionally heterogeneous class of particles is often understood to comprise adpositions, interjections, (coordinating and subordinating) conjunctions, focus and modal particles, sentence adverbs and discourse markers, but that discourse markers have a special status as they clearly constitute a functional, and not a morphosyntactic class: To the extent that markers are particles in the morphological sense, they can thus be subsumed under one or more of the other classes (exactly which classes are relevant will depend on one’s definition of markers). (Hansen 1998a:â•›367)

Hartmann (1998) relates the three uses of the term particle to late twentieth-century particle research: all uninflected forms, that is, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, focus particles and other particle classes; subsets of invariables such as adverbs, conjunctions and prepositions; and all invariable elements such as focus and modal particles. This last, narrow, definition, does not include adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, negative words and interjections. . Jucker & Ziv (1998:â•›2) mention the modifier pragmatic in relation to such complex lexical items as are you know, you see and I mean, which are otherwise regarded as discourse markers and connectives (cf. Blakemore 1987 and Schiffrin 1987).


Schourup (1999), similarly, emphasizes the diversity of the term particle: it can refer to invariable forms which are otherwise difficult to classify in terms of traditional syntactic categories; it can denote particular uninflecting forms such as adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions and interjections (sometimes excluding the first three); or, as field scholars have recently agreed, it can specifically refer to scalar and modal particles (see also König 1991). This referential inconsistency, which, according to Schourup, was inherited by the subsequent term discourse particles, is coupled with the fact that its class membership is less restrictive than that of discourse markers. In addition, the latter term appears to be more functional in contrast to a more syntactic label particle and, by extension, discourse particle. All this explains, says Schourup, the preference for the term discourse markers since the mid-1980s: “The term DM has a narrower range of reference and has been subject to more precise attempts at definition” (Schourup 1999:â•›228–230). Finally, everything that has been said about the marker/particle distinction also applies to the marker/connective distinction so that the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Blakemore (2002:â•›1) warns that she calls the expressions, which others might call discourse markers, discourse connectives, because “since there is no agreement on what counts as a discourse marker, it is difficult to know whether these are two labels for the same set of phenomena”. In fact, Blakemore points out that there are other discourse indicators, such as discourse adverbials, interjections and expletives, which are generally not considered to be discourse markers given that they do not mark connections between discourse units. This seems to corroborate Fraser’s (1996) classification – the mentioned indicators are pragmatic but not discourse markers: discourse adverbials are commentary markers, interjections are basic markers while expletives fall within the subclass of parallel markers. We can now return to the first question of whether discourse particles (and the related terms) can constitute a class. There have been many attempts at class characterization but so far none have been universally accepted. In other words, the literature is abundant with marker/particle research and the terms have been

. Luke (1990:â•›10), for instance, prefers the term utterance particle to sentence-final particle or to such “traditional terms” as are “‘helping words’ and ‘mood words’”, and uses this term to refer to a class of words (the Cantonese la, lo and wo) which has no semantic content but is used as sentence-final, bound form to indicate the mood of a sentence or to express attitudes and emotions. The English items you know, well, OK and oh are then utterance particles functioning as discourse markers. . Schourup (1999) gives an overview of the characteristics typically assigned to discourse markers.

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long established but the “unpleasant” question festers. The “last resort” has already been expressed: It appears that “discourse marker” is a fuzzy concept […] [I]n line with Roschean prototype conception, elements demonstrating more of the criterial features may be taken to be more prototypical members of the class of discourse markers and those showing fewer characteristic properties may be considered more peripheral. This scalar conception of the membership in the class of discourse markers appears to be well-equipped to account for the range of items displaying partially overlapping characteristics across a variety of languages. (Jucker & Ziv 1998:â•›2–3)

On the other hand, Blakemore has dedicated an entire monograph to show “that there is no justification for writing a book about discourse or discourse markers at all” (2002:â•›1). Her arguments are couched in a specific, relevance-driven approach to communication (Sperber & Wilson 1986/95), in which non-truth-conditional meaning does not play a role. In line with the representational-computational view of the mind, the cognitive semantic information, which can be of either conceptual (representational) or procedural (computational) nature, serves as input to pragmatic inferential processes, which are used for deriving the explicit and implicit meaning of an utterance. According to this view, elements that have been classified elsewhere as discourse markers or particles emerge as encoders of procedural information (i.e. they serve as constraints on implicatures – on certain cognitive effects (e.g. but) or on context selection (e.g. anyway) – and explicatures (e.g. sort of) or even as conceptual constituents of representations (e.g. consequently). Nevertheless, Blakemore’s book ends on an optimistic note: Should this be construed as a recommendation that research on discourse markers should cease forthwith? If it means research on discourse markers as a class or category, then yes. However, if this means research on the expressions that have been called discourse markers, then, most emphatically, no. (Blakemore 2002:â•›185)

Had all the contributors utilized the relevance-theoretic approach to account for the meanings of the phenomena in question, the title of this volume would . Fraser (2006) has recently criticized the relevance-theoretic position that the conceptual and procedural types of meaning are mutually exclusive. A linguistic form (i.e. morphemes, lexical items, syntactic structures, intonation), according to Fraser, may contain three types of semantic information: the conceptual information specifies the representational content of the form, the procedural information specifies the role of the form in the interpretive structure of the sentence while the combinatorial information specifies how the form combines to give more complex semantic structures.


have been different: South Slavic semantic constraints on relevance or South Slavic semantic constraints on pragmatic inferences. And the kind of phenomena this book is about would be apparent, at least to those who adhere to or are familiar with the theory. For all linguistic meaning has a specific contribution to pragmatic inferences, but the type of contribution is determined by the type of semantic encoding: some forms are inputs to pragmatic inferences as constituents of conceptual representations, while other forms constrain pragmatic inferences. As it is, we can do no better than juggle in our attempt to explain the title of this volume. This, however, we do not regard as a disadvantage. On the contrary, the controversies surrounding the research on these forms clearly show that discourse/pragmatic particles/markers are not only vibrant, pervasive and vital in human communication, but also that traditional linguistics was all the poorer for neglecting them. The title of this volume, therefore, reflects a variety of approaches as well as an appeal to a wider and, hopefully, more adversative audience. This, we believe, will prompt further studies of this sort in the South Slavic (and other Slavic) languages, which have thus far been noticeably absent.

2.

South Slavic discourse particles

The study of South Slavic discourse particles is barren and mired in terminological conservatism. Traditional approaches to the study of language have dominated Slavic linguistics for decades – both in “domestic arenas” (Slavic-speaking environments) and among Slavists “abroad”. In both, the most productive line of research has been the Jakobsonian model of shifters, which involves “indexical symbols” that posses general meanings in relation to the message to which they belong (Jakobson 1990). While calling it by other names, Jakobson correctly points towards a discursive role in the semantics (and pragmatics) of such words:

. For those who do not support relevance theory, dropping the non-truth-conditionality criterion would place, for instance, indexicals on par with those discourse particles that constrain the explicit content of an utterance, such as sort of and kind of (see Mišković-Luković 2006; cf. Itani 1995). However, as Carston (2002) explains, indexicals are procedural features that disappear from the logical form of an utterance when the intended referents in the form of concepts have been identified. This is not the property of discourse particles. . Our choice of the modifier discourse rather than pragmatic mirrors the argument quoted in Andersen & Fretheim (2000:â•›3) for not selecting it. As to the choice of the head particles, this term predates the term marker and is more typical of the South Slavic linguistic tradition (see, for instance, Stevanović 1986). This term is also used in the relevance-theoretic literature (cf. Blass 1990:â•›129 and Andersen & Fretheim 2000:â•›1).


For example the conjunction but each time expresses an adversative relation between two stated concepts and not the generic idea of contrariety. In fact, shifters are distinguished from all other constituents of the linguistic code solely by their compulsory reference to the given message. (Jakobson 1990:â•›389)

Shifters provided the most widely used conceptual application for looking at such phenomena in early research in the Slavic languages. However, the focus was thrown out of balance as most linguists settled on exploring traditional grammatical categories such as pronouns and verbs. In addition, South Slavic linguistics follows what Hansen (1998b:â•›4) calls the “traditional tendency to consider the less semantically transparent markers as ‘fillers’, i.e. contentless hesitation markers”. This happens partly due to the insistence of Slavic grammarians on non-discursive approaches to language and in concert with the general opinion that only the language used to write books is a good language. The study of spoken discourse is largely neglected as a result of both these tendencies. Discourse particles are words that, in traditional grammars of the concerned area, were sometimes considered to be redundant, and even a sign of poor writing or speaking abilities. This attitude highlights the preoccupation of Slavic linguists with traditional grammar, and a more than just occasional, self-imposed containment within the regional or national grammatical prescriptions. Although particles are often among the most commonly used words in a language, they are typically omitted from dictionaries and given little theoretical attention. The “class” of particles is frequently distinguished negatively: particles are the words left over when all the others have been assigned to syntactic categories (see also Zwicky 1985:â•›292). The main difficulty is that the category of discourse particles and markers is clearly a functional-pragmatic, and not a formal, morphosyntactic one (cf. Lamiroy & Swiggers 1991:â•›123). Items which can be used as particles/markers may originate in quite different distributional classes, where they often have formally identical counterparts that are not used as particles/markers, and which do contribute to propositional content. They might originate “domestically” from the categories of connectives, such as ‘sicer-pa’ (Slovenian); or from adverbs, such as ‘dakle’ (Croatian); interrogative adverbials, such as ‘kamo’ (Macedonian); or from pronominal demonstratives, like the Bosnian ‘ono’, to mention just a few.

. Even the rare recent studies in Slavic that deal with these phenomena use traditional syntactician’s appellations for what clearly should be analyzed as discourse markers or discourse particles; thus Koktova (1986) talks about “sentence adverbials” and Kryk (1992) discusses the Polish no as an interjection.


They can also be imports from different points in history, like the Serbian baš and Bulgarian ama. Yet, as the contributions to this book demonstrate, particles are important for producing discourse, not only signaling to hearers how utterances relate to linguistic and non-linguistic contexts, but also allowing for the flow of cognitive processes in structuring and understanding the message.

3.

Relevance theory and verbal communication

Taking into account the extent to which relevance theory has been significant in the current research into pragmatic markers, and given that half of this volume’s contributions are entirely couched in this particular theoretic framework, we have included a brief overview of the main relevance-theoretic postulates in the introduction. In this way, we hope to avoid unnecessary repetitions in the succeeding chapters. According to relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson 1986/95 and Carston 2002), the human cognitive system, in general, aims at the maximization of relevance (the Cognitive Principle of Relevance). In communication, in particular, every act of ostensive communication (e.g. an utterance) conveys a presumption of its own optimal relevance (the Communicative Principle of Relevance). Guided by the presumption of optimal relevance that the speaker’s utterance is relevant enough to be worth the addressee’s attention, and is, in and of itself, the most relevant one according to the speaker’s abilities and preferences, the addressee uses a specific comprehension strategy:10 they follow a path of least effort in considering different interpretations (i.e. depending on the extent of their accessibility) and they terminate the process once they reach an interpretation that satisfies their expectations of relevance (or abandon the process if no such interpretation is available).

. Ostension is confined to communication which exhibits two essential propertiesÂ€– overtness and intention. In other words, the principle of relevance does not apply to nonostensive forms of communication (e.g. covert communication and accidental information transmission). 10. Verbal communication rests on a single pragmatic principle of relevance, which is reflexive (subconscious) and automatic (i.e. it applies without exception, and therefore cannot be observed, flouted or violated, in contrast to the Gricean conversational maxims). It is not guided by any of the other principles proposed in the literature, such as the presumption of literalness, truthfulness or coherence (Carston 2002).

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10


Relevance is a property of an utterance which the addressee is interpreting. In ostensive-inferential verbal communication, an utterance makes it mutually manifest to the interlocutors that the speaker intends, using that utterance, to make certain assumptions (more) manifest to the addressee.11 On the one hand, the relevance of an utterance increases with the cognitive effects it brings about (e.g. by confirming and strengthening the addressee’s existing assumptions, by contradicting and eliminating them, or by combining to yield a contextual implication). On the other hand, the relevance of an utterance decreases with the effort spent in processing the utterance. So (in the absence of some other factors), the speaker will want her utterance to be optimally relevant to the addressee and will phrase it in such a way as to achieve this communicative goal.12 An assumption (proposition) communicated by an utterance (as part of the speaker’s communicative intention) will either be explicit or implicit. It will be explicit – explicature – only if it is a development of a logical form encoded by the utterance.13 If not, it will be an implicature – a speaker-meant contextual 11. In fact, there are two layers of intention: the informative intention whereby the speaker’s utterance informs the hearer about something, and the communicative intention whereby the speaker’s utterance informs the addressee of her informative intention. The addressee’s recognition of the communicative intention is vital for his understanding of the relevance of the speaker’s utterance (the addressee might access various assumptions but they will never be equally relevant; precisely because the presumption of relevance is inseparable from comprehension, the addressee will accept the first tested assumption that proves consistent with his expectation of relevance). 12. Communication is deemed successful when the addressee reaches such an interpretation that sufficiently resembles the thought the speaker wishes to get across. 13. The decoding-inferential processes can be roughly described in the following way. Upon identifying a particular (acoustic or visual) stimulus as linguistic, the autonomous linguistic system will execute a series of deterministic grammatical computations, giving as its output a logical form (i.e. a semantic representation of a phrase or sentence used in an utterance). This logical form is a subpropositional, structured string of concepts, which serves as a schema for various putative propositions (it is in the format which the pragmatic processor can “read”). To be developed into the (truth conditional) proposition expressed by an utterance, the logical form requires certain cognitive (pragmatic) processes (e.g. disambiguation, indexical resolution and various types of enrichment). If such a proposition is at the same time communicated by the speaker (i.e. the speaker is committed to the proposition of her utterance), it becomes the (basic) explicature of the utterance (e.g. in ironic utterances the speaker is not committed to the proposition her utterance expresses, and expresses instead a tacit, dissociative attitude wherein the speaker’s main relevance lies). This base-level explicature can further be embedded under certain higher-level descriptions (higher-level explicatures) such as various descriptions of the speaker’s propositional attitudes, speech acts, and the like. Although higher-level explicatures (like implicatures) may be true/false per se, they do not contribute to the truth conditions of the proposition expressed by an utterance.


assumption used in utterance interpretation (implicated premise) or its contextual implication (implicated conclusion). Utterance interpretation is a fast, automatic and on-line process which typically involves the mutual parallel adjustment of different factors involved: the explicit content of an utterance, various contextual assumptions that the utterance highlights, and cognitive effects. The goal is, as already mentioned, to satisfy the addressee’s expectations of relevance which have been raised on a particular occasion of utterance.14

4.

The South Slavic languages

The South Slavic linguistic area represents a complexity known as the South Slavic dialectal continuum, which is said to be one of the most complex and most interesting in Europe (Bugarski 2004a:â•›23). “Starting with northwestern Slovenian dialects in the Julian Alps, the continuum works its way gradually down to southern Aegean Macedonian dialects of the Gulf of Thessaloniki, and to eastern Bulgarian dialects along the shores of the Black Sea” (Alexander 2000:â•›4). Our decision to include particles from Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian, and Slovenian reflects the current linguistic view on the socio-political boundaries that define these languages.15 All the languages except Bulgarian gained their national status with the dissolution of Yugoslavia, which began in the early 1990s. At the time of writing, these socio-political issues are still perceptible through a few territorial and many linguistic disputes – most prominently in Kosovo’s newly independent status, which is still beset with problems.16 14. Relevance theory takes a dynamic, psychological approach to the context of an utterance: it is a subset of mentally-represented assumptions that interacts with the speaker’s utterance (or, more broadly, with incoming information obtained by perception or communication) to give rise to cognitive effects. This means that context cannot be given in advance – it is always selected according to the speaker’s utterance and the addressee’s search for relevance. 15. The historical background of these languages is rich with events and beset with disputes, all of which contributed to their present forms, usage, and aptitude for national identification. We will not examine their histories in detail because the studies in this book are not concerned with the diachrony. However, a brief review of historical details can be found, among many other sources, in Bugarski (2004a, 2004b), Greenberg (2004a) and Okey (2005). 16. Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in February 2008, but it has yet to achieve world-wide recognition of its status. As of this writing, sixty countries have recognized Kosovo as a nation state. However, its self-proclaimed independence is contested most adamantly by Serbia which challenges the final status of the Kosovo-Serbia national boundary along Kosovo’s northern border. Thus, “several thousand NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers under

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Figure 1.â•‡ The South Slavic linguistic area17

During this process, the two South Slavic languages spoken at the opposite edges of the former Yugoslavia – Macedonian and Slovenian – regained their full status as national languages. Because the language called Serbo-Croatian18 was spoken by multiple ethnic groups in the rest of the country, its status and development underwent a more complex path. As a single entity at the level of diasystem (Bugarski 2004b:â•›3), Serbo-Croatian included speakers from different ethnic groups reflecting the socio-political reality of the era and the place – Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian and Montenegrin. Some scholars doubt the real existence of Serbo-Croatian as a living language, since it always comprised multiple urban and rural dialects and regional and ethnic varieties (see Greenberg 2004a:â•›13). Macedonian and Slovenian were always distinguished from Serbo-Croatian, but still not free of the tribulations of the languages spoken in the “former Yugoslav lands” (Bugarski & Hawkesworth 2004). Although Macedonian was fully standardized by the end of the 20th century (Tomić 2004:â•›185), its autonomy was UNMIK authority continue to keep the peace within Kosovo between the ethnic Albanian majority and the Serb minority in Kosovo” (CIA 2009). 17. The indicated borders approximately delimit the so-called “standard languages”. There are many areas with mixed populations/languages as well as areas where a language has a significant number of speakers but is not dominant. South Slavic speakers also live in all the bordering non-Slavic areas. A brief discussion on the status of Montenegrin is given in the introduction. 18. This is only one of the several appellations used for this language. The other forms are Croato-Serbian, Serbo-Croat, Serbocroatian and Croatoserbian.


constantly questioned by those who claimed that Macedonian is a dialect of Bulgarian, or a “regional norm” of Bulgarian (see Friedman 2004:â•›201; for more details on this issue see Nihtinen 1999), or that inhabitants of Macedonia are, in fact, “Southern Serbs” (Wachtel 1998:â•›90). The Bulgarian government officially recognized the Macedonian standard as an independent language only in 1999, fifty-five years after the establishment of the Macedonian political entity (i.e. as a sovereign republic within Yugoslavia). Falling under the linguistic laws of a dialectal continuum, Bulgarian and Macedonian share a set of grammatical features which sets them apart from other South Slavic languages. Among them are the loss of noun cases and an acquisition of the definite article; the latter is shared with Romanian, Greek and AlbanianÂ€– the languages with which they comprise the Balkan Sprachbund. The standard Macedonian is based on the west-central dialects, for the following reasons: The choice of the dialect base was made at the turn of the century in Misirkov’s (1903) manifesto of Macedonian language policy […]. Misirkov followed the tradition obtaining throughout the Slavonic world to base each new standard language on the dialects that are most distinct from the standards of the other Slavonic languages […]. (Tomić 2004:â•›189)

From the other side of its border, Macedonian has been mired in another political controversy – the challenge to its name. Greece has objected strenuously to non-Greek use of the term “Macedonian”, arguing that it appropriates an exclusively Hellenic name that belongs to Greek historical heritage. Unsurprisingly, this stance involves deeply rooted territorial interests (Giannakos 2001). Athens has averred that Skopje harbors irredentist ambitions towards northern Greece. On the other hand, Human Rights Watch reports that over the years, the use of the Macedonian language has been sharply restricted in Northern Greece where there is a substantial Slavic population (Whitman & Laber 1994). The Greek denial of the Macedonian state, the Macedonian minority in Greece and the Greek attitude towards the Macedonian language is reflected in the most frequent name Greece uses for this language: “linguistic idiom of Skopje” (Danforth 1997:â•›33). Nicholas Martis, a former conservative minister of Northern Greece, echoes this general opinion saying that the “linguistic idiom of Skopje [was] a spoken collection of words, without syntax, without grammatical components, without spelling” (reported in Popov & Radin 1989:â•›46). Despite these not-so-neighborly disputes, the Macedonian language is internationally recognized. It is spoken by about million and a half people in Macedonia, 250,000 people in Aegean Macedonia, 250,000 people in Pirin (Bulgarian) Macedonia and around half million people in other parts of the world, particularly North America and Australia (Shea 1997:â•›193).

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The Slovenian language, on the other end of the South Slavic spectrum, was the earliest to receive its normative grammar written by the linguist Jernej Kopitar in 1808–1809. By the time Serbo-Croatian was modernized, Slovenian already existed as a fully developed literary language (Wachtel 1998:â•›88). Slovenian was said to be a South Slavic language that shares some features with West Slavic (Czech, Polish and Slovak). Despite its long contact with (and influences from) Croatian, Slovenian’s unique features, such as the archaic dual number (dvojina), have been preserved by the tireless work of Slovenian state-sponsored academicians (Carmichael 2002:â•›227; for details on language planning in Slovenia see Nećak-Lük 2004). The division of Serbo-Croatian into separately identified and politically significant languages became a most controversial affair after the fall of Yugoslavia. Since the end of the Second World War, Serbo-Croatian was seen as one language outside of Yugoslavia while, internally, differences among variants were always appreciated and cultivated. There is a basis for the claim that the motivations for a unified language were not purely political, but had a scholarly linguistic merit (Greenberg 2004a:â•›16). Serbo-Croatian represented “a single entity at the level of diasystem” (Bugarski 2004b:â•›3), and “one, albeit in truth, elastic idiom” (Jahić 1990:â•›54, quoted in Greenberg 2004a:â•›17). Still, the centripetal and centrifugal forces created a continuous whirlwind of contradictory influences that began to calm only after political divisions took effect. Political winds continue to blow this linguistic issue to and fro, and all work on this topic will meet with someone’s displeasure.19 We do not offer any theoretical support or denial for political and linguistic claims that current political entities – the states of Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro – put forward. Rather, we present the situation as it is typically described by linguists from the respective cultures, albeit their descriptions might be subject to strenuous contention. Thus, we recognize that there are separate language idioms called Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian and Montenegrin.20

19. The reaction in Zagreb to Greenberg’s (2004a) book clearly illustrates this point, as do current polemics in various Croatian scholarly journals between the Croatian linguist Snježana Kordić, who lives outside Croatia, and Croatian “insider” linguists, especially those from the “old school”. These latter wrote very disparaging reviews of Greenberg’s (2004a) generally very well received account of the disintegration of Serbo-Croatian. For more information see PetiStantić (2008). 20. The absence of a Montenegrin chapter stems from the fact that, to the best of our knowledge, no linguist currently studies pragmatic features of discourse particles in Montenegrin. In addition, the linguistic status of Montenegrin is at the present moment “quite tenuous at best” (Bugarski 2004b:â•›8; see also Bugarski 1998 and Greenberg 2004b).


Croatian and Serbian were the strongest linguistic and political emanations of Serbo-Croatian, and this is reflected by their respective names. These two were the strongest forces for the collapse of the linguistic unity, as well. The “contrastive self-identification” (Fishman 1972:â•›58) has been exhibited in many ways, especially during the process of political differentiation in the 1990s, which included a publication rush of differential dictionaries of Serbian and Croatian (an incomplete list includes Blažanović 1995; Brodnjak 1992, 1998; Ćirilov 1989; Guberina & Krstić 1940/98; Pavuna 1992; Šamija 1992; Šamija & Lukačić 1991; Vazdar 1993). Croatian linguists maintain a very strong stance regarding language autonomy and distinctiveness, and continue their work to fortify the linguistic description of the purified Croatian standard language. The language in use represents a colorful variety of mutually incomprehensible dialects, and an ample number of sundry urban and rural vernaculars. While the standard is based on the dialect called štokavian (named after the form of the interrogative pronoun što ‘what’), a vernacular spoken in the north-eastern part of the Croatian territory, the other two dialects – kajkavian and čakavian (named for the same pronoun which has forms kaj and ča respectively) – are spoken widely and prominently. Urban kajkavian, for example, the vernacular spoken in the capital Zagreb,21 has been strongly influenced by the standard language, like the urban Split čakavian (see Magner & Jutronić 2006). The existence of these three distinct dialects reinforces an oftrepeated argument about the differentiation between Croatian and Serbian based on the fact that of these three dialects, only štokavian is shared with Serbian. The Serbian language did not undergo any significant post-Yugoslav re-standardization (Bugarski 2004b:â•›8). Still, the emotional, political and cultural distances inherited from the period of war between what is now two countries contributed to the separation of the respective linguistic practices and the fact that the Serbian language experienced less contact with Croatian and more individuation in the post-war period. Figuratively, Serbian did not move anywhere, but the others (specifically Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin) underwent a more or less stringent linguistic engineering in order to move away from Serbian (see Škiljan 2004:â•›75). Bosnian showed tendencies to move away from Serbian, but not as vigorously as Croatian. While Croatia insisted on the regional and archaic lexicon of its 21. There were discussions in the past whether the kajkavian dialect, which represents the transitional dialect on the Croatian-Slovenian continuum, belongs to Croatian or to Slovenian languages. It seems that this question has been settled by its national localization within the borders of Croatia, having the population of the capital city Zagreb as its native speakers and its development influenced by the other two Croatian dialects (štokavian and čakavian).

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language, the Bosnian language’s path was slower and bound to its Oriental heritage (Bugarski 2004b:â•›8, Greenberg 2004a:â•›145–147; Isaković 1993). The Bosnian language movement of the 1990s rode on the coattails of national successes from the late 1960s, when the Yugoslav state recognized the Muslim nation of Bosnia. Despite the new recognition, however, it did not receive the full institutional backing associated with national status in the communist set-up, for example, its own Academy of Sciences, nor did Muslims initially make claims on behalf of a distinctive language. […] Alija Isaković in 1970 argued that ‘Bosnian’ was an actually existing variant of standard Serbo-Croat, implying some sort of parallel with Serbian and Croatian; and the proliferation of terms like intermediary or sub- or infra-variant prepared the way for acceptance that Bosnia had its own ‘standard linguistic idiom’ […]. (Okey 2005:â•›434)

In 1991, before the war in Bosnia erupted, Halilović still called Bosnian a variant of a common language while some Bosnian Muslims prepared the field for the implementation of the “ultimate paradox of Herderian nationalism taken to extremes whereby mere linguistic practice is no argument against the real spirit of the folk” (Okey 2005:â•›436). In the 90s, the Bosniak nation was constituted, but it was not until a 1993 congress that the Bosnian language was established (the name of the language is based on the territory and not on the nation; see Greenberg 2004a:â•›141).22 The underlying assumption was that the language should include all of those who share the pride of the land. Still, “Bosnian is no mixture of Serbian and Croatian” (Greenberg 2004a:â•›146), as contemporary linguists and other Bosnian intellectuals heartily argue. Finally, the Bulgarian situation demonstrates that the state has a powerful control over the language. The Bulgarian state has been fairly stable in the midst of the very unstable Balkans. While Bulgaria called Macedonian “a dialect of Bulgarian” (Fishman 2006:â•›99), this claim is based on geopolitical and historical, rather than linguistic foundations. That the Bulgarian standard was codified in the 1880’s and the Macedonian in 1945 is not a sound argument towards this claim because, at present, both languages are superregional. The claim that one language is a dialect of the other is in this sense illogical from whichever direction it may be stated.23

22. In September 1993, the Second Bosniak Congress officially re-introduced the historical ethnic name Bošnjaci (‘Bosniaks’) instead of the appellation Muslimani (‘Muslims’) used in former Yugoslavia. 23. We are grateful to Grace Fielder and Snježana Kordić for sharing their views on this issue, which in both cases reinforce ours.


The current socio-linguistic situation and language policies in the territories of the South Slavic languages dictated the organization of this volume. However, it is not inconceivable that, generations from now, this dissection might no longer be appropriate given the vagaries of a number of factors, such as the strength of the nations using these languages as well as the survival of the nation state as a principal organizing unit of human civilization, something for which scholars have foretold certain death many times before.

5.

The roadmap of the book

Following the dialectal continuum from South to North, and accepting the prevailing practices of distribution and naming, we organize the exploration of the selected South Slavic discourse particles in the following way: Bulgarian ama ‘but’ (Ch. 2), Macedonian kamo ‘so where’ (Ch. 3), Serbian baš ‘exactly’ and kao ‘like’ (Ch. 4), Bosnian ono ‘like’ (Ch. 5), Croatian dakle ‘so/in other words’ (Ch. 6) and Slovenian pa ‘and/but’ (Ch. 7). Grace E. Fielder applies an approach integrating relevance theory and discourse analysis to give a complex account of the Bulgarian adversative connective ama ‘but’. Looking at its use in two temporally distant sets of data, Fielder finds the adversity of ama to be related to a contextually inferred proposition. Ama marks an exchange structure and links it to the ongoing discourse. In doing so, ama may expand its scope, connecting the elements in an adversative relation locally as well as globally. Alexandre Sévigny also employs the relevance-theoretic framework in order to demonstrate that the Macedonian pragmatic marker kamo is an indicator of the speaker’s dissociative attitude towards a belief in the hearer’s ability and willingness to perform a certain action. In this way, kamo encodes procedural information and signals the formation of an interpretive, higher-level explicature. The data for Sévigny’s paper were collected in the Egyptian-Macedonian speech community in Canada, which is composed of immigrants and second and third generation Macedonian-Canadians who retain spoken fluency in the Macedonian variant of their parents. Mirjana Mišković-Luković argues for a unified account of the uses of Serbian baš and kao. She employs the relevance-theoretic pragmatics of on-line concept construction to show that the two particles have an identical communicative role. Baš is analyzed as a marker of non-loose use of a targeted propositional constituent, indicating either the identity of the lexically encoded and speakermeant concepts, or the pragmatic strengthening of a lexical concept. Kao is characterized as a marker of the loose use of a targeted propositional constituent: it

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signals the pragmatic loosening of a lexically encoded concept and, occasionally, an interpretive use. Aida Premilovac uses the relevance-theoretic notion of procedural encoding and the explicit/implicit distinction to account for the meaning of ono in Bosnian informal discourse. The particle, she argues, emerges as a lexical item that is distinct from the demonstrative pronoun ono ‘that’. It encodes non-truth-conditional, procedural information about the loosely used proposition expressed by an utterance. Although similar in meaning and use to the English pragmatic marker like, ono may, nonetheless, co-occur with the particles kao ‘like’ and baš ‘exactly’. Mirjana N. Dedaić considers functional pragmatic ingredients of the Croatian reformulator dakle. In a comparative analysis, aimed at teasing out whether particles from different languages might share some common elements, dakle (‘consequently’, ‘then’, ‘therefore’, ‘so’, ‘in other words’) figures as a discourse marker whose properties are of a primarily non-conceptual and highly multifunctional nature. Dakle contributes to the inferential processes involved in utterance understanding by making the causative-resultative relationship between the preceding and following discourse segments explicit. Furthermore, dakle seems to have developed argumentative/rhetorical and attitudinal discursive functions as well. Igor Ž. Žagar starts from a dictionary definition of the Slovenian connective pa ‘and’, ‘but’. His extensive analysis, couched in the framework of argumentation theory, is centrally concerned with the meaning of pa in the compound connectives ker pa ‘but since’ and sicer pa ‘anyway’. Applying the notions of topoi and polyphony and relying on data from contemporary press, Žagar explores a network of meanings created by the independent and compound uses of the three connectives. A reader who is less familiar with the (South) Slavic languages might wonder about a possible wider distribution of any of the particles analyzed within a single language. We concede that a description of a particle within a given language might be applicable, to a higher or lower degree, to another speech community which associates itself with a different national language. After all, the tight geographic proximity and long history of political and cultural convergence of the South Slavic languages must inevitably result in partially shared vocabulary and speech forms. However, just as no simplistic description is affordable for any linguistic situation “in the field”, so must our explanation revert to the specific particles analyzed in this book, which does not have a comparative aim. Anything beyond that would result in a presumptuous endeavor, given that, to the best of our knowledge, there is no available contrastive study of these particles. While all the six languages included in this volume have baš in their vocabulary, only Slovenian uses sicer pa and ker pa. Ama (but not ami!) is known in Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian, but it does not fully correspond to the description


provided for Bulgarian. Slovenian, Bulgarian and Macedonian do not have dakle, while it is in a relatively different distributional use in the Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian vernaculars. Most of the South Slavic languages have kamo or its cognate (e.g. kam in Slovenian), but the description provided by Sévigny seems to be unique for the specific community which is the source of his data. The pronominal demonstrative ono is a lexical item shared by most vernaculars throughout the South Slavic territory, but the procedural description of the particle, given by Premilovac, cannot be freely ascribed to the other languages. Some Croatian and Serbian vernaculars might be using the particle in a comparable fashion, but both languages in general seem to favor kao in comparison to ono.24 We are offering these case studies that follow theoretical and aerial threads running through all six chapters as a crack in the door for new approaches to South Slavic linguistic research. It is our hope that they will not only prompt critical responses, but also inform further research in the pragmatics of South Slavic discourse. The South Slavic languages are, as exemplified here, a very rich arena for pragmatic research. Furthermore, they provide a closer look into cognitive and argumentative processes in language and discourse, especially if these are seen as part of a general quest for the universality of pragmatic principles.

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24. Given that a great number of Croats and Serbs from Bosnia, who use ono according to Premilovac’s description of the particle, have migrated to Croatia and Serbia, and use ono in their everyday interaction, it remains to be seen whether and how this interaction will influence the semantic meaning and/or distribution of ono and kao in Croatian and Serbian naturallyÂ�occurring discourse.

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Okey, Robin. 2005. “Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian? Language and nationality in the lands of Former Yugoslavia.” East European Quarterly 38 (4): 419–441. Pavuna, Stanka. 1992. Govorimo li ispravno hrvatski? Mali razlikovni rječnik [Do we speak Croatian correctly? A small differential dictionary]. Zagreb: Integra. Peti-Stantić, Anita (ed.). 2008. Identitet jezika jezikom izrečen [The language identity expressed in a language]. Zagreb: Srednja Europa. Popov, Chris and Radin, Michael. 1989. Contemporary Greek Government Policy on the Macedonian Issue and Discriminatory Practices in Breach of International Law. Melbourne: Central Organizational Committee for Macedonian Human Rights, Australian Sub-Committee. Schiffrin, Deborah. 1987. Discourse Markers. New York: Cambridge University Press. Schourup, Lawrence. 1999. “Discourse markers.” Lingua 107: 227–265. Shea, John. 1997. Macedonia and Greece: The Struggle to Define a New Balkan Nation. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Sperber, Dan and Wilson, Deirdre. 1986/95. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford, UK; Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 2nd ed. Stevanović, Mihailo. 1986. Savremeni srpskohrvatski jezik I. [The Contemporary Serbo-Croatian Language I]. Beograd: Naučna knjiga. Šamija, Ivan Branko. 1992. Razlikovnica hrvatskoga i srpskog jezika [A differential notebook of the Croatian and Serbian languages]. Zagreb: Školske novine. Šamija, Ivan Branko and Lukačić, Dražen. 1991. Razlikovni rječnik srpskoga i hrvatskoga nazivlja [A differential dictionary of the Serbian and Croatian terminology]. Zagreb: Školske novine. Škiljan, Dubravko. 2004. “From Croato-Serbian to Croatian: Croatian linguistic identity.” In Language in the Former Yugoslav Lands, Ranko Bugarski and Celia Hawkesworth (eds.), 67–83. Bloomington, IN: Slavica. Tomić, Olga Mišeska. 2004. “Standard Macedonian and its current relationship to the Macedonian dialects.” In Language in the Former Yugoslav Lands, Ranko Bugarski and Celia Hawkesworth (eds.), 185–196. Bloomington, IN: Slavica. Vazdar, Zdenko. 1993. Razlikovni rječnik hrvatskoga i srpskoga graditeljskoga nazivlja [A differential dictionary of the Croatian and Serbian terminology of construction industry]. Zagreb: Anteum. Wachtel, Andrew. 1998. Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Whitman, Lois and Laber, Jeri. 1994. Denying Ethnic Identity: The Macedonians of Greece. Helsinki: Human Rights Watch. Zwicky, Arnold M. 1985. “Clitics and particles.” Language 61 (2): 283–305.

chapter 2

Ama, a Bulgarian adversative connective Grace E. Fielder

This paper represents an account of the Bulgarian adversative connective ama ‘but’ against the relevance-theoretic background and discourse approach. Basing her research on the data from Bulgarian spoken discourse collected in the 1990s and from a late nineteenth-century comic novel which employs various stylistic registers, Fielder finds the adversity of ama to be related not to the preceding asserted proposition, but rather to one that may be inferred from the context. As a discourse connective, ama marks an exchange structure and links it to the ongoing discourse. Fielder speculates that one of its confusing features could be its scope because ama can connect in an adversative relation on a local level or on a larger, more global level.

1.

Introduction

The Bulgarian adversative connective ama ‘but’ provides an excellent opportunity to discuss several problems in the linguistic analysis of discourse markers. On the one hand, in some of its uses ama may be assigned to the syntactic category of conjunctions, and be defined in terms of truth-conditional semantics. On the other hand, there are less transparent uses of ama which have led it being assigned to the more fuzzy category of particles, or of discourse markers, a designation that includes a variety of linguistic items such as connectives, particles and interjections. The more traditional account of ama is that there are two homonymous items. Thus, the Bulgarian Academy Dictionary (RBE) has two separate entries: amá1 the conjunction and ámá2 the particle. In the discussion that follows, I will argue that there is only one albeit multifunctional and polysemous item ama whose prototypical function is best viewed as that of a connective that contributes a core meaning . The particle ámá2 as opposed to the conjunction amá1 may have either initial or final stress, although some dictionaries cite the particle form only with initial stress. Whether initial stress actually distinguishes the particle from the conjunction, or merely reflects dialectal or idiolectal variation is not clear. A further complication is the fact that ama is sometimes reduced to ma.

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of adversativity. It will be demonstrated below that it is possible to account for the multifunctionality of this linguistic item by incorporating the different levels (syntactic, semantic, discourse-pragmatic and interactional) on which it can operate. There are a number of interesting questions that arise in the discussion of ama, not all of which can be completely addressed in this paper. The ultimate and primary goal of this paper is to account for the different functions of ama. Connected to this issue is the question of the correlation between ama’s position and its function. That is, to what extent is position relevant for distinguishing ama as a conjunction versus a discourse marker in terms of its function? Also relevant is just how the adversative connective ama differs from the adversative connective no, which is traditionally considered to be only a conjunction. The assumption is that if we can more precisely define the characteristics of ama versus no, then we will have a better idea of what ama is. Finally, one overarching factor that is relevant for all of these questions is that of the role of register in the choice of ama or no. Indeed, the position of the Bulgarian Academy Grammar Sciences (GSBKE 1983:â•›300) is that ama is used in sentences of a razgovoren xarakter ‘conversational character’ and as such is typical of po-stari ‘older’ writers. Indeed, by Rå Hauge’s account (1999:â•›226), ama the conjunction is the colloquial equivalent of the conjunction no. If this is in fact the only difference between the two items, then one would expect that the same linguistic analysis could be used to account for ama and no, with register factors governing the distribution between them. Two sources have been chosen for the data: Krasimira Aleksova’s corpus of contemporary spoken Bulgarian, which was compiled in the 1990s and is available on the Internet (http://www.hf.uio.no/east /bulg/mat/Aleksova/), and Aleko Konstantinov’s late nineteenth-century comic novel Baj Ganjo. Aleksova’s corpus is most useful for documenting the frequent use of ama in the contemporary spoken language (as opposed to written texts and more formal speech, where it occurs more rarely, if at all). The second source, in contrast, reflects the Bulgarian language of the late 19th century and represents a very specific type of data. Written during a period of intense debate over codification and which features belonged in the standard language and which did not, Baj Ganjo derives much of its humor from the manipulation of stylistic register and deliberate exploitation of

. For other aspects of analysis of ama see Fielder (2005, 2008a, 2008b, 2008c, and 2008d). . This type of comment reflects the fact that the language of the late 19th and early 20th century Bulgarian writers often included elements that were not part of the post-WWII standard language, particularly if rural or village speech was being represented. . Thus, for example, there are no instances of ama in the more formal speech of the corpus of Bulgarian parliamentary debates (http://www.hf.uio.no/east/bulg/mat/).

Chapter 2.â•‡ Bulgarian adversative connective ama

the contrast between the more standard speech of the western-educated students and the non-standard speech of the uneducated Bulgarian peasant, the character Baj Ganjo himself. Baj Ganjo contrasts both written and spoken language (it consists of both narrative and dialogue), as well as standard versus non-standard speech (of the students versus Baj Ganjo character). This second corpus then allows us to consider the role of register in the use of ama versus no.

2.

Semantic analysis of the adversative conjunctions ama and no

The GSBKE distinguishes between several types of adversative constructions, all of which are expressed by the conjunction no and by extension ama. The first is socalled strong contrast-delimitation (protivopostavitelno-ograničitelno, 1983:â•›299), where the proposition expressed in the clause introduced by the adversative conjunction (S2) delimits or even contradicts the proposition expressed in the previous one (S1). In this adversative use, the conjunctions ama and no are amenable to a truth-conditional semantic approach such that ‘S1 ama/no S2’ [S1 but S2] means that S2 negates or contradicts S1. See examples (1) and (2). (1) Baj Ganjo beše v stajata. Toj iskaše da prikrie zanjatieto si, no ne uspja i az zabeležix, če prišivaše edin nov džeb na vâtrešnata strana na anterijata si. ‘Baj Ganjo was in the room. He tried to hide what he was doing from me, no he couldn’t, and I noticed that he was sewing a new pocket onto the inside of his old-fashioned padded jacket.’ (2) O-xo! Da go vodja na banja! Men počnaxa malko da me zimat djavolite, ama se sdâržax i ne samo če se sdâržax, ami me i dosmeša. ‘So that’s it! The gentleman wants to be taken to the baths! I felt like telling him to go to hell, ama I restrained myself, not only did I restrain myself, but was even a bit amused.’

In both examples, the proposition in S2 negates or contradicts the proposition in S1. In example (1), Baj Ganjo does not manage to hide from the narrator what he is doing, and in example (2), the narrator does not tell Baj Ganjo off. Negation of S1, however, is not the only interpretation; the GSBKE also distinguishes the adversative-explanatory (protivopostavitelno-izjasnitelno, 1983:â•›299) use where S2 elaborates on S1. See examples (3) and (4). . Note that ami in example (2) is a different kind of ‘but’. Here it combines with i ‘and, even’ forming a kind of compound conjunction of a comparative nature that occurs in the larger construction ne samo če … ami i ‘not only… but even’. Fielder (2005 and 2008b) discusses the difference between ama and ami as signaling negative versus positive face.

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(3) V tazi sladkarnica az xodex često i mnogo dobre se poznavax s kasierkata, edna xubavička i vesela moma, vesela, no se dâržeše dobre i ne dopuštaše volnosti. ‘I often went to this pastry shop and knew the cashier very well: She was a cute, cheerful girl, quite lively, no proper, and she didn’t allow people to take liberties.’ (4) Ostavi se! Vidiš li tozi pojas? – i Baj Ganjo si povdiga si širokata žiletka,Â€– vsičkite muskali šte gi natâpča vâtre. Istina, težičko malko, ama sigur. ‘Forget it! Do you see this sash? – And Baj Ganjo raised his vest. – I’ll stuff all the phials in here. True, it’s a little heavy, ama it’s safe.’

In these two examples, what is being contradicted is not the proposition in the S1, but rather the assumptions raised by virtue of asserting S1. Thus, what we are dealing with here is not an explicit proposition, as in examples (1) and (2), but rather, an implied proposition (implicature). This implied proposition could be, for example, an expectation that the speaker fears may have been raised in the mind of the hearer, one that the speaker wishes to contradict, hence the further elaboration. In (3), the narrator wishes to contradict the assumption that the young girl’s lively behavior could be construed as so lively as to encourage improper advances. This use of ama then illustrates the concessive but defined by Quirk et al. (1972:â•›674): “Concessive conjuncts signal the unexpected, surprising nature of what is being said in view of what was said before that.” In example (4), Baj Ganjo rejects the suggestion to leave his valuable rose oil with the hotel staff and instead argues that keeping them on one’s person is a better option. He concedes the physical discomfort of the weight but asserts that this disadvantage is outweighed by the psychological security, which implies that the hotel staff are not trustworthy. Thus, the ama here does not negate S1, but rather elaborates and justifies his actions by countering assumptions that are implicit, rather than explicit, in the context. In both examples the adversative conjunction could be seen as the equivalent of Lakoff ’s (1971) denial of the expectation but. Regardless of what we call it, the salient point is that what is being contrasted here by these conjunctions is not the preceding asserted proposition, but rather one that may be inferred from the context. Thus, ama and no are not canonical conjunctions serving a strictly syntactic function; rather their scope extends beyond the level of the clause. When confronted with examples such as (3) and (4), a semantic, contentbased or conceptual notion of meaning loses its explanatory power. One alternative approach is that of Blakemore who proposes a procedural account of such . See Sweetser (1990:â•›100–111) for a similar analysis of English ‘but’ as a conjunction in the epistemic domain and in the speech-act domain.


items: “expressions such as after all, but or so do not encode a constituent of conceptual representation (or even indicate a concept), but guide the comprehension process so that the hearer ends up with a conceptual representation” (2002:â•›90– 91). This explanation needs to be understood against the background of Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory, a cognitive reformulation of Grice’s Principles of Cooperative Conversation: Every utterance, that is, every act of ostensive communication carries the presumption of relevance. That is, the hearer recognizes the utterance as an act of deliberate and overt communication in which the speaker not only intends to convey a particular message, but is also actively helping the hearer recognize this. Optimal relevance is achieved first, through the presumption that the information that the utterance communicates interacts with the context for derivation of adequate contextual effects; and second, the presumption that no gratuitous effort is required for the recovery of contextual effects. (Blakemore 2002:â•›105)

In this model, the function of but is to guide the hearer to contradict and eliminate an existing assumption. Blakemore illustrates this procedural meaning of but in example (5): (5) There’s a pizza in the fridge, but leave some for tomorrow.

The use of but in (5) leads to the contradiction and elimination of an existing assumption, (6) which is presumed to have been made manifest either by the statement of (5), or by the attendant circumstances, or knowledge that the speaker believes the hearer to hold (i.e. if it is a hungry teenager being addressed, for example, a wise parent will explicitly prohibit the proposition in (6)). (6) You can eat all the pizza in the fridge.

Because the scope of the connective in (5) extends beyond that of the clause level, I will refer to but, ama and no as adversative connectives rather than conjunctions, with the understanding that connectives subsume conjunctions. Thus, while all conjunctions are connectives, not all connectives are conjunctions. The adversative connectives in (3) and (4) then contradict inferred assumptions, rather than asserted propositions. In other words, ama and no procedurally encode the information that the hearer is intended to follow a particular inferential route which ends in the contradiction and elimination of a contextual assumption. The mental operations involved in (1) and (2) versus (3) and (4) are in fact quite similar, but differ with respect to the scope. The use of the term connective, rather than

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conjunction, thus allows us to retain a unitary explanation of ama and no while expanding their scope of operation.

3.

The role of register

Thus far we have been able to account for ama and no as adversative connectives using the same analytical tools. According to Rå Hauge (1999:â•›226), ama is the colloquial equivalent of the adversative conjunction no. This difference in register value is consistent with the etymology of the two connectives: no is an inherited form from Old Church Slavic (although its ultimate phonetic shape is actually due to the influence of Russian on the literary standard), while ama is generally agreed to be a borrowing from Turkish. Regardless of the actual etymology of ama, it is clearly part of razgovorna reč ‘colloquial speech’ (GSBKE 1983; Tiševa and Rå Hauge 2001; Vrina 1999), whereas no is the more neutral adversative connective of the standard language. It is reasonable to assume therefore that ama as colloquial material would be more likely to be found in dialogue than in narrative passages, whereas no would be more frequent in narrative. A comparison of the distribution of ama versus no in Aleko Konstantinov’s Baj Ganjo supports this characterization (see Table 1). Table 1. Relative frequency of no and ama in dialogue vs. narrative in Baj Ganjo no ama

Dialogue

Narrative

10.5% (8 N) 70.5% (31 N)

89.5% (81 N) 29.5% (13 N)

. Note that Vrina, however, takes the position that ama as an expressive particle relates to the utterance that it introduces, rather than linking that utterance to a prior one (1999:â•›60). . The source of ama is actually quite problematic. It could be a grammaticalization of native Slavic material: the connective a ‘and/but’ + ma < vocative mamo ‘mother’, or a borrowing of Turkish ama (which may have originally come from Arabic amma. Alternatively, it could be a borrowing from Greek αµέ. â•›‘surely, but’ (with the final vowel lowered either as a dialectal vowel harmony or by analogy to αλλά. â•›‘but’). B. Joseph (personal communication) suggests that this word could have been borrowed first into Turkish from Greek, and then from Turkish into Bulgarian, a frequently traveled route for borrowings in the Balkans. See Fielder (2008c) for a discussion of the ideology of the etymology of ama and ami. . Counts for Baj Ganjo were done on the first half of the novel, Baj Ganjo trâgna po Evropa (approximately 16,400 words).


Table 2.â•‡ Relative frequency of no vs. (a)ma in Aleksova corpus10 no (a)ma

13% (17 tokens) 87% (117 tokens)11

Likewise, one would expect ama to be more frequent than no overall in Aleksova’s corpus because it reflects contemporary spoken Bulgarian (see TableÂ€2). This difference in register between no versus ama is further supported by the distribution within the dialogue in the novel Baj Ganjo. The folksy main character Baj Ganjo, who represents the stereotypical Balkan Bulgarian, consistently uses ama, never no. No is found only in the speech of the other, more educated characters, such as the Bulgarian student-narrators as well as the Czech scholar Jiriček and his mother, both of whom are non-native speakers of Bulgarian and therefore less likely to use colloquial forms. The next set of tables reflects the positional distribution of ama and no in both corpora. Recall that there seems to be a correlation (fairly explicitly stated by Rå Hauge 1999, and more obliquely by Tiševa and Rå Hauge 2001), such that conjunctions are more prototypically found in sentence-medial position, while discourse markers are more prototypically found in utterance-initial position. This correlation has to do with the fact that the scope of conjunctions is local, they link clauses or phrases, while the scope of discourse markers extends beyond the sentence-level. Dorgeloh (2004:â•›1766), for examples, discusses the restrictions on sentence-initial use of the connective and in English and the correlation of genre. Sentence-initial and is thus more frequent in conversation (Biber et al. 1999:â•›83–84), where the normative prescription against it is more likely to be violated. Georgakopoulou and Goutsos (1998), who argue that the position is essential for distinguishing between Greek connectives in a conjunction versus discourse marker function, demonstrate that sentence-initial alá ‘but’ is more frequent in spoken narrative and non-narrative, while sentence-medial alá is more frequent in written narrative and non-narrative. If such a correlation were to hold for Bulgarian, then we would expect to find that no, being a conjunction, would typically occur in sentence-medial position. Ama, in contrast, since

10. Counts were done for Sections 1.1–1.7 of Aleksova’s corpus, approximately 17,700 words and 4,200 lines. 11. It should be pointed out, however, that 42 of the total 117 tokens of ama in Aleksova’s corpus are actually uttered by the interviewer herself. She would often use ama to introduce questions aimed at controlling the topic of discourse (Tiševa and Rå Hauge 2001:â•›251). While this fact does skew the numbers somewhat, it does not necessarily invalidate the significance of the results.

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Table 3.â•‡ Position of ama in narrative vs. dialogue in Baj Ganjo Initial ama Medial ama

Narrative

Dialogue

Total

15% (2 N) 85% (11 N)

52% (16 N) 48% (15 N)

41% (18 N) 59% (26 N)

Table 4.â•‡ Position of no in narrative vs. dialogue in Baj Ganjo Initial no Medial no

Narrative

Dialogue

Total

22% (18 N) 88% (63 N)

13% (1 N) 87% (7 N)

21.5% (19 N) 78.5% (70 N)

it may function as either a conjunction or a discourse marker, should be more likely than no to occur in sentence-initial position. Moreover, we would expect to find a similar correlation with genre such that sentence-initial tokens of ama would be more frequent in dialogue than in narrative. In other words, while sentential position is not a diagnostic for distinguishing conjunction versus discourse marker, we should be able to observe certain tendencies that support our findings thus far. As we have seen in Table 1 ama is found more frequently in dialogue, which is consistent with its more colloquial character. By extension, one would expect more examples of ama in sentence-initial position (i.e. as a discourse marker) in dialogue than in narrative. And, in fact, text counts in Baj Ganjo show that this is indeed the case (see Table 3). Table 4 shows the position of no in narrative versus dialogue. The results here are somewhat surprising because we find that no is used more frequently in initial position in narrative than in dialogue. However, given that the total number of tokens of no in dialogue is quite small (8) relative to the total number in narrative (81), these figures are perhaps not statistically significant. The fact that no is more frequent medially than initially overall, however, is the result we would expect to find. In Aleksova’s corpus, which reflects the colloquial spoken language in informal settings, we would expect the distribution of ama to correspond more closely to that in dialogue. In fact, sentence-initial ama is even more frequent in Aleksova’s corpus, which is consistent with its more frequent use as a discourse marker and is equally an indication of its colloquial nature. It should be noted that while the numbers in Table 5 are highly suggestive of a link between sentence-medial versus sentence-initial position and ama’s function as conjunction versus discourse marker, they do not actually prove such a


Table 5.â•‡ Position of (a)ma vs. no in Aleksova corpus Initial ama Medial ama Final ama

65% (76 N) 30% (35 N) â•⁄ 5% (6 N)

Initial no Medial no Final no

29% (5 N) 59% (10 N) 12% (2 N)

correlation.12 In fact, Tiševa and Rå Hauge (2001:â•›242) explicitly state that ama as a pragmatic marker is not limited to sentence-initial position. What I think these figures actually do show is that in sentence-medial position, the scope of ama is more likely to be interpreted as a connective between two clauses or phrases (i.e. its scope is local). In initial position, however, ama’s scope is more global and is thus better situated to serve the purpose of textual cohesion than grammatical coordination (Halliday and Hasan 1976). In other words, position reflects the level on which the connective is operating, or is at least perceived to be operating. In sentence-medial position, then, ama would typically be interpreted as a conjunction connecting two clauses, but in sentence-initial position, it is more likely to be a discourse marker connecting two separate units of discourse. This is not to say that no cannot be used as a discourse marker, but rather that it is less suitable for use as one due to reasons of register. Given that these two connectives have essentially the same semantic meaning, it is more likely that the one used more frequently in conversation would be the one that is pressed into service as a discourse marker.

4.

Ama: From connective to discourse marker

We are now in a position to examine the function of the adversative connective ama as a discourse marker. The fact that ama has more than a conjunction function has already been pointed out by Rå Hauge (1999:â•›185), Tiševa and Rå Hauge (2001), and Vrina (1999). Rå Hauge defines pragmatic particles as “not connected to meaning and reference, but rather to the effect on the actual state of things that utterances have or are expected to have” (1999:â•›184). Tiševa and Rå Hauge (2001:â•›242) define pragmatic markers as realizing the “svârzanost meždu repliki v dialog“ ‘connection between replies in dialogue’, and subscribe to Blakemore’s procedural analysis of but in explaining the use of ama. Vrina (1999), however, maintains the distinction between ama as a conjunction and ama as an ekspresivna častica ‘expressive particle’, an item that conveys subjective emotional rather 12. Fielder (2008b) discusses in depth the significance of position as a diagnostic of function for the adversative conjunctions no, ama, and ami.

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than semantic information, and states that it relates to the preceding part of the utterance. This lack of consensus is typical of the literature about discourse markers, a group of linguistic items that share similar discourse-pragmatic functions, but defy classification as a single part of speech. The more precise the definition, however, the less inclusive the framework becomes. Jucker (1993:â•›436), for example, points out that Hölker’s (1991) four basic features of pragmatic markers, while useful from a typological point of view, turn out to be too restrictive when put into practice: i. they do not affect the truth conditions of an utterance; ii. they do not add anything to the propositional content of an utterance; iii. they are related to the speech situation and not to the situation talked about; and iv. they have an emotive, expressive function rather than a referential, denotative, or cognitive function. Thus, the fact that ama can be analyzed as a conjunction with truth-conditional meaning in example (2), which is repeated below, would rule it out as a discourse marker by virtue of (i). It would, in effect, impose the acceptance of two homonymous items, rather than one polysemous ama.13 (2) O-xo! Da go vodja na banja! Men počnaxa malko da me zimat djavolite, ama se sdâržax i ne samo če se sdâržax, ami me i dosmeša. ‘So that’s it! The gentleman wants to be taken to the baths! I felt like telling him to go to hell, ama I restrained myself, not only did I restrain myself, but was even a bit amused.’

Rå Hauge (1999:â•›185) takes example (7) from the Aleksova corpus, and claims that ama in utterance-initial position indicates that the content of the utterance does not follow from preceding context but rather negates it. (7)

– Ne, njama togava vâobšte da go piem. – Ama toj za tova e kupen! – No, we won’t drink it at all then. – Ama that’s what it was bought for!

This explanation appears to be consistent with the truth-conditional account of the conjunction ama in examples (2) and (4), except that here, ama connects two separate units of discourse uttered by two different speakers. While, strictly

13. Indeed Sweetser (1990) presents a very persuasive argument against homonymy by demonstrating how polysemy patterns in conjunctions can be explained by metaphor.


speaking, ama is not a conjunction here, it is still serving primarily a connective function. While it does not technically fit the description of a conjunction since it connects units larger than a clause, at the same time it has a clear semantic relation or familial resemblance to ama the conjunction. What is different here then is not the adversative relation signaled by ama in examples (2), (4) and (7), but rather what falls under its scope. It would seem that connecting in an adversative relation may be done on a local level or on a larger, more global level. It can thus be said that the conjunction ama conjoins clauses at a more local level whereas the connective ama conjoins implied assumptions. Even less local, then, would be the ama that connects replies between interlocutors. The ama in example (8), however, is presented as rather different still. In this example, also taken from the Aleksova corpus, Rå Hauge (1999:â•›185) states that ama is used to mark a return to a topic that the partner would otherwise consider exhausted. In the more procedural interpretation of Tiševa and Rå Hauge (2001:â•›25), this ama signals that the relevance of a question does not need to be sought in the immediately preceding context, but necessitates a return to an already mentioned theme for clarification or amplification. It is used, therefore, to manage talk at the interactional level. (8) – N e pipaj ximikala, tova mi e ljubimija ximikal. Vsički go pipat, ne trjabva da go pipat. – Zašto? – Zaštoto ne trjabva. – Ama zašto ne trjabva? – Don’t touch my marker pen, that’s my favorite marker. Everybody uses it, they shouldn’t. – Why? – Because they shouldn’t. – Ama why shouldn’t they?

Since we are now discussing units that are being connected at the discourse-level, it would be useful at this point to review Schiffrin’s (1987) treatment of discourse markers. In Schiffrin’s view, discourse markers, one source of which are conjunctions or connectives, are sequentially dependent elements that bracket units of talk and contribute to the coherence of the discourse. According to this model the discourse can have several planes: a participation framework, an information state, an ideational structure, an action structure, and an exchange structure. What discourse markers do then is they connect utterances or chunks of discourse either on a single plane or across different planes. Schiffrin (2001:â•›57) gives example (9) as an illustration of the multi-functionality of the discourse marker but:

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(9) Jack: [The rabbis preach, [“Don’t intermarry” Freda: [But I did- [But I did say those intermarriages that we have in this country are healthy.

Here Freda’s but prefaces an idea unit (“intermarriages are healthy”), displays a participation framework (nonaligned with Jack), realizes an action (a rebuttal during an argument), and seeks to establish Freda as a current speaker in an exchange (open a turn at talk). Using Schiffrin’s discourse model, we can elaborate on Rå Hauge’s account of examples (7) and (8), which I would argue are not that different. In both examples, ama prefaces an idea unit, initiates a turn exchange and displays nonalignment with the interlocutor. Both act as rebuttals (although in (8) the rebuttal is framed as a question), and both function on the information plane by returning to (or in the case of (7) refusing to abandon) the topic. Ama, as a discourse marker, is then multifunctional and has variable scope across different levels and planes. Key to understanding the range of expression that ama has is that it is used primarily as an interactional marker expressing opposition or contrast. Moreover, this function must be understood in terms of a dialogue between a speaker and a hearer, more specifically as a response that is somehow opposed to what was said before. In a sense, then, we have now come to a conclusion similar to that reached at the end of Section 2, namely, that a meaningful account of ama must be constructed in the context of a speaker and a hearer engaged in negotiating meaning. The following section will analyze, in more detail, examples from Baj Ganjo and from Aleksova’s corpus in order to demonstrate the efficacy of this approach for both types of data.

5.

Ama, adversative response

Example (10), taken from Baj Ganjo, is perhaps emblematic of the use of ama by Konstantinov and illustrates the register distinction between no and ama. In the following passage, Baj Ganjo has shown up at the house of Jiriček, the famous scholar, and is trying to elicit an invitation to spend the night there rather than have to pay for a hotel room while in Prague: (10) – A z šte navârtam po-često okolo vas, šte si prikazvame za Bâlgarija. Pa ako običate, sâglasen sâm i u vas da ostana, dodeto sâm v Praga. A? – Izvinete, no… – Kazvam, sankim, ako običate – objasnjava spleteno Baj Ganjo, – i men mi po-dobre na xotela, ama xajde, rekox, Ireček – naš čovek…


– B lagodarja za vnimanieto; az bi zadâržal na drago sârdce u doma, no ne razpolagam s lišni pomeštenija. Dnes obače vie ste naš gost i šte objadvate u nas. – I’ll hang around your place more, we’ll chat about Bulgaria. And if you like, I’ll even stay here at your place while I’m in Prague. What do you say? – I’m sorry, no… – That is to say, I mean, if you would be so kind – Baj Ganjo explained in confusion – as for me, I would prefer a hotel, ama I said to myself, hey, I said, Jiriček, he’s one of us… – Thank you very much for your consideration, I would happily give you a place to stay here, no I do not have any extra room. Today, however, you are our guest and will dine with us.

Jiriček’s responses are fairly transparent. With the first no Jiriček obviously wishes to contradict Baj Ganjo’s assumption that he can spend the night. At the first hint of this contradiction, Baj Ganjo quickly realizes that he has overstepped some social boundary, that is, he has committed a face-threatening act by assuming that he is entitled to the hospitality. He immediately interrupts Jiriček before he can verbalize his objection in order to do some quick repair-work. Baj Ganjo does this by reproducing an internal conversation he had with himself that led him to the apparently reasonable assumption of hospitality in the first place. That is, to Baj Ganjo’s way of thinking, since they are virtually fellow countrymen, Jiriček would most surely, like any good Bulgarian, insist on observing Bulgarian customs regarding hospitality. With the second no Jiriček persists in his opposition by contradicting the more explicit, yet still unstated assumption that he even has a spare room to provide, while at the same time acknowledging Baj Ganjo’s claim of hospitality by offering dinner instead. Thus, both nos seem to be connectives with procedural rather than conceptual meaning in the sense that they introduce a proposition (S2) that contradicts an assumed proposition (S1): Jiriček must provide Baj Ganjo with lodgings because he has extra room and he is obligated to reciprocate the hospitality he received while visiting Bulgaria. Baj Ganjo’s use of ama, however, is less transparent. At first glance, it appears to be simply a colloquial version of no, used by Konstantinov to sharpen the contrast between the highly educated speech of Jiriček and the rural speech of Baj Ganjo. It is, after all, in sentence-medial position, the prototypical position for a conjunction. Upon closer examination, however, it turns out that this ama does not meet the positional criterion for a conjunction, in that it is not, strictly speaking, in medial position. This ama actually introduces a new unit of discourse, specifically a piece of reported speech which Baj Ganjo reproduces in order to justify his face-threatening act. This reported speech needs to be

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integrated into the preceding discourse chunk, and, I would argue, this is part of the function of ama here. This ama, therefore, could even be considered as utterance-initial in that it introduces a parenthetical phrase. Moreover, it does not link two propositions in the same way as the conjunction ama does in examples (2) and (4) above, even if the S1 is assumed. In fact, it is not clear what assumption is being contradicted. Nor is it clear what precisely constitutes the contradiction: ama xajde ‘but come on’, which, as a collocation, is a mitigating interjection (Greenberg 1996:â•›60; Tsizmarova 2005), or ama rekox ‘but I said’, which explicitly links it to the reported speech unit, or even ama Ireček – naš čovek ‘but Jiriček is one of us’, which links it propositionally to the Baj Ganjo’s assumption that Jiriček is under some sort of transferred obligation to reciprocate the hospitality he received while in Bulgaria (and therefore Baj Ganjo is not out of line in making this suggestion). Thus, ama here meets our criteria for a discourse marker, defined as a connective that links units of discourse together as opposed to a conjunction which links two clauses together on the syntactic and semantic level, but it appears to be operating on several levels at the same time. Again, Schiffrin’s discourse approach appears to be the more flexible method of looking at the use of ama as a discourse connective in (10), where it clearly marks an exchange structure, specifically the insertion of reported speech, and links it to the ongoing discourse. Ama introduces a turn-exchange in which Baj Ganjo interrupts his current discourse with prior discourse; it establishes the nonalignment of the interlocutor albeit with himself, and could even be construed as realizing an action: it serves to incorporate a face-saving action. Essentially, Baj Ganjo reproduces his alleged chain of inferences to justify his overstepping the bounds of propriety, namely that he had actually originally planned to stay at a hotel, and only presumed Jiriček’s hospitality out of respect for Jiriček’s position as a virtual fellow countryman. This example is also consistent with the role of register associated with the choice between ama and no. The exceeding polite and tactful European Jiriček uses the more standard no (along with other features of a more formal register, such as the formulaic blagodarja za vnimanieto ‘thank you for your consideration’ and use of the conditional mood bi zadâržal na drago sârdce ‘I would be pleased’) in his attempt to indirectly refuse Baj Ganjo’s request. Baj Ganjo, on the other hand, employs the more direct and assertive ama, along with other features of the colloquial register, i.e. the Turkism sankim ‘I mean’ and object reduplication (i men mi po-dobre na xotela ‘me as for me at a hotel is better’). Thus, what is being contrasted in this passage is not just implied propositions or assumptions, but the very different cultural behaviors and presuppositions underlying this particular hospitality script. The use of ama by Baj Ganjo reflects the directness, even bluntness of the Balkan peasant versus the more indirect and urbane European.


In general, the juxtaposition of the European and Balkan worlds can be seen as underlying most occurrences of ama in this novel. As a discourse marker, ama procedurally encodes the information that the hearer is intended to follow an inferential route which ends in the contradiction and elimination of not just a contextual, but a cultural assumption. It is part of a response that signals not just the non-alignment with what the speaker has said or assumed, but non-alignment of Balkan with European culture. It is only against this backdrop of culture clash that an “out-of-the-blue” ama, uttered where there is no preceding discourse to oppose, can be explicated. As Blakemore (1992:â•›105) points out, “the cancelled assumption is not necessarily an assumption derived, or even derivable, from an act of communication at all”. And indeed, it is possible for a speaker to use ‘but’ as a means of activating the procedure of contradiction and elimination in utterances which are not preceded by any discourse or act of communication at all. In example (11), ama not only expresses Baj Ganjo’s surprise at not finding a nail in the wall at the baths (as described by Vrina 1999:â•›190), but it is also a challenge to the assumption held by his audience that Germans are more advanced than Bulgarians. Moreover, it is also typical of his blustering manner and self-defensiveness, and his attempt to maintain his negative face (Fielder 2005, 2008b): (11) Toj se ogleda po stenite na koridora, potârsi njakoj gvozdej da zakači vâzela si; toj misli, če štom e stena, trjabva da ima gvozdei po neja, i se obâršta kâm mene: – Ama prosta rabota tezi nemci, edin gvozdej ne im stiga uma da zabijat, pa kazvat, če nie sme bili prosti. He looked along the walls down the corridor, hoping to find a nail he could hang his kit on. He expected every wall to have nails in it, and now, disappointed, he turned to me in disgust: – Ama these Germans are idiots, it doesn’t occur to them to pound in a nail. And they say that we’re stupid.

Thus, a great deal of the humor in the novel Baj Ganjo deals with the clash of expectations and assumptions that Bulgarians and Europeans have about each other. Aleko Konstantinov uses the colloquial discourse connective ama often for humorous effect to reveal this mismatch between expectations and world view, as well as to communicate the attitude of a given speaker, narrator or character with respect to the mismatch. This is the source of the emotive effects of surprise, dismay, or protest that is often associated with utterances prefaced by ama (cf.Â€Vrina 1999). In comparison with Baj Ganjo, the Aleksova corpus illustrates a later stage of development where ama appears to have lost a great deal of its marked cultural status and is used freely by almost all of the informants. Although it does retain its pronounced colloquial flavor, it is used regularly both as a conjunction, in the

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sense of being used sentence-medially to join clauses and phrases, as well as a discourse marker when used sentence-initially and turn-initially. Example (12) is a typical use of ama as a conjunction in the Aleksova corpus where in a written genre one would expect the more neutral no: (12) L: //n’ama ot nikâde nikâkvi plodove/ ne mogâ da si naprav’â džankovit (FS) džankovijât sok// as ot džanki kakâf sok praim/ ama nema džanki// sok// (Aleksova 1.1)14 //there’s no fruit to be had anywhere/ I can’t make my plums (FS) plum juice// I make a really good juice from plums/ ama there aren’t any plums// juice//

An interesting correlation in the Aleksova corpus is that utterance initial ama is often used to introduce interrogatives and imperatives, that is, ama as a discourse marker regularly functions both to realize an action and to initiate a turn exchange (it does something rather than simply means something). This utterance initial ama is particularly frequent in questions where the speaker is pressing for further information on a topic that the hearer seems to consider exhausted. Tiševa and Rå Hauge even comment on the interviewer’s propensity to preface such probing questions with ama for further information on a topic (2001:â•›251). See example (13) where V (= interviewer) is trying to get more information out of A who has already signaled that she has said all there is to say about the topic: tva e z Baj Žan ‘that’s it for Baj Žan’: (13) V: E koj mu ja redi? A: //edna fondacija/ taja kojato mu uredi izložbata tuka vâf bâlgarija// i vsičkite si romani še gi izdava/ sponsorirani/ i piše i kazá tija dni da se obadim i da otidem do t’ax// tva e z Baj Žan// V: Ama te sa se vârnali ot dolu?! A: // da/ tuka f sofija sâ V: Ama raboti li nešto? A: //koj/ toj li// V: Da. A: //ne//

14. Certain transcription conventions have been retained from Aleksova’s transcripts: “/” indicates a pause or intonational incompleteness when speaker is interrupted by another; “//” indicates a longer pause or intonational completion [for purpose of the text counts, ama following “//” is considered to be utterance-initial]; “…” indicates an extended pause or omitted part of the utterance; “F” stands for the presence of some kind of paralinguistic sound which is explained in parentheses; “FS” is used for what Aleksova terms a “false start”, but in example (12) is more commonly regarded as a repair.


V: A dobre, plaštat li mu nešto za tija izložbi? A: //za izložbite ne/ ako prodade nešto plaštât// V: Ama toj gi prodava! A: //toj e veči pens’oner misl’â// V: Eh, who’s arranging it for him? A: //some foundation/ the one that organizes the exhibition here in Bulgaria// and it will publish all his novels/ sponsored/ and he writes and said these days to call them up and go over there// and that’s it for Baj Žan V: Ama have they returned from down below? A: //yes/ they’re here in Sofia V: Ama is he doing some work? A: //who/ him?// V: Yes A: //no// V: Well okay, are they paying him something for these exhibitions? A: //for the exhibitions no/ if he sells something they pay// V: Ama he’s selling them! A: //he’s already retired I think//

V prefaces each question with ama marking a return to the prior topic. In this way V uses the first two amas to connect her discourse unit, a question, with prior discourse units. With the third ama she rejects A’s response to her question as to whether Baj Zhan was being paid for the exhibits, and retorts that he is selling his novels there. By equating receiving money with getting paid, V challenges the relevance of A’s response. Thus, ama functions as a connective on the discourse level, the information plane and interactional level. Note too that this type of interrogation constitutes a face-threatening act and ama can be construed as a signal of negative face, an assertion of one’s own desires in a situation where the interlocutor does not wish to conform. (Native speakers of Bulgarian have informed me that they would never use ama with someone of higher status, such as a supervisor at work or a teacher, because it would be disrespectful.) It is also noteworthy that when addressing two 7-year-old children in one interview (Aleksova 1.2d and 1.7d), the interviewer does not preface her questions or requests with ama, but typically resorts to a more vague introductory a ‘well/so/and/but’ for questions and the softer ami ‘but’ for requests. Example (14) is an exception, but it is important to note that (a)ma here expresses surprise (cf. example (15)) and is preceded by the unambiguously positive bravo which emphasizes positive face and defuses any negative face effect for (a)ma.

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(14) V: Bravo, ma ti vsičko razbiraš! V: Bravo, ma you understand everything!

The next example (15) displays ama in initial, medial and final position and allows us to view this discourse marker in its full range of expression. The first two tokens (as well as the fifth) preface an idea unit in which a mother (I) is complaining about her young son’s difficult behavior. It would be just as appropriate to translate ama as the English ‘and’ because here it has a primarily connective function, except for the fact that it conveys marked emotional content. The use of ama does not contradict anything she has already said, but rather indicates that her child’s behavior is so unexpected to her, so contrary to her expectations, especially given that it is in front of others. So, here we have examples of ama being used not to connect propositions with adversative content, but rather to indicate an adversative emotional reaction to what is being related. These uses of ama could be classified as expressive particles or even interjections (Vrina 1999), except that they also serve a connective function. The first ama reflects the disconnect between the mother’s expectations and the reality of her child’s behavior: a guest drops in and that moment is precisely when he chooses to behave badly. The second completes a list of bad behaviors. Ama in these contexts is not just a connective, but also an expression of shock and dismay. The fifth and final ama is used with the perfect in what Vrina (1999:â•›190–191) calls an admirative use, that is, expressing surprise at something unexpected.15 (15) V: Kaži kakvo stava. I: //mi kvo stava/ opšto vzeto se oprav’ame:/ toj ot vreme na vreme me nervira ta me iskarva ot nervi// dojde svetla tuka ama toj podiv’a// napravo ti kazvam/ dârža se odvratitelno/ razlivá sok tuka: ligavi se blâska:/ as zex da ja xranâ nali po eno vreme: toj se blâska vâf mene/ blâska ja neja/ štipe ja za krakâ// ama kakvo li ne/ as sâm sipala po edin sok sâs svetla da pieme:/ toj xodi zima í čašata/ a be užas užas// kvo mu staná izvednâš// e toj ne če e mnoo poslušen obače: beše: nevmožen// V: Ama zašto ti pravi vpečatlenie?! Vsički deca sa taka. I: //a be sički sa taka ama// V: Kato če li tja si go njama u doma! 15. Newmark (1998) points out a similar use of ama in Albanian as an interjection expressing sardonic amazement: (a) Ama ç’e paske tharë! (Iron) (mock praise) Boy, you sure have that down cold! (b) Ama na kandise! (Iron) Boy, did you convince us! (We don’t believe a word of it.)


I: //as ne/ ne če se pritesn’aam zaradi neja/ razbiraš li// ne če se pritesn’aam zaradi neja/ vâpros e če toj/ V: Če teb nervira. I: //mene me nervira/ as po edno vreme zex da kreštâ (smee se) i sa kato počna da xlenči… F… (s koeto imitira xlenčeneto na deteto – m’e: m’e:) ama takava lign’a e stanal// užâs// za fs’ako nešto sšo : k (imitira xlenča na sina si) iskal sok primerno// i taka si go iska/ i as vikam kvo snači tva/ stiga si se ligavil/ kaži sok// toj sok (s debel glas imitira deteto) vikam točno taka (smee se)// (Aleksova 1.5) V: Tell me what’s happening I: Well, what’s happening/ in general we’re managing/ from time to time he gets on my nerves, and I lose my patience// Svetla came over ama [=and] he goes wild // I’ll tell you straight/ he behaved abominably/ spilling juice, whining here, banging into things/ I tried to feed her y’know at one point, he smashed right into me/ he smashed right into her/ pinched her leg// ama [=and] what didn’t he do/ I had poured a juice to drink with Svetla/ he comes and takes her cup/ oh he was just terrible just terrible/ what happened to him all of a sudden// it’s not that he’s so obedient but he was just impossible// V: Ama why do you think that? All children are like that. I: //a be [come on/yeah right] they’re all are like that ama/ V: As if she doesn’t have one of her own at home! I: I wasn’t, it wasn’t that I was embarrassed because of her, y’see// I wasn’t embarrassed because of her/ the problem is that he/ V: That he gets on your nerves. I: It’s my nerves he gets on/ one time I almost screamed (laughs) and he starts to whimper… F… (imitates the child whimpering – m’e: m’e:) ama he started to whine so// horrible// for everything little thing juuf (imitates her son’s whine) he wanted juice for example// and that’s how he asks for it/ and I go what does that mean/ stop your whining/ say juice/ it’s juice (imitates the child with a thick voice) I go just like that (laughs)

V then tries to reassure the mother by disagreeing with her assessment and saying that all children are like that. As expected (both for the interviewer and for the context), she prefaces her counterstatement with ama. I responds with “a be” ‘come on, yeah right’ (which expresses protest, disagreement, or conflict between two speakers (Tiševa & Rå Hauge MS)), and then echoes what V just said, concluding with a final ama. This use of ama, I would suggest, is ironic and sarcastic

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and serves to reinforce her non-alignment with V’s position.16 Moreover, the fact that ama can occur in sentence-final position for ironic emotional effect is a non-prototypical use of the connective, and thus poses a serious challenge to the approach of using sentential position as a defining characteristic of conjunctions versus discourse markers.

6.

Concluding remarks

Several generalizations can be made based on the use of ama in Baj Ganjo and in Aleksova’s corpus. In 19th century Bulgarian ama is clearly felt to be a borrowing from Turkish, or at the very least part of the non-standard speech of the Balkan stereotype that Baj Ganjo is supposed to represent. At this point in the history of the literary language, it is used both as an adversative conjunction and as a discourse marker. This still holds true for the current colloquial language, which is interesting because one might expect that with the spread of literacy and the advocation of a standard language, the native Slavic form no would eventually have replaced ama – at least in the conjunction function. However, ama obviously fills certain communicative needs that no does not. Aleksova’s corpus shows that ama has now become an accepted part of colloquial Bulgarian precisely because of its use as a discourse marker. Ama serves an interactional function beyond the canonical connective function in that it may express the speaker’s adversative reaction or relationship with either the preceding discourse or some other element in the extralinguistic context.

References Biber, Douglas, Johansson, Stig, Leech, Geoffrey, Conrad, Susan and Finegan, Edward. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Longman. Blakemore, Diane. 1992. Understanding Utterances: An Introduction to Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell. Blakemore, Diane. 2002. Linguistic Meaning and Relevance: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

16. This use of ama resembles the sentence-final use of the negative particle not in colloquial English in what Haiman (1998:â•›53) calls an “utterance deflater”. Suzuki (2000:â•›125) cites the following example (18) from Haiman and attributes the sarcasm to the fact that utterance that not follows is echoic (Sperber and Wilson 1992). He provides a bumper sticker as an illustration: “Bush/Quale in 1992 … not!” See also Mulder and Thompson (2008) for a discussion of final but in Australian English.


Dorgeloh, Heidrun. 2004. “Conjunction in sentence and discourse: Sentence initial and and discourse structure.” Journal of Pragmatics 36: 1761–1779. Fielder, Grace. 2005. “Discourse markers as Balkanisms.” Eighth Annual Kenneth E. Naylor Lecture. Ohio State University, April 29, 2005. Fielder, Grace. 2008a. “Discourse markers in Macedonian: Balkan or Slavic?” Proceedings of the Sixth North-American-Macedonian Conference, 27–36. Ohrid: University of Saints Kiril and Methodij. Fielder, Grace. 2008b. “Adversative connectives in Bulgarian: Conjunctions or discourse markers?” In Crosslinguistic Studies of Clause Combining: The multifunctionality of conjunctions, Ritva Laury (ed.), 79–97. Typological Studies in Language 80. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Fielder, Grace. 2008c. “The Status of Discourse Markers as Balkanisms in South Slavic.” In American Contributions to the 14th International Congress of Slavists, Christina Y. Bethin (ed.), Volume 1: 1–19. Bloomington, IN: Slavica. Fielder, Grace. 2008d. “Macedonian Discourse Markers in the Balkan Sprachbund.” In Special volume of Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung (STUF), Zuzanna Topolinska and Eleni Buzarovska (eds.), 61 (2): 120–127. (GBSKE) Grammatika sâvremennija bâlgarski knižoven ezik. Tom II. Morfologia. [The Grammar of the Contemporary Bulgarian Literary Language. Book II. Morphology.] 1983. Sofia: BAN. Georgakopoulou, Alexandra and Goutsos, Dionysis. 1998. “Conjunctions versus discourse markers in Greek: The interaction of frequency, position, and functions in context.” Linguistics 36–35: 887–917. Greenberg, Robert. 1996. The Balkan Slavic Appellative. Műnchen/Newcastle: Lincom Europa. Haiman, John. 1998. Talk is Cheap. New York: Oxford University Press. Halliday, M. A. K. and Hasan, Ruqaiya. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman. Hölker, Klaus. 1991. “Französisch: Partikelforschung”. Lexikon der Romanistischen Linguistik. Vol. V. 2: 77–88. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Jucker, Andreas. 1993. “The discourse marker well: A relevance-theoretical account.” Journal of Pragmatics 19: 435–452. Lakoff, Robin. 1971. “If ’s, and’s and but’s about conjunction.” In Studies in Linguistic Semantics, Charles Fillmore and Terence Langendoen (eds.), 114–149. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston. Mulder, Jean and Thompson, Sandra A. 2008. “The grammaticalization of but as a final particle in English conversation.” In Crosslinguistic Studies of Clause Combining: The multifunctionality of conjunctions, Ritva Laury (ed.), 179–204. Typological Studies in Language 80. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Newmark, Leonard. 1998. Albanian-English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey and Svartik, Jan. 1972. A Grammar of Contemporary English. London: Longman. (RBE) Rečnik bâlgarskija ezik. [A Dictionary of the Bulgarian Language] I. 1977. Sofia: BAN. Rå Hauge, Kjetil. 1999. A Short Grammar of Contemporary Bulgarian. Columbus: Slavica. Schiffrin, Deborah. 1987. Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schiffrin, Deborah. 2001. “Discourse Markers.” In Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen and Heidi Hamilton (eds.). Oxford: Blakckwell. Sperber, Dan and Wilson, Deirdre. 1992. “On verbal irony.” Lingua 87: 53–76.

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Suzuki, Satoko. 2000. “Saying something like: Utterance-final expressions of self-mockery in Japanese.” High Desert Linguistics Society 3: 121–130. Available on line at: http://linggraduate. unm.edu/resources/proceedings/2000/suzuki%2011.pdf Sweetser, Eve. 1990. From etymology to pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tiševa, Jovka and Rå Hauge, Kjetil. 2001. “Säjuzi za protivopostavjane v roljata na pragmatični častici.” [“Adversative conjunctions in the role of pragmatic particles”]. Problemi v bälgarskata razgovorna reč [Problems in the Bulgarian colloquial language] 5: 242–252. Veliko Târnovo. Tiševa, Jovka and Rå Hauge, Kjetil. (n.d.). “Častitsa abe kato pragmatičen marker” [“The particle abe as a pragmatic marker”]. MS. Tchizmarova, Ivelina. 2005. “Hedging functions of the Bulgarian discourse marker xajde.” Journal of Pragmatics 37: 1143–1163. Vrina, Mari. 1999. Ekspresivnite chastici v bâlgarsija ezik [Expressive Particles in the Bulgarian Language]. Veliko Târnovo.

chapter 3

Kamo, an attitudinal pragmatic marker of Macedonian* Alexandre Sévigny

Exploring the properties of the Macedonian pragmatic marker kamo in six types of linguistic structure within the relevance-theoretic framework, Sévigny demonstrates that kamo is an indicator of the speaker’s dissociative attitude towards a belief in the hearer’s ability and willingness to perform a certain action. In this way, kamo is defined as encoding procedural information and contributing to the explicit side of communication by signaling the formation of an interpretive, higher-level explicature. The data for Sévigny’s paper were collected in the Egyptian-Macedonian speech community in Canada. This inimitable speech community is composed of immigrants and second and third generation Macedonian-Canadians who have remarkably preserved spoken fluency in the Macedonian variant of their parents.

1.

Introduction

This paper describes the Macedonian discourse marker kamo as an indicator of the speaker’s attitude towards the hearer and/or the situation of utterance. The first two sections of the paper describe data and their sources (2) and give an overview of the comparative interrogatives in other South Slavic languages (3). After a theoretical discussion (4), I analyze kamo in its six contextual occurrences (5). I then proceed to give a proposal for a unified account of the meaning of kamo based on the relevance-theoretic notion of procedural meaning (6): the * I would like to thank Lars Wessman, Christina Kramer, Victor Friedman, Georges Sévigny, Savitsa Sévigny, Lenka Sulevič and Mike Kliffer for their comments, criticisms and opinions. I would also like to thank the editors of this book for their thorough comments and generous support. Any errors or inconsistencies are, of course, my own. . Sévigny (2002) provides a partial description of the pragmatics of kamo; Sévigny (2004) is a brief relevance-theoretic sketch of the analysis in this paper.

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six meanings of kamo are reduced to two generic cases that are signaled by the examined discourse contexts and situations of utterance.

2.

Data and cultural background

The data were collected in the Egyptian-Macedonian speech community in Canada. I interviewed six females, aged 35, 42, 55, 59, 62, 77; and six males aged 22, 31, 45, 60, 77, 80. To test the validity of the Egyptian-Macedonian data, I consulted 15 diasporic speakers originating from the Aegean Macedonia, Bitola, Skopje and Galičnik, all Macedophones who have lived in diasporic communities in Toronto, Detroit, Kuwait City and Egypt. It remains to be seen whether the data are valid for Macedophones actually living and raised in contemporary Macedonia. The data were collected over a period of six months from January 2002 to June 2002 in semi-structured face-to-face dyadic interviews. Consultants were asked to make speaker judgments concerning the grammaticality of sentences and their salience in different discursive contexts. I recorded the interviews on a minidisc and took extensive handwritten notes. I believe it is helpful to give a short history of the unique speech community from which the examples were taken. The speech community is composed of immigrants and second and third generation Macedonian-Canadians for whom the link between linguistic identity and ethnic identity is particularly important, given that the Macedonian variant they speak has been transmitted in a diaspora that is two or three times removed from the source country. Settled in the Greater Toronto Area, this group is composed of people originating from Tetovo, a city in North-Western Macedonia. Most were men who left their homes in 1940 to migrate to Cairo and Alexandria (Egypt) to go “na gurbet”, become “pečalbari” and make their fortune. Once in Egypt, most became successful merchants and thrived, starting families with women who were the children of other pečalbari. Sometimes, they would return to Macedonia to marry. Thrown together into a community in Egypt, the expatriate Macedonians began to form a cohesive diasporic group with a strong cultural identity. As their businesses became more successful and expanded, the

. The original Macedonian phrase ‘odi na gurbet’ is a Turkism that means to go alone to another place in order to work. The other place could be another village or even a different country. . A ‘pečalbar’ is someone who has gone ‘na gurbet’ that is, to work elsewhere because there is no work locally.

Chapter 3.â•‡ Macedonian attitudinal marker kamo

young pečalbari brought friends from Macedonia and eventually the community achieved the critical mass necessary to be culturally self-sustaining. The community retained a distinctly Macedonian identity although their members had much contact with Serbs and other Yugoslavs through the Yugoslav Club in Cairo, wherein the Serbo-Croatian language and culture were privileged. The young men and women of this original ‘migrant generation’ met and married in Cairo in the 1940s and 1950s and produced a second generation that, for political and economic reasons, rarely had occasion to travel back to Macedonia. This second generation attended American and French schools, and pursued higher education at the University of Cairo and the American University of Cairo. However, conditions changed when King Farouk, a pro-British sovereign, was removed and replaced by Abdel Nasser. Life became very difficult for most non-Arabs living in Cairo, essentially due to the social and economic effects of Nasser’s plan for “arabization”. Given this difficult situation, the Macedonian diasporic community left Cairo and Alexandria under duress, and virtually destitute from governmental expropriation. They migrated en masse, between 1957 and 1966 to Toronto (Canada), and formed an extended community of approximately 300 people who lived in the confines of their cultural and linguistic space. The first and second generations of Macedonian immigrants began to marry, both within their own ethnicity and with Canadians of various ethnicities, and produced a third and a fourth generation who identify themselves as culturally Macedonian, largely due to their linguistic identity. It is remarkable that this linguistic identity was maintained by Macedonian speakers who had never had the opportunity to live in a native Macedophone environment. They were, for the most part, children and grandchildren of people who had neither lived in a Macedophone environment, nor been educated in Macedonian. However, this third and fourth generation has preserved spoken fluency in the Macedonian variant of their parents. Moreover, they have managed to reintroduce literacy and, given the independent status of Macedonia after the Yugoslav dissolution, they have begun to rebuild political, commercial and cultural ties with the ‘old country’. Due to this reestablishment of relations with Macedonia, the community of first, second, third and fourth generation diasporic Egyptian-Macedonian-Canadians has begun to ‘standardize’ their community culture. One of the effects of this identity shift is a move towards literacy in the Macedonian language. The effect of new media and communications, the Internet in particular, has been to reinforce identity ties with Macedonia and the standard cultural variant. It has . The Serbo-Croatian language and culture were accorded a high status in the Former Yugoslavia. It was the language of culture and prestige, serving as a lingua franca for members of the other ethnicities. This situation was mirrored in Yugoslav diasporic communities.

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also led to a more active involvement with the political and economic culture of Macedonia. As a result, there was a shift from what was before a hybrid identity, located somewhere between being “Yugoslav” and being “Macedonian”, toward a more clearly defined “Macedonian” identity. This process of self-definition encompassing four diasporic generations has also evolved through constant exposure to a very diverse set of languages.

3.

A comparison with other South Slavic locative interrogatives

The South Slavic languages differ in how they designate the locative adverb. Serbian and Slovene use one word for a static locative and the other to indicate direction. Croatian additionally designates the destination. Bulgarian and Macedonian, however, use only one form for all three locative meanings: kade, in Macedonian and kŭde in Bulgarian. In addition to kade, Macedonian presents another lexical option for asking the whereabouts of something. As a locative adverb of direction, the meaning of kamo corresponds to English “whither”. However, kamo seems to be much more Table 1.â•‡ South Slavic locative interrogatives Where is the book? (static location)

Whither are you going? (dynamic direction)

Where to are you going? (destination)

Bulgarian

Kŭde e kniga-ta6? wh cop n-d.art7

Kŭde otivaš? wh v-PRES

Kŭde otivaš? wh v-PRES

Croatian

Gdje je knjiga? wh cop n

Kud(a) ideš? wh v-PRES

Kamo ideš? wh v-PRES

Macedonian

Kade je kniga-ta? wh cop n-d.art

Kade odiš? wh v-PRES

Kade odiš? wh v-PRES

Serbian

Gde je knjiga? wh cop n

Kuda ideš? wh v-PRES

Kuda ideš? wh v-PRES

Slovene

Kje je kniga? wh cop n

Kam greš? wh v-PRES

Kam greš? wh v-PRES

. As noted earlier, this claim is made here only for the vernacular supported by the data for this paper. . Here -ta functions as the definite article. Among the South Slavic languages, only Macedonian and Bulgarian have developed a definite article. . Abbreviations used in this table: WH = question word; COP = copula; DET= determiner; NÂ€= noun; V = verb; PRES = present; D.ART = definite article, O.PRO = object pronoun.


than this because it permits the speaker to express a series of affective nuances that the other static locative/dynamic directional interrogative adverbs do not. Moreover, this phenomenon appears to be unique to Macedonian. Before moving on to describe kamo, I shall briefly examine the difference in use between kade and kamo in Macedonian: (1) Kade je kučeto? wh cop n-art.def ‘Where is the dog?’ (2) Kamo go kučeto? wh o.pro n-art.def ‘So, where is the dog?/So, where is that dog?’

Given these preliminary examples, and ignoring for a moment the use of the copula vs. definite pronoun, we can see that kade is a propositional equivalent of the English “where”. Kamo, however, is different. I shall demonstrate in this paper that kamo presents a whole series of beliefs and attitudes on the part of the speaker, which the hearer can use to enrich the basic propositional content of the underlying question.

4.

Some relevance-theoretic considerations

Three ideas from relevance theory will be of particular use to my analysis of kamo, namely, the notions of ‘interpretive resemblance’, ‘metarepresentation’ and ‘echoic mention’.

4.1

Interpretive resemblance

According to relevance theory, human beings have the cognitive capacity to entertain and represent utterances or thoughts not only as descriptions of states . The exception is the idiomatic use of kamo in Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian phrases such as kamo sreće (‘if only [we] were lucky’). . A good introduction to relevance theory can be found in Blakemore (1992). Sperber and Wilson (1995) provide a book-length argument for relevance theory and demonstrate its usefulness to theorists working in different communication-related disciplines. Carston (2002) gives a global presentation of the theory and situates it in the larger linguistic, philosophical and cognitive scientific debates surrounding the study of the mind and language. Sperber (1996) presents relevance theory as a method for taking a naturalistic and materialist approach to the study of culture.

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of affairs, but also as projected, inferential interpretations of other utterances or thoughts. The measure of similarity between the source representation and the inferred interpretive representation is called interpretive resemblance. Interpretive resemblance is usually defined – admittedly rather loosely – as the degree or extent of shared content, that is, of shared logical and contextual implications (Carston 2002:â•›332). An extreme example of shared content is literal interpretation, in which an utterance shares all of the content of another utterance or thought.

4.2

Metarepresentation

The theoretical concept of ‘interpretive resemblance’ is closely linked to the concept of ‘metarepresentation’. The traditional code model of communication involved three parts: a linguistic form, a message mapped onto that form, and a medium of transmission (a string of sounds or written symbols). Finding the traditional code model inadequate, Grice (1989) developed an inferential model of human communication based in large part on the idea that the transmission of meaning is largely dependent upon the recognition of speaker intention by the hearer. However, the discovery of ‘literal meaning’ was deemed to be of primary importance.10 This focus on what is said radically reduced the inferential component in utterance understanding and resulted in a strongly idealized notion of speaker meaning. This reductivist and idealized stance made it difficult to argue for the psychological plausibility of the Gricean pragmatic model. In an attempt to build a cognitive pragmatic theory which would yield psychologically plausible analyses, relevance theorists developed a meaning-recovery procedure based on a cost-benefit analysis of cognitive resources, which yields one ‘most relevant’ meaning. The relevance-theoretic meaning-recovery procedure starts with a decoding of the fragmentary meaning of the linguistic code that is then enriched to the level of full-propositionality through the use of contextual information. Wilson (2000:â•›420) states the relevance-theoretic meaning-recovery procedure very clearly: Follow a path of least effort in computing cognitive effects a. Consider interpretations in terms of [cognitive] accessibility; b. Stop when your expectation of relevance is satisfied.

10. For Grice, the build-up of the explicit content of an utterance is a purely formal matter (Carston 2002:â•›107–114). This means that inference happens pretty much only at the level of implicature.


The inferential way of looking at communication has led to the development of several cognitive psychological concepts, including the concept of ‘metarepresentation’. In a nutshell, humans are uniquely able not only to construct mental representations of lower-order representations but also to construct representations of representations, and to develop the panoply of theories of mind-based strategies for understanding utterances.11 From this perspective, a fully-propositional, contextually-enriched representation of an utterance is embedded in a higher-order representation that reports the speaker’s beliefs, desires, attitudes, etc., concerning what is being – or about to be – said. That higher-order representation may also report the speaker’s attitude towards a thought, utterance or proposition put forward by the hearer in a previous exchange. Three main types of representation have been investigated: abstract representations (e.g. sentences as in (3a)), public representations (e.g. utterances as in (3b)) and mental representations (e.g. thoughts as in (3c)). (3) a. Cats can speak Macedonian. b. Sasha said that cats can speak Macedonian. c. Savitsa believes that cats can speak Macedonian.

In fact, metarepresentation involves three varieties of cognitive abilities: metapsychological, meta-communicative and meta-logical (Noh 2000:â•›61–103; Wilson 2000:â•›411–419). A metarepresentation involves meta-psychological abilities when the original representation is a thought, as in (4a), meta-communicative abilities when the original is a public representation, as in (4b), and meta-logical abilities when the original is an abstract proposition, as in (4c): (4) a. Sasha intends me to believe that cats can speak Macedonian. b. Sasha said that cats can speak Macedonian. c. It cannot be proven that cats can speak Macedonian.

4.3

Echoic mention

Echoic mention is a term that refers to the (partial) repetition of an utterance. Particularly useful to the analysis of kamo is the frequent use of echoic mention to reveal emotional states. Carston (2002:â•›298) explains:

11. “Theory of mind” is the term used by philosophers and psychologists to talk about the human ability to represent in one’s mind thoughts about thoughts that one attributes to other people. For more about the concept of ‘theory of mind’, particularly from the point of view of developmental neuroscience, see, amongst many others, Astington (1993).

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A representation is used echoically when it attributes some aspect of its form or content to someone other than the speaker herself at that moment and expresses an attitude to that aspect. The attribution may be overt (encoded) or tacit (to be inferred), and, similarly, the expression of attitude may be overt or tacit. […] when that attitude is dissociative (which would have to be pragmatically inferred), the utterance is a case of irony.

Often in spoken language, utterances are accompanied by pitch and intonation contour to render association/dissociation explicit, as in the following examples: (5) a. Sasha: It’s cool that our cat can speak Macedonian. [They look at the cat but the cat remains mute] Savitsa (sarcastically): It’s cool that our cat can speak Macedonian, indeed. b. Sasha: It’s cool that our cat can speak Macedonian. [Sasha says something to the cat in Macedonian and the cat looks up] Savitsa (cheerfully): It’s cool that our cat can speak Macedonian, indeed.

Irony is very important for the affective/emotional readings that kamo can trigger, but in order to understand them, the hearer must attribute thoughts to the speaker about the speaker’s beliefs and attitudes towards the hearer and towards the proposition expressed by the utterance in which kamo is used.

5.

The pragmatic marker kamo

The Macedonian pragmatic marker kamo encodes the speaker’s dissociative attitude towards a current belief concerning the hearer’s ability and willingness to perform a certain action. In terms of distribution, kamo occurs in six types of linguistic structure: (1) kamo in questions with definite reference, (2) kamo in questions with indefinite reference, (3) the copular use of kamo+def, (4) the stand-alone kamo, (5) kamo with dative reference and (6) kamo in affectionate frames. I will now examine each of these constructions in turn.

5.1

Kamo in questions with definite reference

There is a complex interplay of factors in kamo+def questions, where ‘def ’ denotes a definite referent, which in Macedonian is prefaced by a definite pronomial.


(6) Kamo ga mačka-ta? Where-PART 3SG-ACC-F cat-DEF.ART12 ‘Where is that cat?’

The metarepresentations triggered by this utterance are the following: (6)

a. b. c. d.

I expected you to have produced the cat. I believed that the cat would now be in my sight. I am here and the cat is nowhere to be seen. I believe that you are not able to produce the cat.

The hearer must hold a set of metarepresentations (6a–d) in order to understand the definite question prefaced by kamo. The speaker’s emotive attitude falls into two general categories: (i) frustration and expectation of the hearer’s explanation or excuse; or (ii) an expression of chiding or irony, with an expectation of shared camaraderie and humor. Because kamo goes with emotive irony and frustration, it can only be used when there is a very weak degree of resemblance (or zero-resemblance) between the speaker’s previous expectation and the observable situation at the moment of utterance. The use of kamo with definite referents is restricted to the present tense as evidenced by (6). The event dynamics are simple: a past dynamic event was expected to result in a present situation which has not actually materialized. The prediction that the use of kamo+def is restricted to present time is borne out when we try to use this construction in a non-present time, as in (7) and (8) below: (7) *Kamo beše mačka-ta? Where-PART be-PAST-3SG cat-DEF.ART ‘Where was the cat?’ (8) *Kamo ķe bide mačka-ta? Where-PART FUT be-FUT-3SG cat-DEF.ART ‘Where will the cat be?’

Example (7) is predictably infelicitous: since the situation has already occurred, the frustration felt is no longer actual and the higher-level assumptions in (6) are no longer meaningful. Example (8) is also predictably infelicitous because it does not make sense to have concrete expectations about future events since they have not yet occurred and hence their result is unknown. 12. All grammatical glosses from this point on reflect the Leipzig Glossing Rules developed by Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology’s Department of Linguistics, and can be found at http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossing-rules.php, with an addition of the mark PART for ‘particle’.

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To sum it up, while kamo + def can only be used with an actuated present time reference, the locative kade is used with any time reference.13

5.2

Kamo in questions with indefinite reference

With an indefinite referent, the meaning of kamo appears somewhat different, given that it is normally used in a situation where the speaker is exasperated: (9) Kamo masa? Where-PART table ‘Isn’t there any table here?’

Example (9) illustrates a case of ironic utterance and the lack of referent’s specificity increases the strength of the ironic attitude expressed in the utterance. This usage, which can signal a variety of speaker attitudes ranging from slight exasperation to irritation and frustration depending on pitch and intonation contour, is restricted to discursive situations stemming from a broken promise. Suppose that Zlatko has promised Julena a table; he has put such great emphasis and focus on the table (making repeated reference to the table and its qualities) that Julena has become incredulous as to the table’s existence. In a situation where the promised table is needed but nowhere to be found, Julena, disappointed and proven in her doubts about Zlatko’s false braggadocio, will utter (9) the above, thereby communicating the following beliefs concerning Zlatko: (9) a. The speaker believes the hearer is incapable of producing a table. b. The speaker believes that the hearer does not keep his communicated promises. c. The speaker believes the hearer is an untrustworthy person.

To understand the attitudinal consequences of kamo+indef, in relation to kamo+def, we need to examine the set of metarepresentations which are necessary for comprehending kamo+indef-utterances. Kamo+indef is used to connote 13. For the sake of clarity, note that the use of kade with definite referents follows quite different dynamics. First, there is no pre-expectation that the hearer would have produced the object in question. Hence, the set (6a–d) does not hold. Secondly, because there is no underlying set of beliefs regarding the hearer’s ability to produce the item in question, kade is not limited to the present tense. Hence, the following questions are perfectly acceptable: grammatical Kade beše mačkata? “Where was the cat?” Kade ķe bide mačkata? “Where will the cat be?” Note also that kamo, in contrast to kade, is followed by ‘ga’ which pre-echoes the definite form ‘mačkata’.


an emotive restriction: the speaker is reacting to a situation which has generated a frustrating discrepancy between a possible, ideal situation – the one in which Zlatko produces a table as promised – and the real situation in which he cannot or will not produce the table. Note that this use of kamo also requires the present tense in order to allow a reaction to a present discordance between a request and the current inability to comply with it. Normally, kamo+indef is used when there is metacommunicative content since such situations are dependent on the receipt of messages and not upon remembered past promises. In (9), for instance, Julena is (subpropositionally) metarepresenting the utterance whereby Zlatko communicated his promise to deliver a table. The metacommunicative use of kamo in (9) leads to the following set of metarepresentations: (10)

Zlatko said that Zlatko would produce a table. a. Julena believed that Zlatko knew that there was a table here. b. Julena is here and she does not see any table here. c. Julena does not believe there is a table here. d. Julena believes that Zlatko is not able to produce a table here and that Julena’s initial belief that Zlatko knew where a table was located, based on Zlatko’s communicated assurance, was incorrect.

Note that the accumulation of metarepresented information is reflected in an intensified sense of frustration. In fact, kamo+indef standardly signals the speaker’s extreme frustration (bordering on futility) when faced with the interlocutor’s inability to fulfill his communicated promise.

5.3

The copular use of kamo+def

The third use of kamo is somewhat unusual. In this situation, kamo+def can occur with a copular predicate, but only in the 3rd person plural.14 Let us compare examples of kamo+def with a copula (11) and without it (12):15 (11) Kamo sa student-i-ti? Where-PART be-PRES-3PL student-PL-DEF.ART.PL ‘Where are the students?’ [I don’t see them.] a. *Kamo je student-ot? Where-PART be-PRES-3SG student-DEF.ART 14. Exactly why kamo is used with the third person plural, and not with the third person singular, is not quite clear. To explore this intriguing point would take this article too far afield. 15. Sa and je are the third person plural and singular forms of the verb to be. Gi and go, the plural and singular forms of the direct pronoun, are used in complement-doubling situations.

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(12) Kamo gi student-i-ti? Where-PART 3PL-ACC student-PL-DEF.ART.PL ‘Where are those students?’ [I don’t see them.]

Example (11) marks the speaker’s disappointment and/or confusion without attributing any negative beliefs to the hearer’s involvement or responsibility. In this case, the speaker might have entered the room expecting to see the students and was disappointed at not seeing them. However, the speaker had no expectations whatsoever regarding the hearer. While my informants rejected (11a), they considered ‘Kade je studentot?’ acceptable (provided that the student is deemed not to have arrived yet). The set of metarepresentations required for the understanding of kamo+def with a copula is similar to that of kamo+def except for the beliefs regarding the hearer’s involvement and responsibility. Example (12) carries the same nuance with a twist. The speaker, who expected to see the students, blames the interlocutor for their absence and is being ironic with her question. She assumes that it is manifest to both the speaker and hearer that the hearer did not keep his promise about the students. The copular use of kamo+def is marked in comparison to the following neutral alternative, which is a simple request for information: (13) Kade sa student-i-ti? Where be-PRES-3PL student-PL-DEF.ART.PL ‘Where are the students?’

Even though (13) could be made to indicate the speaker’s attitude (irony or disappointment), it would require a different intonational and prosodic pattern.16 Note also that the set of metarepresentations (6a–d) and (10a–d) underlying both the copular and double-referent uses of kamo requires a situational context and an anaphoric textual reference.

5.4

The stand-alone kamo

The stand-alone kamo is regularly used to indicate the speaker’s disbelief in the propositional content of the preceding utterance: (14) a. Vidi, ete ga tsarina-ta! Look-IMP-2SG DEM 3SG-ACC czarina-DEF.ART ‘Look, there is the Czarina!’

16. All of my informants told me that they would find it odd to use this construction for irony, as they would prefer the construction exemplified in (12) to accomplish this goal.


b. Kamo? ‘Where?’ [I don’t see her and I don’t believe you see her either. Show her to me.]

Here the speaker of (14b) does not see the Czarina and is incredulous as to whether the speaker of (14a) has really seen what (s)he thinks (s)he has seen. The metarepresentational set captures this situation as a free-standing version of kamo+def questions: (14)

c. d. e. f.

I expected you to have shown me the Czarina. I believed that the Czarina would now be in my sight. I am here and the Czarina is nowhere to be seen. I believe that you are not able to show me the Czarina.

The stand-alone kamo differs from kamo+def in that it is a blend of the metarepresentational dynamics underlying questions with definite reference and those with indefinite reference. Since this is not necessarily a case of unfulfilled expectations, the hearer is more likely to be able to provide the missing information and resolve the interpretive resemblance positively.

5.5

Kamo with dative referent

Examples (15) and (16) demonstrate the essential difference between kade- and kamo-questions: (15) Kade im je kafe-to? Where 3PL.DAT be-PRES-3SG coffee-DEF.ART ‘Where is their coffee?’ (16) Kamo im go kafe-to? Where-PART 3PL.DAT 3SG-ACC coffee-DEF.ART ‘Where is that coffee of theirs?’ [Where is that coffee they promised?]

In (15), the speaker’s attitude ‘I am impatient for P’ is not communicated by the linguistic form of the utterance. Rather, this attitude can only be conveyed with a particular (plaintive/ironic) intonation. Also underlying this is an assumption of the eventual availability of the coffee. In (16), the use of kamo with the dative referent signals a sense of impatience and heightens the scornfully ironic character of the utterance.17 Example (16) requires the following set of metarepresentations: 17. The degree of scorn can range from very mild to highly scornful, depending on discursive context, speaker identity, and intonation.

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(16) a. I expected them to have produced the coffee. b. I believed that the coffee would now be in front of me on the table. c. I am here and the coffee is nowhere to be seen and very likely not to be seen. d. I believe that they are not able to produce the coffee.

In contrast to (15), the speaker of (16) is expressing doubt that the server is capable of producing the coffee and, as we saw earlier, challenging the interlocutor to do so. In this use of kamo, a mocking attitude is also part of the higher-level explicature, especially if the hearer is directly addressed, as in (17): (17) Kamo ti go auto-to? Where-PART 2SG-DAT 3SG-ACC car-DEF.ART ‘So where is that car of yours?’

The speaker utters (17) to mock the hearer when the latter is unable to produce the much-talked-about car. Once again we see that the metarepresentations associated with indefinite questions apply: (17) a. I believed you that you had a car. b. I am here and I do not see any car here. c. I believe that you are not able to produce a car here and that my initial belief that you had a car was incorrect.

This set of metarepresentations leads us to conclude that kamo carries a nuance of confrontation in addition to its nuance of impatience.

5.6

Kamo in affectionate frames

In two emotionally imbued frames – those of play and grief – kamo is used in a specific manner that deserves special attention. In a playful frame involving a child or a pet, kamo is used to demonstrate affection in a game of interpretive resemblance between the presence and pretended absence of the hearer in the speaker’s field of vision. In the interaction between a speaker and a hearer, who is incapable of replying and who occupies the sole place in the speaker’s visual zone of interest (e.g. a small child or a pet), the speaker will indicate affection using expressions given in (18)–(21): (18) Kamo go bebeto? ‘Where is that baby?’


(19) Kamo mi go deteto? ‘Where is that child of mine?’ (20) Kamo go mačeto? ‘Where is that kitten?’ (21) Kamo mi go mačeto? ‘Where is that kitten of mine?’

These expressions, always in the third person and indicating that the speaker cannot see the object (the child or pet), are used with an intonation and pitch usually associated with motherese. Kamo here is being used interpretatively (Sperber and Wilson 1995:â•›224–237), that is, it is evoking an utterance which it resembles, and using it to play a game of hide-and-seek. Thus, such questions are not genuine because the speaker does not expect the hearer to provide an answer. Utterances (19) and (21) are more emotionally-charged than utterances (18) and (20), as the possessive, indicated by the pronoun mi in the dative case, appears to pull the object toward the center of the speaker’s psychological zone of interest. Such a construction can also be used in the grieving frame – as the speaker may be evoking a situation where the child is factually not present, making the sentence a tragic and mournful utterance of futile regret.18 By contrast, a kadequestion in the same circumstances constitutes a simple request for information: (22) Kade je bebeto? ‘Where is the baby?’

Example (22) bears no attitude report whatsoever, and is not normally used in the mother/infant interaction (or pet dyad) as described above.

6.

Towards a unitary account of kamo

In relevance theory, inferences that contribute to the construction of the baselevel proposition (e.g. inferences which are used to enrich the logical form, to disambiguate ambiguous expressions or to assign a reference to a referring expression) are considered to form part of the explicit dimension of communication (Matsui 2002:â•›880). These “explicit” inferences are called “explicatures” and they differ from implicit inferences, or “implicatures”, in that they contribute to the truth-conditional content of the proposition expressed in an utterance (Carston 2002:â•›134–152). Building upon the notion of explicature, there is the 18. It is worth noting that several of my informants also mentioned a certain gentle melancholy implicit in this utterance.

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notion of ‘higher-level explicature’, which involves embedding the propositional content of an utterance in speech act and propositional attitude reports. These higher-level explicatures are used to arrive at a more fully developed logical form of an utterance. All of the reports of belief and desire that I have described in this article are higher-level explicatures. That is, kamo contributes to relevance by making the hearer generate a set of higher-order metarepresentations, and in this way it directly affects the explicit side of communication. Concerning the issue of conceptual versus procedural knowledge, I adopt the relevance-theoretic notion, introduced in Blakemore (1987), that there are two sorts of information encoded in the lexical entries of words: conceptual (representational) and procedural (computational). Procedural information is information on how to manipulate representations. Uncontroversial examples include discourse connectives such as so (Blakemore 1987:â•›85–91) and therefore (Blakemore 1987:â•›78–84), as well as questions (Wilson and Sperber 1988) which instruct the hearer to construct a set of representations of desirable answers. Given that kamo necessitates the formation of higher-level explicatures communicating the speaker’s attitude (wherein the main relevance of the utterance lies), I put forward that the primary function of the marker kamo is to trigger procedural information such as the following: (23) Identify a (set of) representation(s) which interpretively resembles P.

where P is a public, mental or abstract representation which the utterance introduced by kamo interpretively resembles. This instruction is, however, too general to properly capture the procedural meaning of kamo and has to be constrained by the specific set of metarepresentations identified by the hearer upon encountering kamo in discourse. This set of metarepresentations will include higher-level explicatures, such as the following: (24)

a. b. c. d.

The speaker indicates a dissociation from the desire to know that P. The speaker does not believe that the hearer believes that P. The speaker believes that P is a consequence of Q. The speaker knows that P is (was) impossible at time t.

In any kamo-construction, instruction (23) applies. If kamo is used to introduce an echo question, instruction (24a) will apply but instruction (24b) will be de rigueur. If kamo introduces a contradictive question, then instruction (24c) applies. If the utterance containing kamo is a futile wish or an interrogative form, then instruction (24d) applies. It appears that underlying all four types of higher-level explicatures, there is a fundamental attitude of disbelief in P. From this


fundamental attitude, it is possible to construct higher-level explicatures such as the ones that have been used to explain the meaning of kamo in the examples in Section 5. I will now summarize the analysis of kamo presented in Section 5 in terms of procedural information to clearly bring out the fact that its primary purpose is to indicate that the utterance it introduces is not really a request for information or a wish, but a case of interpretive use, typically a second-order metarepresentation concerning something described in the thought, proposition or idea contained in the kamo-utterance. I will briefly review two generic uses: (i) an echoic question, (ii) a question for instigation.

6.1

Echoic questions

In (25), Sasha uses kamo to ask Savitsa a question regarding a coffee which was promised to him but not delivered: (25) Kamo go kafeto? ‘Where is that coffee?’

We might imagine the scenario where Savitsa was supposed to bring Sasha a coffee but eventually forgot about it. He is frustrated and utters (25) to express his irritation, rather than using a kade-question, as in (26), which would mark a genuine request for information regarding the whereabouts of the coffee: (26) Kade je kafeto? ‘Where is the coffee?’

While the interrogative form in (26) communicates the idea that the speaker finds the answer desirable and relevant, the use of kamo in (25) indicates the speaker’s disbelief that the coffee will be present. Kamo, thus, indicates a dissociative attitude towards the interrogative utterance that hosts it, generating the effect of irony as an expression of the speaker’s irritation.19 Following Sperber and Wilson’s (1981) observation that irony consists of echoing a tacitly attributed thought or utterance with a tacitly dissociative attitude, I analyze this use of kamo as echoic; that is, the utterance expresses Sasha’s dissociative attitude towards his thought that Savitsa can or will provide him with a coffee. To understand example (25), it is necessary to hold the following contextual assumptions: 19. Depending on certain other phenomena such as intonation and pitch, (25) could be a kind reminder, a gentle reproach, a mildly ironic remark, etc.

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Alexandre Sévigny

(25) a. Sasha desires to have the coffee. b. Sasha does not believe that Savitsa can (wants to) tell him where the coffee is.

According to this set of assumptions, Sasha’s utterance is not a genuine request for information, but a statement of Sasha’s beliefs framed in such a way as to interpretively resemble a question. It is echoic in that by using the utterance, Sasha dissociates himself from the question expressed in the linguistic form of his utterance, thus creating sarcasm and expressing his irritation with Savitsa.

6.2

Instigative questions

Another use of kamo is the “anticipative/instigative use”. (27) Sasha: Ga najdof starata slika od dedo. ‘I found that old photo of grandpa.’ Savitsa (excited): Vistina? Kamo ga slikata? ‘Really? Where is that photo?’

In his utterance, Sasha says that he has found an old picture of his grandfather. Savitsa is excited to see it and tries to indicate her excitement by using kamo to express her incredulity regarding the propositional content of Sasha’s utterance, thereby questioning his ability to produce the picture. Sasha, in turn, has to interpret two levels of representation before arriving at the conclusion desired by Savitsa, namely, that she is anxious to see the picture. The first level of representation is the linguistic form of Savitsa’s utterance, which is an interpretation of Sasha’s utterance that he found the picture. The second layer of representation is Savitsa’s further thought that she might make Sasha speed up showing her the picture of their grandfather if she expresses a dissociative attitude towards Sasha’s ability to produce the picture that he has promised. There are, in fact, two strategies at play: the first dissociation indicates Savitsa’s surprise that the picture is there (that discovery really comes as a surprise to her and there is an intense interest in seeing it). The second dissociation, also expressed by Savitsa, is part of an intentional strategy to obtain a desired result, namely, that Sasha will actually produce the picture, and quickly.

7.

Summary

In this article, I have developed a cognitive account of the functioning of the Macedonian pragmatic marker kamo, which has undergone a grammaticalization cline


from a locative adverb with conceptual meaning to a procedural pragmatic marker. What appeared to be a polysemous word is in fact a pragmatic marker that signals certain attitudes of the speaker – specifically attitudes of disbeliefÂ€– towards an attributed utterance. I have shown that kamo encodes procedural information and contributes to the explicit side of communication, given that the linguistic meaning of kamo triggers the attitudinal pragmatic metarepresentations I have outlined in this paper.

References Astington, Janet W. 1993. The Child’s Discovery of the Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Blakemore, Diane. 1987. Semantic Constraints on Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell. Blakemore, Diane. 1992. Understanding Utterances. Oxford: Blackwell. Carston, Robyn. 2002. Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication. Oxford: Blackwell. Grice, H. P. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Matsui, Tomoko. 2002. “Semantics and Pragmatics of a Japanese discourse marker dakara (so/ in other words): A unitary account.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 867–891. Noh, Eun-Ju. 2000. Metarepresentations: A Relevance Theory Approach. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Sévigny, Alexandre. 2002. “Formaliser les contraintes pragmatiques: l’exemple d’une particule du macédonien.” In Actes du colloque annuel de l’association de linguistique canadienne 2002, Stanca Somesfalean and Sophie Burelle (eds.). Montréal: Presses de l’UQAM. Sévigny, Alexandre. 2004. “Sketch of a pragmatic Macedonian particle.” In Papers from the 5th International North American-Macedonian Conference, Brian Joseph (ed.). Columbus, OH: Ohio State University. Sperber, Dan. 1996. Explaining Culture: A Naturalistic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell. Sperber, Dan and Wilson, Deirdre. 1981. “Irony and the use-mention distinction.” In Radical Pragmatics, Peter Cole (ed.), 295–318. New York: Academic Press. Sperber, Dan and Wilson, Derdre. 1995. Relevance. 2nd edition. Oxford: Blackwell. Wilson, Deirdre. 2000. “Metarepresentation in linguistic communication.” In Metarepresentations: A Multidisciplinary Perspective, Dan Sperber (ed.), 411–448. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson, Deirdre and Sperber, Dan. 1988. “Mood and the analysis of non-declarative sentences.” In Human Agency: Language, Duty and Value:Philosophical Essays in Honor of J. O. Urmson, Jonathan Dancy, J. M. E. Moravcsik and Christopher Charles Whiston Taylor (eds.), 77–101. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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chapter 4

Markers of conceptual adjustment Serbian baš and kao Mirjana Mišković-Luković

This paper employs the relevance-theoretic framework to account for the linguistic meaning and pragmatic contribution of two Serbian particles – baš and kao. Starting from a categorization of relations between lexical and communicated concepts, Mišković-Luković shows that baš and kao play the same role in utterance interpretation – they both serve as semantic constraints on the explicit content of an utterance, but they do so in different ways. A baš-utterance communicates a strong explicature with baš serving as a marker of non-loose use: the specificatory baš encodes literalness while the emphatic baš encodes pragmatic strengthening. A kao-utterance, on the other hand, communicates a weak explicature with kao serving as a marker of pragmatic loosening. Additionally, kao may be used to signal interpretive language use – specifically, irony and reporting.

1.

Introduction

The main topic of this paper is the meanings of Serbian particles baš and kao, and the ways in which they contribute to utterance comprehension. Following the relevance-theoretic distinction between conceptual and procedural encodings (Blakemore 1987, 2002 and Carston 2002), it is argued that the particles do not make any conceptual contribution. Instead, they serve as pointers to one of the pragmatic processes that partakes in the transformation of the incomplete semantic representation of a sentence/phrase uttered into the fully developed proposition expressed by an utterance. The ensuing analysis of baš and kao rests on the possibility of building a unified account of ad hoc concept formation from a lexically encoded concept to the communicated one which then figures as a proper constituent of the proposition expressed. It is in this process of pragmatic tailoring that baš and kao contribute to relevance: the former as a marker of literal resemblance and in certain instances, of pragmatic strengthening; the latter as a

66 Mirjana Mišković-Luković

marker of conceptual looseness with the additional function of being an attributive and echo-marker. The structure of the paper is as follows: Section 2 outlines previous approaches to the functions of baš and kao and serves as a starting point for the subsequent relevance-theoretic analysis. Section 3 introduces the relevance-theoretic notion of conceptual adjustment, which is considered to be essential for the proposed semantics and pragmatics of the particles baš and kao in Sections 3.1. and 3.2. The main findings are then summed up in the final section. Before examining the role of the discourse particles baš and kao in utterance interpretation, a few words on the data upon which my analysis is based may be in order. The examples are either constructed (the practice not uncommon in relevance-theoretic analyses, especially when it is necessary to illustrate or underscore a pertinent point in a simple and concise manner, Sperber and Wilson 1997) or they are taken from naturally occurring discourse (such examples are labeled ‘RSHJ’, and their full reference is given in the section References).

2.

Preliminary notes on baš and kao

According to relevance theory, linguistic semantics encodes two basic types of information: conceptual meaning, which enters into a mental representation, and procedural meaning, which indicates certain computational processes detailing how to manipulate conceptual representations. Unlike concepts, which can be brought to consciousness, it is difficult to represent the propositional meaning of procedural encoding (Wilson and Sperber 1993:â•›16). In other words, since

. There are two main reasons why these particular particles have been selected for joint study. First, the two particles are not confined to Serbian, but are also used in other post-Serbo-Croatian linguistic idioms. While I believe that their semantics and pragmatics are shared among the idioms, certain distributional divergences may have occurred. This paper then serves as a starting point for future comparative research. Secondly, both particles exemplify the workings of a single pragmatic process – ad hoc concept formation – but they do so in two different ways: one as a marker of literally encoded meaning, the other as a marker of the pragmatic loosening of literally encoded meaning. . The ‘RSHJ’ corpus (1989) has (for the most part) been recorded in Belgrade and Novi Sad (Serbia). It includes interactions in different settings, between interlocutors of different ages and occupations, and is sufficiently representative of contemporary, conversational Serbian. Although the corpus was recorded in the 1980s, the instances of the use of the particles reflect present-day usage. . See Mišković (2001, 2003) for the earlier versions.

Chapter 4.â•‡ The Serbian particles baš and kao

procedures constrain the inferential phase of comprehension, they are unlikely to figure in the language of thought (Carston 2002). Before showing what procedural information the particles baš and kao specifically encode, a cursory introduction to the general treatment of these words in the literature might be in order.

2.1

Baš

In dictionaries, baš is defined as ‘truly’, ‘just’, ‘exactly’ and ‘precisely’ (cf. Benson 1991; Drvodelić 1989 and Filipović 1989). Vujaklija (1996) cites that baš, a word that has its roots in Turkish, first denoted ‘bow’ (the front part of a boat/ship). It then came to be used adjectivally to mean ‘the oldest’, ‘the first’ and ‘the nucleus’, forming various noun compounds such as baš-čaršija (‘the oldest part of a city’) and baš-knez (‘the senior prince’). Today, baš is a clausal focus particle that is most commonly used in informal discourse. As this paper argues, its meaning has undergone a full conceptual-procedural cline. Baš is usually considered to be an emphatic (Stanojčić and Popović 1992) or focus particle (König 1991). König, for instance, points out that the basic function of focus particles such as baš “is to assert emphatically the identity of two values in different propositions” (1991:â•›135). Baš may also belong to a group of specificatory particles (i.e. particles that render their focus more precise): [R]ečima samo i jedino, baš i upravo ono što se iznosi u dotičnoj rečenici izuzima se od svega ostalog, ili se precizira. (Stevanović 1986:â•›384) ‘[T]he words samo and jedino, baš and upravo convey that what is said in the sentence is excluded from the rest or is made more precise.’

Let us briefly consider some examples of the emphatic and specificatory uses of the particle. The emphatic baš is illustrated in (1)–(4): (1) Baš viče. ‘S/he is baš shouting.’ (2) Baš brzo vozi. ‘S/he is baš driving fast.’ (‘S/he’s driving real fast’) (3) Baš lepa žena. ‘Baš a beautiful woman.’ (‘Such a beautiful woman’)

. While both samo and jedino can be translated as ‘only’, samo can additionally be translated as ‘just’. Baš and upravo are translated as ‘just’ or ‘exactly’ (see Benson 1991; Drvodelić 1989 and Filipović 1989).

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(4) Baš sam umorna. ‘I am baš tired.’ (‘I’m so tired’)

Although baš focuses on an action in (1), the likely interpretation is stronger, something like, ‘S/he’s shouting extremely loudly’. In (2)–(3) baš is used to intensify the manner and quality denoted by the adverb brzo (‘fast’) and adjective lepa (‘beautiful’). In (4) the state of being tired is amplified to the level of exhaustion. The following examples illustrate the specificatory use of baš: (5) Vratio se u kancelariju baš kad sam ja odlazila. ‘He came back to the office baš as I was leaving.’ (‘He came back to the office just as I was leaving’) (6) (RSHJ) 1 S: Znadete se! Sedi, Mila. Izvoli ovde. ‘You know each other! Sit down, Mila. Here, please.’ 2 M: Hvala lepo, baš mi se tu sviđa. ‘Thanks a lot, baš I like it here.’ (‘Right here is fine’)

In temporal and locative expressions, baš is used to reaffirm the time and place defined by temporal and locative adverbials – in (5), it is no other time than the one specified by the temporal clause kad sam ja odlazila (‘as I was leaving’); in (6), it is no other place than the one delimited by the place-adverb tu (‘there’). The specificatory baš can also occur before nouns, but there are certain restrictions with regards to (in)definiteness. Unlike English, Serbian does not have articles that denote indefiniteness and definiteness such as a and the. Instead, the distinction is marked by other linguistic means, such as demonstratives, adjectival aspect, indefinite pronouns, number, etc. (In)definiteness may also remain (linguistically) unmarked provided that the information is recoverable in context. It seems then that baš cannot be freely used with nouns, as (7a) shows, unless they have been defined somehow. The particle serves to highlight the already restricted focus, such as the deictic ta (‘that’) in (7b) and onaj (‘that’) in (8)–(9): . Serbian distinguishes between ovde (nearest to the deictic centre), tu (near the deictic centre) and tamo or onamo (farthest from the deictic centre). . The particle is normally linked to a constituent that comes under its focus (most likely the first one immediately to the right of the particle), and floating might result in different interpretations (see Mišković 2001). In this example, however, floating does not affect interpretation because the utterance is clearly understood. . Serbian distinguishes between masculine, feminine and neuter proximal and distal deictics: the proximal forms (singular ovaj-ova-ovo and plural ovi-ove-ova) mark nearness to the deictic centre (‘within reach’); the distal forms (singular onaj-ona-ono and plural oni-one-ona) mark


(7) a. *Baš kuća. ‘Baš house.’ b. Baš ta kuća. ‘Baš that house.’ (‘That very house’) (8) (RSHJ) O: I nikad nije zatvoren, mislim, baš onaj šef sale mi je pričao. ‘And it was never closed down, I mean, baš that maitre d’ was telling me.’ (‘That maitre d’ himself was telling me’) (9) (RSHJ) 1 A: Pa možda u gradu, šta ja znam, ja sam u Stepanovićevu. ‘Well, maybe in a city, what do I know, I live in Stepanovićevo.’ 2 Mi pravimo rezance s makom, rezance sa sirom, i tako dalje, ‘We make pasta with poppy seeds, pasta with cheese, and so on,’ 3 sve to. Međutim, oni baš, specijalno, onaj sos napolitane, ‘all that. However, they baš, especially, that sauce Napoletana,’ (‘However, they like nothing else but that sauce Napoletana’) 4 pa špagete bolonjeze i tako, ta su prihvatili jela. ‘then spaghetti alla Bolognese and so, those dishes they have accepted.’

However, examples (10)–(12) seemingly undermine this observation: (10) 1 A: 2 B: 3 A:

Video sam lava. ‘I’ve seen a lion.’ Baš lava? / Baš? ‘Baš lion?’ / ‘Baš?’ (‘You don’t say!’) Baš! ‘Baš!’ (‘A real lion’)

(11) (RSHJ) 1 S: Da to je zanimljivo. Ne znam ko je sakupljao te podatke? ‘Yes, that’s interesting. I don’t know who was collecting the data?’ 2 B: To je konzulat sakupljao. Ne znam zbog čega. ‘The consulate was collecting it. I don’t know what for.’ 3 S: Konzulat u Štutgartu? ‘The consulate in Stuttgart?’ 4 B: Da, baš konzulat. ‘Yes, baš the consulate.’ (‘That very consulate’)

distance from the deictic centre (‘out of reach and view’); the medial forms (singular taj-ta-to and plural ti-te-ta) mark lesser distance from the deictic centre (‘out of reach but within view’).

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(12) (RSHJ) 1 K: Oni se znaju otkako su imali sedam godina, kao deca. ‘They have known each other since they were seven, as children.’ 2 M: Jao zamisli to je drug, ono baš … ‘Just imagine, it is a friend, like baš’ (‘It’s like being real friends, you know’) 3 K: Baš prijatelj, znaš onako. Mi smo: dođeš ono u tri ujutru, kažeš: ‘Baš friend, you know like. We were: you come like at three in the morning, you say:’ (‘Like a real friend, you know’) 4 “eto, deco .. tako mi je teško”. Oni bi rekli: “pa ti si luda, ajde ćuti, “Well, children .. I feel so bad”. They would say: “Well, you’re being silly, come on, shut up,’ 5 šta ti je”. Znaš ono. To je baš, znaš ono .. ‘what’s the matter with you”. You know, like. This is baš, you know, like ..’ (‘It’s really, you know, like’) 6 ne to se ne kaže drugarstvo, nego baš prijateljstvo. ‘no you do not say palship, but baš friendship.’ (‘No, you can’t call it palship, it’s a real friendship’)

The indefiniteness of the nouns that are modified by baš, namely lav (‘lion’) in (10) 2 and konzulat (‘consulate’) in (11) 4 is more apparent than real since both concepts have already been activated in the addressee’s mind, albeit in slightly different ways. The indefinite reference of (10) 1 is preserved in (10) 2 while the noun in (11) 4 has already been made definite by the prepositional phrase u Štutgartu (‘in Stuttgart’) in (11) 3. Similarly, prijatelj (‘friend’) in (12) 3 and prijateljstvo (‘friendship’) in (12) 6 have already been defined in relation to the weaker term drug (‘pal’) (i.e. in the sense <prijatelj, drug>), so that baš functions here as a scalar indicator of sorts. Moreover, König’s observation about markers of precision, such as precisely and verily, is worth remembering in connection with these examples: An emphatic assertion that something is truly (‘verily’) the case is only called for in problematic contexts, i.e. in those cases in which the focused expression is a remarkable and thus highly unlikely value for a propositional schema. (König 1991:â•›138)

. There is no overt linguistic marker of definiteness in (11) 4.


2.2

Kao

Kao is defined as the conjunction equivalent to ‘as’, ‘as if ’ and ‘like’ in English (Benson 1991). Stevanović (1986) considers kao in connection with the conjunction i ‘and’, observing that this expression denotes comparison. Stevanović et al. (1975) list several functions that kao may have, and these (together with the given examples) are briefly examined below. The particle kao may be used to emphasize approximation, but the attributed meanings izgleda (‘it seems’) and reklo bi se (‘one would say’) might also suggest hedging and tentativization (mostly out of politeness considerations): (13) Prijatelj mu se kao malo usteže. ‘His friend is kao slightly inhibited.’ (‘His friend is kinda shy’)

With time adverbials, kao is used to refer to a temporally different but analogous situation: (14) To je bilo kao danas. ‘It was kao today.’ (‘It was like it is today’)

Before parenthetical verbs of saying, kao (also contracted to k’o) indicates the speaker’s uncertainty about the propositional content (possibly even the speaker’s epistemic distance): (15) Ja, k’o velim, već smo se dobro upoznali. I, k’o say, we are already well acquainted.’ (‘What I want to say, sort of, we’re well acquainted’)

Suzuki (2000), for instance, observes that by physically separating a quote from the rest of the sentence, parenthetical particles, like pauses, have the framing effect of psychological non-incorporation of the quoted material within the speaker’s belief system. With the interrogative mood indicator, kao is used to minimize the expected but inauspicious significance of a reply: (16) A kao zašto? ‘And kao why?’ (‘And kinda why?’)

. Discussing the possibility that the meaning of approximation of the Hebrew word kaze ‘like this’ has undergone a process of grammaticalization from its original adjectival function to its current role as a discourse marker, Ziv (1998:â•›217) concludes that “[i]t is thus not surprising to find parallel developments in several unrelated languages, such as American English like, Serbo Croatian kao, Norwegian lissom and Japanese chotto”.

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(17) Čega se kao plašim? ‘What am I kao afraid of?’ (‘What am I afraid of like?’) (18) A šta mu kao znače te reči? ‘And what does he kao mean by those words?’ (‘And what does he mean, sort of?’)

This function of kao, however, is not dissimilar to that of a negative polarity item since it can signal the speaker’s negative epistemic stance to either the proposition or the speaker’s interpretation of someone else’s epistemic stance, marking, therefore, a certain propositional attitude. Used independently, or in combination with hearsay and evidential adverbials, kao may also indicate that the material under the scope is more apparent than real: (19) Carica, koja je dotle kao spavala, otvori oči. ‘The empress, who had been kao sleeping till then, opened her eyes.’ (‘The empress, who had been sort of sleeping, suddenly opened her eyes’) (20) Kao navodno/tobože hoće da se uzmu. ‘Kao allegedly they want to marry.’ (‘Like, they want to marry, as they say’)

In (20), however, it seems more likely that the adverbial navodno (or tobože, which means ‘allegedly’) provides explicit linguistic guidance and triggers relevant inference about how the proposition is to be taken (i.e. by contributing to the construction of a higher-level explicature, namely, that the speaker is sceptical about the proclaimed marriage). If this is right, then kao functions here as an echo-marker (I shall return to this point in my subsequent discussion). But we should begin by examining how the notion of conceptual adjustment is explained within relevance theory, as it is precisely in this process that the particles baš and kao play their essential roles in utterance comprehension.

3.

Conceptual adjustments

In this section I take up Carston’s (2002) idea of linguistic underdeterminacy at the lexical semantic level and explore its implications for a relevance-theoretic analysis of the meanings of the Serbian particles baš and kao. One of the major advantages of Carston’s approach is that it brings into symmetry at least three planes that are relevant to my present discussion: the linguistic/mental relation, the literal/less-than-literal interpretation and the pragmatics of explicit communication. These are briefly explained below.


The standard linguistic underdeterminacy thesis at the sentence-semantic level says that while natural language sentences do not encode propositions, they do encode templates that will be used in the construction of fully propositional mental representations (i.e. Language of Thought (LoT) sentences). However, Carston also argues for the linguistic underdeterminacy thesis at the lexical-semantic level, which claims that (at least some) words (notably adjectives, adverbs and verbs) are templates that will be used to build concepts or point to a certain conceptual space: “While sentences encode thought/proposition templates, words encode concept templates; it’s linguistic underdeterminacy all the way down” (Carston 2002:â•›360). The actual (i.e. communicated) concepts will then be pragmatically inferred in context.10 The literal/less-than-literal (or non-literal) interpretation is considered to be a relation between the proposition expressed by an utterance and a thought the speaker wants to communicate. To the extent that the proposition expressed by an utterance shares the logical and contextual implications of the speaker’s thought, what results will be more or less a literal interpretation of this thought (with literalness being the limiting case in communication). Carston’s (2002:â•›340) proposal shifts this relation to that of a (local) connection between linguistically encoded and communicated concepts: “The use is a literal one if the logical/definitional properties of the linguistic encoding are preserved; it is non-literal if they are not”. The third symmetry is the most relevant to this paper. It pertains to one of the pragmatic processes that is involved in the construction of explicature – the process which is based on the formation of ad hoc concepts (pragmatically inferred, communicated concepts that are constituents of the proposition expressed) out of linguistically encoded concepts. According to the standard relevance-theoretic view, only ad hoc concepts that result from the process of pragmatic enrichment of encoded concepts (strengthening or narrowing) are communicated, and hence form part of the explicature. Ad hoc concepts that result from loosening (or broadening) – a pragmatic process that goes in the opposite direction of strengtheningÂ€– affect the implicit side of communication. In the latter case, the speaker 10. On the standard relevance-theoretic approach, a monomorphemic lexical item encodes an atomic concept which is ‘attached’ to an address in memory that stores three kinds of information. The logical entry includes a set of inference rules for analytic implications of the concept. The encyclopaedic entry contains general and particular assumptions about the concept. The lexical entry stores information about the phonetics, phonology and syntax of the linguistic form that encodes the concept. For instance, the lexicalized concept CAR has a logical entry with an inference rule whose output is MOTOR VEHICLE OF A SORT, and an encyclopaedic entry with the information about its physical appearance, power and comfort. A (monomorphemic) lexical item will inherit the referential (truth-based) semantics of the encoded concept and will feature in LoT (Carston 2002).

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is not committed to the proposition expressed, which is strictly false, and the explicature serves as a starting point for the derivation of implicatures. Carston’s account, however, considers loosening complementary to strengthening. In both cases the same pragmatic mechanisms are at play: the ad hoc concept replaces the encoded concept so that the proposition expressed sufficiently resembles the thought the speaker wants to communicate. With loosening, just as with strengthening, the speaker endorses the proposition expressed: What matters here, at least from a communicative point of view, is that the relevant concept is constructed out of the logical and encyclopaedic information which is made accessible by the encoded lexical concept. Whether the construction process is strictly speaking a loosening or an enrichment, or a combination of the two, does not seem consequential and certainly should not lead to two utterly different ways of treating the resultant concept. (Carston 2002:â•›347)11

Slightly adjusting this picture in connection with the ensuing analysis, and taking literalness as the limiting case (adjustment = Ø), the following categorization of relations between lexical and communicated concepts might then be posited: (21) Types of conceptual adjustment: CONCEPTUAL ADJUSTMENT

LESS-THAN-LITERAL RESEMBLANCE

PRAGMATIC STRENGTHENING

PRAGMATIC LOOSENING

LITERAL RESEMBLANCE

OVERLAPPING (strengthening + loosening)

In the following section, I put forward a relevance-theoretic analysis of baš and kao as procedural constraints on the pragmatic process of explicature construction through ad hoc concept formation.

3.1

The semantics and pragmatics of baš

In general, baš can be considered an explicit linguistic indicator of the pragmatic process of conceptual adjustment, that is, it procedurally contributes to relevance 11. In strengthening, not only are the logical properties retained, but some of the ecyclopaedic (or stereotypical) properties are also given a defining status. In loosening, by contrast, certain logical properties are discarded.


at the level of explicature. More specifically, and in terms of the chart given in (21), baš signals literal resemblance (i.e. zero adjustment) between lexicalized and communicated concepts so that the extension of the pragmatically constructed concept is identical to the extension of the lexical concept from which it has been derived. Consider, for instance, (22): (22) a. Papuče su ti ispod kreveta. ‘Your slippers are under the bed.’ b. Papuče su ti baš ispod kreveta. ‘Your slippers are baš under the bed.’ (‘Your slippers are right under your bed’)

The addressee processing either (22a) or (22b) will identify the same proposition expressed, namely that the addressee’s slippers are, at the time of utterance, under the bed (most likely the addressee’s own bed). Even though the omission of the particle will not lead to any loss in propositional meaning, the addressee will interpret (22b) as the speaker’s full endorsement of the literal truth of the utterance (the slippers are literally under the bed) in the sense that not even the smallest deviation from the scope of the particle (the place-adverbial modification ispod kreveta ‘under the bed’) has been intended. In everyday communication, literalness is considered to be an exception: [T]he hearer should take an utterance as fully literal only when nothing less than full literality will confirm the presumption of relevance. In general, some loose(Sperber and Wilson 1986/95:â•›234) ness of expression is to be expected.

Baš is typically used whenever the speaker wants to make manifest a single precise proposition (or the part of the proposition that comes under the scope of the particle). This is, for instance, the case with the temporal expression in (5) Vratio se u kancelariju baš kad sam ja odlazila (‘He came back to the office baš as I was leaving’); here, the particle signals that no approximation (looseness) is intended. Similarly, baš with referring expressions (as in (7)–(9), which are repeated below for convenience) serves to promote the referents so that the possibility of having any other member selected (more or less fitting the description) is thereby precluded:12 12. It is not uncommon for the particle to occur with proper names. The following excerpt is taken from a newspaper article: [http://www.novine.ca/ARHIVA/2003/01_04_03/sr.cg.html] “Borislav Milošević slovi kao ključna figura u klanu. Njegovo ime uvek se pominje zajedno sa finansijskim poslovima porodice Milošević. Navodno je baš Borislav Milošević u Rusiji pohranio milionske sume, što sam osporava.”

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(7) a. *Baš kuća. ‘Baš house.’ b. Baš ta kuća. ‘Baš that house.’ (‘That very house’) (8) (RSHJ) O: I nikad nije zatvoren, mislim, baš onaj šef sale mi je pričao. ‘And it was never closed down, I mean, baš that maitre d’ was telling me.’ (‘That maitre d’ himself was telling me’) (9) (RSHJ) 1 A: Pa možda u gradu, šta ja znam, ja sam u Stepanovićevu. ‘Well, maybe in a city, what do I know, I live in Stepanovićevo.’ 2 Mi pravimo rezance s makom, rezance sa sirom, i tako dalje, ‘We make pasta with poppy seeds, pasta with cheese, and so on,’ 3 sve to. Međutim, oni baš, specijalno, onaj sos napolitane, ‘all that. However, they baš, especially, that sauce Napoletana,’ (‘However, they like nothing else but that sauce Napoletana’) 4 pa špagete bolonjeze i tako, ta su prihvatili jela. ‘then spaghetti alla Bolognese and so, those dishes they have accepted.’

Baš before the cardinals seems to show this straightforwardly: (23) 1 A: 2 B: 3 A: 4 B:

Koliko imaš strana? ‘How many pages do you have? Pet. ‘Five.’ Baš pet? ‘Baš five?’ (‘Exactly five?’) Da. (Baš. / Baš pet.) ‘Yes.’ (‘Baš.’ / ‘Baš five.’)

‘Borislav Milošević is considered to be a key figure in the clan. His name is always mentioned in connection with financial transactions of the Miloševićs. Allegedly, it was baš Borislav Milošević who had deposited millions in Russia, which he himself denies.’ To all who are familiar with the happenings surrounding this family, it was Slobodan Milošević, the referent’s brother and ex-president of Yugoslavia, who was the most contextually salient figure (having had an absolute power over the “clan”) and therefore likely to be accessed first. Baš before the proper name is used to block this immediately accessible assumption by reaffirming the identity of the referent.


The question in (23) 3 is not interpreted as a request for information since B has already (precisely) replied in (23) 2. It is, however, interpreted as a request for confirmation that the object in question is no more or no less than the specified number.13 In terms of the sense-general treatment of the cardinals (see Carson 1997), term numbers are semantically incomplete. This means that the process of pragmatic enrichment of the logical form is required before the cardinals can get a specific meaning assigned (‘at least n’, ‘exactly n’, ‘at most n’). Baš in this process constrains pragmatically supplied material to the level of punctual semantics (‘exactly n’). The likelihood that baš will occur in an utterance depends on how much the speaker intends to make strongly manifest an assumption, as is typically the case with assertions. However, consider (24): (24) a. *Košulja je baš možda prljava. ‘The shirt is baš maybe dirty.’ b. Košulja je možda baš prljava. ‘The shirt is maybe baš dirty.’ (‘The shirt may well be dirty’)

Baš is unlikely to occur in the position it takes in (24a), as the whole complement možda prljava (‘maybe/possibly dirty’) would then fall under its scope. However, it may come after the modal in (24b) since the speaker’s attitudinal distance is no longer part of the scope. The likely interpretation of (24b) is that the speaker intends to make strongly manifest her belief that the shirt is, if anything, a dirty one. Apart from serving as a marker of literal resemblance between the lexical and the resultant ad hoc concept, baš, in certain instances, might also signal the relation of less-than-literal resemblance between the lexical and the resultant ad hoc concept, notably that of pragmatic strengthening (or narrowing). The extension of the communicated concept is then a subset of the extension of the lexical concept (i.e. the relevant concept is in each case contextually determined).14 This type of

13. If, for instance, samo (‘only’) is used before the cardinal, the utterance will strongly implicate that the speaker had expected more pages to be written (this utterance may also have a range of weaker implicatures, say, that the speaker is disappointed, surprised, etc.). 14. In short, enrichment works in the following way: the lexical concept L gives access to the attached logical information and a bunch of encyclopaedic information, out of which only a subset is used for the construction of a more specific concept C* that is relevant in a particular context. As certain contextual assumptions have already been made available to the addressee, he will access the logical entry and only the particular information from the encyclopaedic entry in order to construct the relevant concept C*. If C* gives enough cognitive effects, it will be kept as the intended interpretation (see Carston 2002 for a detailed account of this process).

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conceptual adjustment seems to be particularly at work with the “emphatic” use of baš, as in many cases baš focuses on words that encode more general concepts so that some sort of contextual specification might be necessary. Let us briefly reconsider cases of the emphatic baš. We have seen that baš in (1) Baš viče (‘S/he is baš shouting’) narrows down the lexical concept VIKATI ‘SHOUT’ to a more specific one which indicates a particular degree of loudness. In (25) below the lexical concept PEVATI (‘SING’) does not encode any difference in the manner of performance: (25) a. Peva. ‘S/he is singing.’ b. Baš peva. ‘S/he is baš singing.’ (‘Boy is that some singing’)

(25a) would be quite irrelevant (trivially true) if both the speaker and the addressee were witnessing the occasion, which is otherwise not remarkable in any respect (for instance, the singer has never had any vocal problems). (25b), on the other hand, makes manifest to the addressee the assumption that it is not the action itself that the speaker is foregrounding, but the manner in which the action is done (the singer is not only singing, but is doing it extremely well). In both (1) and (25b) the instantiated strengthening goes towards the highest or at least a remarkably high point on a scale. Concepts encoding mental and emotional states encompass a range of distinct feelings. Given the optionality of the pragmatic process of ad hoc concept formation (from a strictly linguistic point of view), it is easy to see how baš facilitates interpretation – it serves as an indicator that some conceptual strengthening is to take place. Thus, the encoded concept UMORNA (‘TIRED’) in (4) Baš sam umorna (‘I am baš tired’) might be strengthened to TIRED TO THE POINT WHERE ANY ACTIVITY BECOMES UNTHINKABLE. With emotion words, such as srećna (‘happy’) and razočarana (‘disappointed’) in (26), baš typically instantiates strengthening as a temporary and intense emotional state: (26) Baš sam srećna/razočarana. ‘I am baš happy/disappointed.’ (‘I’m really happy/disappointed’)

It seems, however, that certain linguistic encodings, such as deictics and scalar adjectives, necessitate pragmatic enrichment (Carston 2002).15 For instance, BRZO (‘FAST’) in (2) Baš brzo vozi (‘S/he is baš driving fast’), might be interpreted in 15. While deictics overtly require strengthening, scalar adjectives (and adverbs), being inherently context-dependent, may contain a covert indexical element as part of their encoded meaning.


different contexts as ‘fast enough to win the race’, ‘fast enough to kill everybody’, etc.; LEPA (‘BEAUTIFUL’) in (3) Baš lepa žena (‘Baš a beautiful woman’) might express any of the following particular narrowings, such as ‘beautiful enough to advertise Chanel’, ‘beautiful indeed to have won the competition’, ‘indisputably beautiful’, and so on. Out of a range of possible instantiations, the relevant location of the deictics ovde and tu ‘here’ in (6) Izvoli ovde […] baš mi se tu sviđa (‘Here, please […] baš I like it here’) is pragmatically narrowed to the exact place the speaker is pointing at as she speaks. Clearly, there is no constraint for the particle to occur in such an environment, but then it seems that baš simply reaffirms the particular, contextually instantiated narrowing. Finally, let us see how baš constrains the relevance of (10)–(12) (repeated below for convenience): (10) 1 A: 2 B: 3 A:

Video sam lava. ‘I’ve seen a lion.’ Baš lava? / Baš? ‘Baš lion?’ / ‘Baš?’ (‘You don’t say!’) Baš! ‘Baš!’ (‘A real lion’)

(11) (RSHJ) 1 S: Da to je zanimljivo. Ne znam ko je sakupljao te podatke? ‘Yes, that’s interesting. I don’t know who was collecting those data?’ 2 B: To je konzulat sakupljao. Ne znam zbog čega. ‘The consulate was collecting them. I don’t know what for.’ 3 S: Konzulat u Štutgartu? ‘The consulate in Stuttgart?’ 4 B: Da, baš konzulat. ‘Yes, baš the consulate.’ (‘That very consulate’) (12) (RSHJ) 1 K: Oni se znaju otkako su imali sedam godina, kao deca. ‘They have known each other since they were seven, as children.’ 2 M: Jao zamisli to je drug, ono baš … ‘Just imagine, it is a friend, like baš’ (‘It’s like being real friends, you know’) 3 K: Baš prijatelj, znaš onako. Mi smo: dođeš ono u tri ujutru, kažeš: ‘Baš friend, you know like. We were: you come like at three in the morning, you say:’ (‘Like a real friend, you know’) 4 “eto, deco .. tako mi je teško”. Oni bi rekli: “pa ti si luda, ajde ćuti, “Well, children .. I feel so bad”. They would say: “Well, you’re being silly, come on, shut up,’

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šta ti je”. Znaš ono. To je baš, znaš ono .. ‘what’s the matter with you”. You know, like. This is baš, you know, like ..’ (‘It’s really, you know, like’) ne to se ne kaže drugarstvo, nego baš prijateljstvo. ‘no you do not say palship, but baš friendship.’ (‘No, you can’t call it palship, it’s a real friendship’)

What both (10) and (11) have in common is that baš occurs before the lexical concept, which is marked as problematic in some respect. (10) 2 is interpreted as B’s incredulity at A’s statement in which the lexical concept LAV (‘LION’) occurs: something like ‘Nothing less than a lion’ so that baš focuses on the very defining property of the natural-kind term. In (11) 4 baš serves to confirm the identity between the lexical concept KONZULAT (‘CONSULATE’) in (11) 2 and the concept understood in (11) 3 so that the utterance achieves relevance by strengthening the addressee’s existing assumption. In both instances, baš signals that the logical property is to be retained. In other words, it functions as a marker of non-loose use.16 On the other hand, (12) seems to be an instance of metalinguistic strengthening – baš is repeatedly used before the lexical concepts PRIJATELJ (‘FRIEND’) and PRIJATELJSTVO (‘FRIENDSHIP’) which, being narrower, entail the broader lexical concepts DRUG (‘PAL’) and DRUGARSTVO (‘PALSHIP’).

3.2

The semantics and pragmatics of kao

In general, kao seems to have two major roles. The first draws on the conceptual meaning of the preposition and conjunction (‘in the same manner’, ‘in the manner of’, ‘to the same degree as’) and is standardly used for comparison, as in (27) below: (27) (RSHJ) 1 V: Ovo mi je ovako ko17 saslušanje. “Priznajem, kriva sam”. “Reci sve!” ‘It looks to me in this way ko an interrogation. “I plead guilty”. “Tell us everything!”â•›’ (‘It is thus like an interrogation’) 16. If negation takes scope over the particle, the reverse holds true. Thus, nije baš ‘not exactly’ is taken to express that some degree of looseness of the contextually available focus is required. If the particle takes scope over negation, as in baš nije ‘really not’, then it corroborates the applicability of the focus term to the subject term in the case of predicate denials, or affirms the inapplicability of the focus term to the subject term in the case of affirmative predications. 17. Ko is a colloquial variant of kao (cf. došao and došo ‘(he) came’ and kazao and kazo ‘(he) said’). This phonological reduction and the subsequent lengthening of the remaining vowel are now standardized in writing as kô instead of k’o (Klajn 1997).


2 B: Stvarno je, što kaže Vera .. ko saslušanje! ‘It really is, as Vera says, ko an interrogation!’ (‘It’s just like Vera says like a real interrogation’)

The simile in (27) may be used to communicate a certain set of implicatures, for instance, that the gathering the speaker is describing is rather formal and somber in tone, that the speaker feels uncomfortable, etc. Depending on the particular occasion of use, the simile in the earlier example (14) To je bilo kao danas (‘It was kao today’) may communicate various implicatures, such as customs have not changed, the situation has not improved, etc. In both cases, however, the lexically encoded concepts DANAS (‘TODAY’) in (14) and SASLUŠANJE (‘INTERROGATION’) in (27) remain preserved. Its second role is that of a discourse particle. Kao, just like baš, has a procedural contribution to the pragmatic process of explicature construction, serving as an indicator of the type of ad hoc concept that is to be built. In terms of the chart given in (21), kao signals a less-than-literal resemblance between the lexicalized and communicated concepts, typically that of loosening, so that the extension of the pragmatically constructed concept includes the extension of the lexical concept from which it has been derived. Let us consider (28)–(31) as instances of loose use: (28) Sunčala se kao ceo dan, a ono ništa. ‘She has been tanning kao the whole day, and like nothing.’ (‘She’s spent like an entire day tanning in vain’) (29) (RSHJ) 1 V: Jesi naučila u Engleskoj kokni? Sećaš se onog pilota u avionu. ‘Have you learned Cockney in England? Remember that pilot on the plane.’ 2 Kako govori engleski? ‘The way he speaks English?’ 3 B: Misliš na film? ‘In the film, you mean?’ 4 V: Da, sećaš se filma? ‘Yes, you remember that film?’ 5 L: To je kao neki kokni? ‘It is kao some Cockney?’ (‘It’s like cockney?’) (30) (RSHJ) 1 S: Da li to znači .. da imate, da idete po različitim mestima, ‘Does this mean .. that you have, that you go to various places,’ 2 ili je samo u jednom? ‘or is it just one place?’

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3 B:

Da, imam tri mesta. To mi je kao centralno mesto, a imam još dva. ‘Yes, I have three places. This is kao a central place, and I have two more places.’ (‘This one is like central and I have two other places to go’)

(31) (RSHJ) 1 S: Ja kažem: “ovi su otkačili totalno“. Bez veze… pusti! ‘I say: “They have completely gone nuts”. It doesn’t matter… forget it!’ 2 Prave kao praznik, kao, znaš za omladinu. ‘They make it kao a holiday, kao, you know for the youth.’ (‘It’s like holiday, like, you know, the thing for youths’)

In all the above examples, kao focuses on a particular lexically encoded conceptual constituent, marking it as a candidate for loose interpretation. Thus, the lexical concept CEO DAN (‘THE WHOLE DAY’) in (28) has certain logical and encyclopaedic properties, (‘equals the duration from dawn till dark’, ‘temporal concept’, ‘contractually binding working time’, ‘24-hour duration’, etc.) not all of which are communicated on the particular occasion. As the lexical concept imparts more information than the addressee needs to be able to understand the utterance, he will ignore the information that is not relevant and instead build an ad hoc concept that is weaker than the encoded concept. In (29) 5, kao instructs the addressee to drop part of the logical entry of the lexically encoded concept (for instance, ‘dialect of the East End of London’) so that the concept communicated and understood is broader and becomes, in fact, superordinate (‘non-standard language’, ‘parole’, ‘dialect not taught at school’, etc.). Meanwhile, statements (30)Â€3 and (31) 2 may engender an array of concepts differing only in nuance (‘CENTRAL PLACE*’, ‘CENTRAL PLACE**’; ‘HOLLIDAY*’, ‘HOLLIDAY**’, ‘HOLLIDAY***’, etc.). Given that no specific concept is strongly communicated, whichever particular concept the addressee builds from this range will be good enough for the communicative purpose (the resultant concept will closely resemble the concept figuring in the speaker’s thought).18 So far we have seen that kao may focus on encoded concepts whose semantics is determinate, which means that any looseness that comes out is a matter of 18. A concept-term with an asterisk is used to indicate an ad hoc concept (e.g. CENTRAL PLACE* and HOLIDAY*). A concept-term with two or more asterisks (e.g. CENTRAL PLACE** and CENTRAL PLACE***; HOLIDAY** and HOLIDAY***) is used to indicate slightly different ad hoc concepts. For example, the speaker may entertain a concept in terms of her individual preferences, say, as CENTRAL PLACE* (e.g. a frequently visited place, a commercially important place, an easily accessible place, a romantic place, etc.) while the addressee may interpret it, say, as CENTRAL PLACE** (e.g. geographically central). This, however, will not impede communication.


the speaker’s specific communicative intention. Still, there does not seem to be any restriction on the particle that prevents it from occurring with semantically vague concepts. For instance, in subsentential statement (32) 1, kao indicates that the conceptual string is to be relaxed and simply taken as a point of departure in constructing a complex ad hoc concept: (32) (RSHJ) 1 L: Kao mlad i lep, imaš para, imaš prijatelje, … ‘Kao young and handsome, having money, having friends, …’ (‘Like being young and handsome, lots of money and friends’) 2 V: Položaj … ‘A status …’

The same kind of rather weakly-communicated explicature is typical of cases where kao prefaces exemplification. Given that it is unclear what lexically encoded concept (or a string of concepts) it is true of, the concept is interpreted as communicating an instance. In other words, the addressee is encouraged to expand the concept so as to arrive at an interpretation that will yield enough cognitive effects: (33) Kad završiš pisanje šta ćeš onda. Kao odmarati se malo? ‘When you have finished writing, what then. Kao take some rest?’ (‘Like rest for a while’)

Why would a speaker opt for a less-than-literal utterance? According to relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986/95 and Carston 2002), the speaker might believe that a less-than-literal utterance will get the speaker’s thought across more easily than a literal one would (e.g. less processing effort, politeness concerns, etc.). Another possibility is that the speaker might not be able to find a literal means to express her thought (or there might not be any). In addition to signalling less-than-literal resemblance in content, kao may signal less-than-literal resemblance in form. In such cases, it targets the lexical entry of an encoded concept: (34) (RSHJ) 1 S: A gde ćeš ti Nevena za Novu godinu. ‘And where will you go, Nevena, for New Year’s Eve?’ 2 N: Pa ne znam. Joca nešto reče .. kao u neku kafanu, ‘Well I don’t know. Joca said something .. kao to a bar,’ (‘Joca has mentioned a bar or something’)

In (34) 2 the speaker is not certain of the exact nature of the establishment referred to as kafana (‘bar’). Since the stereotypical assumptions this encoded

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concept gives access to are standardly negative (‘dilapidated place of a dubious reputation’, ‘cheap and low-quality service’, possibly even ‘filth and squalor’), the speaker might be embarrassed by the statement, or simply unable to find a better alternative. The last point to consider in relation to kao is its role as an attributive and echo-marker. This, however, has to do with interpretive rather than descriptive resemblance. An utterance can be a second-order interpretation: the speaker’s thought, which the utterance represents, might already be an interpretation of someone else’s thought or is from the speaker’s recent or distant past. Metarepresentations achieve relevance based on the reported information, or by expressing certain attitudes to attributed representations. The latter type of interpretation is considered to be echoic: [T]here are echoic mentions of many different degrees and types. Some are immediate echoes, and other delayed; some have their source in actual utterances, others in thoughts or opinions; some have a real source, others an imagined one; some are traceable back to a particular individual, whereas others have a vaguer origin. When the echoic character of the utterance is not immediately obvious, it is nevertheless suggested. (Sperber and Wilson 1981:â•›309–310)

Kao is used as an attributive or echo-marker in reporting and irony. When conversing, speakers do not normally engage in reporting verbatim what someone else has previously said, thought or believed. A certain degree of loosening of a reported speech is therefore to be expected, even if no linguistic indicator is present. Consider (35), for instance: (35) A: I šta Maja reče? ‘And what did Maja say?’ a. B: Doći će po mene. ‘She’ll pick me up.’ b. B: Kao, doći će po mene. ‘Kao, she’ll pick me up.’ (‘Something like, she’ll pick me up’)

Maja’s words may have been perfectly replicated, and yet the addressee will interpret (35a) as a more or less loose rendering of the original representation. When kao prefaces a quote, as in (35b), it eases the addressee’s efforts to process and recover the intended interpretation, namely, that the quoted material is indeed a less-than-literal interpretation of an attributed thought. This quotative use of kao is quite pervasive in communication, as (36) and (37) illustrate:


(36) (RSHJ) 1 O: I gledaj sad ovaj fazon! Sad mi kao pričamo sa onim tamo, ‘But listen to this! Now we kao are talking to this guy,’ (‘Here we are like talking to this guy’) 2 a oni se oduševljavaju s tim. ‘and they get excited about it.’ 3 Kao: “Ko nije bio ovde, taj se nije oduševio”. ‘Kao: “Those who hadn’t been here, they couldn’t get excited”.’ (‘Like, tough luck if you’ve missed the show’) (37) (RHSJ) 1 B: I sledeći dan, vidimo mi .. sedimo u gradskoj kafani. ‘And the next day, we see .. we are sitting in a café.’ 2 Zora i ja, kad dolaze Milanče i Nindža sa dve ženske. ‘Zora and I, when Milanče and Nindža come along with two girls.’ 3 Sad ne znam .. računam – to su im valjda nove ženske, ‘Now, I can’t know .. I reckon – they must be their new girls,’ 4 nešto pričaju kao vruće biće .. nešto ovamo onamo – i ništa. ‘they talk something kao it will be hot .. something hither and thither – and nothing.’ (‘they say something like it’ll be real hot .. and this and that, but nothing much’)

Apart from reducing the basic explicature to one of a less-than-literal resemblance (and marking it, in fact, as weak), kao may also contribute to relevance at the level of higher-level explicatures. This explains why so many kao-utterances will have an ironic tinge. According to the relevance-theoretic, pragmatic approach to irony, three conditions are crucial for an utterance to be understood as ironic: (i) recognizing that an utterance is echoic; (ii) identifying the source of the echoed opinion; (iii) recognizing that the speaker’s attitude to the echoed opinion is that of rejection or disapproval. In other words, if no echoing is discernible, an utterance will not count as ironic. Kao facilitates this process by instructing the addressee to recover a higher-level explicature that expresses an ironic attitude to the proposition expressed by an utterance.19 An echoic account of kao can explain fairly unambiguous cases of ironic utterances, such as (16)–(18) (repeated below for convenience): (16) A kao zašto? ‘And kao why?’ (‘And kinda why?’) 19. The echoic use of kao might perhaps be traced back to a deleted pronominal and verb of saying, e.g. kao što kažu ‘as/like they say’.

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(17) Čega se kao plašim? ‘What am I kao afraid of?’ (‘What am I afraid of like?’) (18) A šta mu kao znače te reči? ‘And what does he kao mean by those words?’ (‘And what does he mean, sort of?’)

Additionally, in (38) below, both utterances are understood as echoing the thought (if not the actual utterance) that the speaker ascribes to the addressee, and towards which she expresses a mocking (or derogatory) attitude: (38) a. Kao nije bilo dobro što si završila posao na vreme. ‘Kao (‘like/sort of ’) it wasn’t good that you had finished your work on time.’ b. Kao bilo je dobro što si završila posao na vreme. ‘Kao (‘like/sort of ’) it was good that you had finished your work on time.’

In certain borderline cases, however, it is not clear whether kao marks off a quote or irony. The following excerpt illustrates this: (39) (http://www.vecernji-list.hr/2001/06/04/Pages/pucanje.html) 1 U petak navečer nazvao me je predsjednik Zagrebačkog teniskog ‘On Friday evening, President of the Tennis Association of Zagreb,’ 2 saveza Jozo Ivičević, rekao da se u “Intercontinentalu” sastala ‘Jozo Ivičević, called me to say that in “Intercontinental”’ 3 skupina od petnaestak teniskih entuzijasta i odlučila da je najbolje ‘a group of about fifteen tennis enthusiasts gathered and decided that it was the best’ 4 da dam ostavku. Kao, učinio sam u poslednjih godinu dana mnogo ‘if I submitted my resignation. Kao, I did in the past year a lot’ 5 dobrog u tenisu, no najbolje je da sada odem. ‘for tennis, but it is for the best if I now leave.’ (‘Like, I did much for our tennis in the past year, but I’d better leave now’)

In (39) 4 kao indicates that the following free direct speech (Short 1995) is a lessthan-literal metarepresentation of the speaker’s thought. On the other hand, it may also signal that the addressee is to recover an ironic propositional attitude to the metarepresentation.


4.

Concluding remarks

Given the possibility of a unified treatment of ad hoc concept construction, my aim in this paper was to explore the semantic and pragmatic properties of bašand kao-utterances. According to the relevance-based account I have given, the particles baš and kao have the same basic role in utterance understanding, serving as semantic constraints on explicatures, albeit in opposite directions. While the explicature communicated in a baš-utterance is standardly strong, the one communicated in a kao-utterance is typically weak. Once a full-content word that productively participated in the formation of compounds, baš has come a long way and is now exclusively used as a pragmatic particle with a range of usages mostly limited to informal interaction. Still, some traces of the original conceptual meaning (‘the nucleus’) are reflected in the contemporary procedural meaning. Given the frequency of loose use in communication, baš is used whenever the speaker wants to ensure that the addressee does not automatically pursue the given lead, but instead takes the subsequent lexical concept literally, or in certain instances, even adjusts it to a more restricted set. A common core for both “specificatory” (literalness) and “emphatic” (pragmatic strengthening) senses would end in a negative characterization of baš as a marker of non-loose use. Kao, on the other hand, has followed a slightly different path. The process of desemanticization (or semantic bleaching) from conceptual to procedural meaning does not seem to have been as inclusive as in the case of baš so that the pragmatic marker exists alongside the preposition and conjunction. Whereas baš typically focuses on a particular propositional constituent, kao also occurs in the left-detached (less frequently in the right-detached) parenthetical position, taking a wide scope over the whole of the proposition. A very brief and rough comparison would also reveal baš as more sensitive to category selection, generally favouring adjectival, adverbial and verbal encodings. Kao is in this respect less discriminate, but there does seem to be a certain preference for noun phrases. Lastly, while both particles indicate the nature of the ad hoc concept the addressee is to build (pragmatic loosening in the case of kao), only kao alone has developed an attributive and echoic usage.20 The attributed thought or utterance is then marked as the speaker’s expression of a dissociative attitude to the representation (irony), or a lack of it (reporting). 20. A possibility that baš may indicate (under certain circumstances and in interaction with prosody) an ironic attitude to the proposition expressed by an utterance cannot be ruled out (e.g. Baš si mi ti neka mustra ‘You are baš something’). This point, however, merits further investigation.

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References Benson, Morton. 1991. Srpskohrvatsko-engleski rečnik. Serbocroatian-English dictionary. Beograd: Prosveta. Blakemore, Diane. 1987. Semantic Constraints on Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell. Blakemore, Diane. 2002. Relevance and Linguistic Meaning: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carston, Robyn. 1997. “Informativeness, relevance and scalar implicature.” In Relevance Theory: Applications and Implications, Robyn Carston and Seiji Uchida (eds.), 179–236. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Carston, Robyn. 2002. Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication. Oxford: Blackwell. Drvodelić, Milan. 1989. Hrvatsko ili srpsko engleski rječnik. Croatian or Serbian English dictionary. Zagreb: Školska knjiga. Filipović, Rudolf. 1989. Englesko-hrvatski ili srpski rječnik. English-Croatian or Serbian dictionary. Zagreb: Školska knjiga and Grafički zavod Hrvatske. Klajn, Ivan. 1997. Rečnik jezičkih nedoumica [A dictionary of linguistic uncertainties]. Beograd: Čigoja. König, Ekkehard. 1991. The Meaning of Focus Particles: A Comparative Perspective. London: Routledge. Mišković, Mirjana. 2001. “The particle baš in contemporary Serbian.” Pragmatics 11 (1): 17–13. Mišković, Mirjana. 2003. “Relevance-theoretic semantics and the Serbian pragmatic marker kao.” In Jezik, društvo, saznanje: Profesoru Ranku Bugarskom od njegovih studenata [Language, society, cognition: To Professor Ranko Bugarski from his students], Dušanka Klikovac and Katarina Rasulić (eds.), 165–184. Beograd: Filološki fakultet. RSHJ: Savić, Svenka and Polovina, Vesna. 1989. Razgovorni srpskohrvatski jezik [Conversational Serbo-Croatian]. Novi Sad: Institut za južnoslovenske jezike i Filozofski fakultet. Short, Michael. 1995. “Understanding text: Point of view.” In Language and Understanding, Gillian Brown, Kirsten Malmkjaer, Alastair Pollitt and John Williams (eds.), 169–190. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sperber, Dan and Wilson, Deirdre. 1981. “Irony and the use-mention distinction.” In Radical Pragmatics, Peter Cole (ed.), 295–318. New York: Academic Press. Sperber, Dan and Wilson, Deirdre. 1986/95. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell. Sperber, Dan and Wilson, Deirdre. 1997. “Remarks on relevance theory and social science.” Multilingua 16 (2/3): 145–151. Stanojčić, Živojin and Popović, Ljubomir. 1992. Gramatika srpskoga jezika [A grammar of the Serbian language]. Beograd: Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva. Novi Sad: Zavod za izdavanje udžbenika. Stevanović, Mihailo. 1986. Savremeni srpskohrvatski jezik I [The contemporary Serbo-Croatian language I]. Beograd: Naučna knjiga. Stevanović, Mihailo, Pešikan, Mitar, Nikolić, B. and Gortan-Premk, Darinka. 1975. Rečnik srpskohrvatskog književnog i narodnog jezika [A dictionary of the Serbo-Croatian literary and folk language]. Knjiga IX. Beograd: Institut za srpskohrvatski jezik Srpske akademije nauka i umetnosti.


Suzuki, Satoko. 2000. “Surprise and animosity: The use of the copula da in quotative sentences in Japanese.” In Pragmatic Markers and Propositional Attitude, Gisle Andersen and Thorstein Fretheim (eds.), 239–253. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Vujaklija, Milan. 1996. Leksikon stranih reči i izraza [A lexicon of foreign words and phrases]. Beograd: Prosveta. Wilson, Deirdre and Sperber, Dan. 1993. “Linguistic form and relevance.” Lingua 90: 1–25. Ziv, Yael. 1998. “Hebrew kaze as discourse marker and lexical hedge: Conceptual and procedural properties.” In Discourse markers: Descriptions and Theory, Andreas H. Jucker and Yael Ziv (eds.), 203–221. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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chapter 5

The Bosnian discourse particle ono Aida Premilovac

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.

1.

Introduction

When used as a demonstrative pronoun, the Bosnian ono ‘that’ occurs as an integral part of the noun phrase whose position in an utterance is predictable and constrained by the word order. However, ono in informal discourse may violate these syntactic rules by occurring independently of the noun phrase and almost anywhere in an utterance. Such uses of ono have typically been evaluated as meaningless, signaling nothing more than speech production issues on the part of the speaker. In this chapter, I re-examine this position on the non-demonstrative uses of ono in informal discourse and suggest that, in such cases, ono functions as a discourse particle. The methodical tools for my analysis come from relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986/95). Specifically, I investigate how ono as a discourse particle

. Against the English dyadic system of demonstratives (this and that), Bosnian (and Croatian and Serbian) has a triadic system (ovaj, taj and onaj), which reflects the relationship of an entity to the deictic center: within/out of reach/view.

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relates to its host utterance with respect to the theory’s main aspects of truth-conditionality, the conceptual/procedural distinction, and the explicit/implicit distinction. I suggest that ono is a non-truth-conditional and procedural linguistic device, which contributes to the relevance of a host utterance by constraining its explicit content. After a short discussion of the functions of demonstratives in interaction (2), I focus on the particular functions of the Bosnian demonstrative ono (3) and highlight certain problems with the traditional approach to ono as a particle. This is then followed by a relevance-theoretic account of the discourse particle ono (4). In this section, I also indicate parallels between ono and the English pragmatic marker like (4.1) and establish its unique status in informal discourse by comparing ono to onaj, another discourse particle which originates from a demonstrative (4.2). I go on to discuss ono with respect to the relevance-theoretic aspects of truth-conditionality, the conceptual/procedural distinction, and the explicit/implicit distinction (4.3). In conclusion (5), I summarize my findings and discuss implications for further research.

2.

Demonstratives

The definition and functions of demonstratives in language are usually discussed in relation to their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects (Diessel 1999). Thus, with respect to their syntax, demonstratives are regarded as deictic expressions, which serve specific syntactic functions. For instance, they occur in noun phrases as head modifiers (e.g. this book/these books or that book/those books). With respect to their semantics, demonstratives are considered to be deictically contrastive features, that is, they specify the relationship of an entity to the deictic center. Diessel (1999) writes that languages typically distinguish between proximal demonstratives, which refer to entities that are near the deictic center (this book), and distal demonstratives, which refer to entities that are considered to be far from the deictic center (that book). But as Diessel points out, some languages also make use of distance-neutral demonstratives. He cites the unusual case of German, in which the demonstrative pronoun dies can be used to mark an entity using both this and that. Likewise, Scollon and Scollon 2003 (citing Reed at al. 1977) emphasize that some languages make finer distinctions in their repertoire of demonstratives than English does. As one example, the authors discuss the Yup’ik Eskimo language, which makes use of thirty-one demonstrative pronouns. . E.g. Dies Buch gefällt mir nicht (‘I don’t like this/that book’). I thank Kurt Jankowsky for this example.

Chapter 5.â•‡ The Bosnian particle ono

From the pragmatic perspective, demonstratives are discussed as features with specific pragmatic functions. For instance, speakers may use demonstratives to draw attention to some entity in interaction, to arrange and keep track of information in talk, or to activate some existing, specific, and shared knowledge. As pragmatic units, demonstratives help interlocutors orient each other to an entity regardless of whether the entity is physically observable or not in the immediate context as in the utterance Did you read that newspaper article? (cf. Laury 1997 and Diessel 1999). In this example, the person asking the question uses that to activate some existing knowledge about an entity (‘newspaper article’) which is not directly observable.

3.

The demonstrative pronoun ono

In terms of its syntactic functions, the demonstrative pronoun ono modifies neuter entities in the third person singular. The following table illustrates the gender and number agreement between Bosnian (and Serbian and Croatian) distal demonstratives and the adjacent nouns: m. f. n.

Singular onaj jastuk ‘that pillow’ ona kuća ‘that house’ ono nebo ‘that sky’

Plural oni jastuci ‘those pillows’ one kuće ‘those houses’ ona neba ‘those skies’

Furthermore, the demonstrative ono, like other distal demonstratives, is declined according to the six (out of seven) traditional noun cases as the following table demonstrates:

Singular Nominative ono nebo ‘that sky’ Genitive onog neba Dative onom nebu Accusative ono nebo Vocative [not applicable] Instrumental onim nebom Locative onom nebu

Plural ona neba ‘those skies’ onih neba onim nebima ona neba [not applicable] onim nebima onim nebima

. Ono ‘it’ is also a personal pronoun (singular, neuter). In this paper I consider the pragmatic uses of ono to have developed out of its demonstrative uses since other demonstratives also exhibit non-restrictive uses in informal discourse.

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From the syntactic perspective then, ono is an integral part of the noun phrase, and its occurrence in an utterance is predictable and constrained by its position in the word order. According to Jahić et al. (2000), Bosnian distinguishes among three word orders: basic (SVO), actualized (SVO can be violated according to specific textual and contextual demands), and obligatory (constrained by the sentential prosody). With respect to the SVO word order, the demonstrative ono modifies either the subject or the object of an utterance as examples (1) and (2) show: (1) Ono dijete čita knjigu. ‘That child is reading a book.’ (2) Poznajem ono dijete. ‘I know that child.’

(ono in subject position) (ono in object position)

Given appropriate textual and contextual demands, it is possible to express examples (1) and (2) in the OVS, as in (3) and (4), or SOV word orders, as in (5) and (6): (3) Knjigu čita ono dijete. ‘A book is being read by that child.’

(ono dijete, subject in OVS order)

(4) Ono dijete poznajem. ‘That child I know.’

(ono dijete, object in OVS order)

(5) Ono dijete knjigu čita. ‘That child a book is reading.’

(ono dijete, subject in SOV order)

(6) Ja ono dijete poznajem. ‘I that child know.’

(ono dijete, object in SOV order)

In the actualized word order, ono can occur without the succeeding noun when the entity which is marked by ono is contextually known or otherwise made available to the hearer. Examples (7) and (8) demonstrate such possibilities (‘< >’ indicates that the noun is an optional constituent): (7) Ono <meso> je dobro skuhano. ‘That <meat> is well cooked.’ (8) Ono <slovo> je preveliko. ‘That is too big.’

The obligatory word order specifies the position of non-stressed grammatical components such as clitics. Examples (9) and (10) show that the noun phrase . In this example, the subject of the utterance is covert and signaled by the verb inflection. As a pro-drop language, Bosnian regularly omits an overt pronominal subject (Jahić et al. 2000).


with ono – like any other noun phrase in Bosnian – can by discontinued by enclitics (e.g. je ‘is’): (9) Ono je dijete lijepo. ‘That is child beautiful.’ (10) Ono je meso ukusno. ‘That is meat tasteful.’

According to the syntactic properties, the singular, nominative and neuter form of the demonstrative pronoun ono is used as a discourse particle, although several other demonstratives have also developed certain particle-like functions. From the semantic perspective, the demonstrative ono expresses an entity’s distance from the deictic center as being ‘out of reach and view’, and stands in contrast to the proximal demonstrative ovo, which expresses that an entity is ‘within view’ from the deictic center. Ono and ovo are further distinguished from the third demonstrative to, which may be used to indicate that an entity is at some distance from the deictic center or ‘out of reach but within view’ (cf. Mišković 2001ff.). Semantically then, ono is among the most distal demonstratives. The pragmatic functions of the demonstrative ono arise from the conjunction of its syntactic and semantic functions and specific contextual demands. Thus, ono can be used to draw the listener’s attention to something that is ‘out of reach and view,’ but which may already be known to the interlocutors. For instance, the interlocutors may be discussing the meat they had for dinner (together or individually) on a previous occasion, and one of them might say something like Ono meso je bilo dobro (‘That meat was good’). Even though the meat is both out of reach and view, it is, nevertheless, cognitively accessible. Still, the same utterance can be used to define meso (‘meat’), which is at a considerable distance from the interlocutors but may still be within their view. For instance, two people at a party might be discussing how much they enjoyed their individual dinners. One of them might point to a table across the room, which still has some dinner meat available. If the speaker says Ono meso je bilo dobro, the hearer will know which meat is being referred to, regardless of whether she personally tried it or not. Thus, the pragmatic uses of the demonstrative ono depend very much on . Rather than having a restricted syntactic position, the discourse particle ono appears to be floating. . Jahić at al. (2000) relate the functions of the Bosnian demonstratives ono, ovo, and to to the pronominal categories of the first (I/we), second (you/you) and third (she/he/it/they) person and state that ovo marks something which is in the territory of the first person, to marks that which is in the territory of the second person, while ono relates to that which is in the territory of the third person.

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the varying levels of knowledge of the immediate and distant contexts that each interlocutor brings into the interaction. In essence, the pragmatic functions of the demonstrative ono can be thought of as different ways of expressing the speaker’s and hearer’s orientation toward some present or absent entity. All interactants must share knowledge of the entity in focus, however, in order for the demonstrative ono to be properly understood.

3.1

Problems with a traditional account of ono as a particle

In addition to what has been said so far about the syntactically or contextually constrained properties of the demonstrative ono, whose occurrence is dependent on its position in the noun phrase, there is another use of ono which, as an independent, positionally unrestricted constituent (i.e. not an integral part of the noun phrase, and hence not constrained by the number and gender of the succeeding items) is highly frequent in informal discourse. Examples (11)–(13) illustrate this use: (11) Ona je ono dobra plivačica. ‘She is ono a good swimmer.’ (12) Jučer sam ono spavao do podne. ‘Yesterday I ono slept till noon.’ (13) Bilo je ljudi ono koji su ostali u zgradi [za vrijeme rata]. ‘There were people ono who remained in the apartment building’ [during the war.]

In (11), ono precedes the noun phrase dobra plivačica (‘a good swimmer’) which is marked for the singular, feminine form. In (12), ono occurs between the auxiliary sam (‘to be’, 1st person sg) and the main verb spavao (‘to sleep’), which is marked for masculine gender. In (13), ono occurs before an entire relative clause koji su ostali u zgradi (‘who remained in the apartment building’) and is prefaced by the relative plural pronoun koji (‘who’). Since such syntactically unrestricted occurrences of ono are confined to spoken and informal discourse, ono has traditionally been relegated to a syntactically diverse and semantically vague category of particles, which more often than not indicates speech production issues. Furthermore, a traditional account cannot explain the cases of the utterancefinal ono with falling intonation, whereby the speaker signals that her utterance is about to be completed: (14) Daj ti nama tvoj broj, pa ćemo mi tebe zovnuti ono. ‘Give us your number, and we will call you ono.’


(15) Običaj je bio piti kafu oko pet, pola-šest ono. ‘The custom was to have coffee around five, half past five ono.’

The argument which seems to support the traditional account of ono as a particle that indicates processing and speech production efforts (or errors) draws on the fact that several other traditionally-established particles that originate from demonstratives (e.g. onaj ‘that’ and ovo/ovaj ‘this’) are also used in informal discourse in similar ways. However, the question of how to explain the differences in use among these various lexical items that belong to the same syntactic and semantic category – specifically, in instances where it is clearly manifest that the speaker is making a selection – remains. In other words, if all of these items serve the same function (giving the speaker a chance to buy more time as she is producing or correcting her utterance), why is it that we see clusters of such items as illustrated in (16)?: (16) 1. 2. 3.

Ja sam, onaj, ‘I, onaj,’ ono kad je narod pokupljen, znaš, ‘ono when people were taken away, you know,’ doš’o pred zgradu. ‘came in front of the building.’

In what follows, I use the relevance-theoretic framework to show that ono, when not used as a demonstrative, is a discourse particle with distinct pragmatic functions that differ from those of other Bosnian particles (originating from demonstratives). For this purpose, I define discourse particles in the following way: [P]redominantly associated with (especially informal) spoken language, their function is to express pragmatic aspects of communication, for instance by marking propositional attitude or illocutionary force, or by signaling intratextual (sequential) or interpersonal relations, and they do not contribute to the propositional content of the utterance in which they occur. (Andersen 1998:â•›147)

The data for my analysis come from informal conversations (see Note 7).

4.

A relevance-theoretic analysis of the discourse particle ono

The term relevance refers to a trade-off between contextual effects and processing effort: an optimally relevant utterance is one that “achieves an adequate range of contextual effects for the minimum justifiable processing effort” (Blass 1990:â•›62). This trade-off affects context selection. Relevant information may be derived not

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only from verbal stimuli, but also from observation, memory and inference. The context for interpreting the speaker’s intended message is chosen by the hearer so that he can arrive at an optimally relevant interpretation of the message. In other words, conversation is a cognitive activity in which different factors (physical, social, cultural, etc.) may affect the speaker’s construction and the hearer’s interpretation of a message; however, the hearer’s selection of the right assumptions occurs not before but during the actual process of utterance interpretation. Particularly important for my analysis of the pragmatic particle ono is the relevance-theoretic notion of loose talk. Sperber and Wilson (1986/95) argue that looseness, and not literalness, is a general property of utterances. Consider the following exchange: (17) a. Margaret: How old is your co-worker? b. Kristin: He is 41 years old. c. He is 41 years and 3 months old.

Kristin’s utterance in (17b) is, strictly speaking, a false response to Margaret’s question while the response (17c) describes a true state of affairs. However, unless Margaret demands the exact birth-information about Kristin’s co-worker, Kristin will most likely opt for a less-than-literal response (e.g. (17b)), which she believes to be true. By doing so, Kristin is not requiring Margaret to engage in any unnecessary processing of information, which utterance (17c) would otherwise require under the same set of circumstances. In the ensuing analysis I will show that the non-demonstrative occurrences of the Bosnian ono in informal discourse – ono as a discourse particle – perform the pragmatic role of loosening the propositional material that is under the scope of ono, thereby instructing the hearer that the intended proposition is to be taken interpretively (i.e. representing a thought or report) rather than descriptively (i.e. representing a true state of affairs or what the speaker believes to be true). The following example will illustrate this point: (18) Zamisli nas, ono non-stop zimi sjedimo u autu. ‘Imagine us, ono non-stop in the winter we sit in the car.’

In (18) the speaker describes monotony in his hometown and the way he and his friend tend to spend their winter days. The speaker cannot be taken to mean literally (i.e. to rely on the linguistically encoded meaning of the expression) that during winter he and his friend sit in the car for 24 hours, 7 days a week. In other words, ono, which precedes non-stop in this example, allows the speaker to signal to the hearer that he is aiming for a loose interpretation of the propositional constituent rather than a literal (encoded) one. As such, ono is a pragmatic particle of loose talk.


My approach to ono is driven by the hypothesis that it is similar to the pragmatic marker like in English. To show this, I shall briefly review Andersen’s (1998) relevance-theoretic presentation of like in different utterance environments.

4.1

English like and Bosnian ono

In her relevance-theoretic analysis of like, Andersen (1998:â•›153) shows that notwithstanding a vast number of utterance elements that can be taken in the scope of like, these different uses of the marker can be subsumed under the general claim: “[l]ike appears to provide an explicit signal of a discrepancy between the propositional form of the utterance and the thought it represents”. Andersen suggests that like is a pragmatic marker which reduces the hearer’s processing efforts and makes an utterance optimally relevant by signaling a loose interpretation of the speaker’s thought. In order to better assess the similarity between like and ono, I will reproduce here Andersen’s list of items which can become objects of loose interpretation when they come under the pragmatic scope of like (1998:â•›154) (see Table 1). Table 1 Object of loose interpretation

Pragmatic scope of like

Numerical expression

the re= most latest ones have been from like → [six] years ago

Other measurable unit

and there’s like → [that much] gap between the earth and the top of the thing

NP

Well I think they must have made it so conscious for like → [fags and booze].

VP

Scott said to me if Paul like → [tries to take on Ollie] he’s just gonna break it up

AdvP

He lives in Mallorca, like → [really close to my house]

AdjP

But Megadrives do make their game, their games like → [easy] as well

PrepP

and she’ll completely ignore you and you’re left and she’ll do that like → [at a dinner party] or something

Whole declarative proposition

Like → [she’s got enough.] You don’t show it but like → [she don’t go out and buy new posh clothes and everything.]

Whole interrogative proposition

Like → [who was it who reckoned there was a corner on a boat?]

Direct quotation

but I stand up here, when I see him I’m like → [oh yeah ha ha] you know laugh along with his jokes and

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An examination of objects of loose interpretation which may come under the pragmatic scope of ono indicates striking parallels between the occurrences of like and ono in informal discourse. The examples with ono I offer below are taken from a set of naturally occurring tape-recorded conversations among four friends. Example (19) shows that ono may take a numerical expression under its scope: (19) Lezi tu ono → [dva, tri] sata i idi doma. ‘Lie down here ono → [two, three] hours and go home.’

In (19) the speaker is conveying her surprise about the amount of time a person is allowed to stay in hospital after a medical intervention. The use of ono allows the speaker to signal to her audience that she is not describing the actual amount of time but that she uses this expression interpretively to indicate ‘less time than one would normally expect.’ Example (20) illustrates ono preceding some other measurable unit: (20) Neke generacije su morale ovih deset godina živjet’ ono → [jedno] deset života do sada. ‘Some generations must have lived these ten years ono → [about] ten lives until now.’

In (20), the speaker is commenting on the recent war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which saw some generations of people experience the war more intensely than others. The speaker modifies ‘[about] ten lives until now’ with ono to signal that the intended interpretation of the message ‘some people lived an intense life’ does not come from the literal meaning of ‘some people had ten lives in ten years’ but from a looser interpretation of the metaphor. The following example indicates that ono can take a noun phrase under its scope: (21) Uglavnom ono → JNA, predstavnici JNA i vlasti. Ja i Aida. ‘Mostly ono → YPA, representatives of YPA and government. I and Aida.’

In (21) the speaker describes the opening night of a theater performance for which she and I had tickets. Given that many military and government representatives . These data were recorded in 2001 in Stolac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as part of a project on identity construction in naturally-occurring conversations. In this encounter, four friends, all aged 29 years, meet in their hometown for the first time after ten years. . The abbreviation YPA (JNA in Bosnian) stands for Yugoslav People’s Army.

Chapter 5.â•‡ The Bosnian particle ono 101

were also present, the speaker endows her utterance to a friend with an ironic tone. Specifically, she wonders about how the two us, being ‘unimportant’, managed to obtain the tickets. The use of ono before YPA (Yugoslav People’s Army) indicates that the speaker does not mean that the entire Army attended the performance or that there were no other ‘unimportant’ people. That the speaker intends a less-than-literal message is additionally demonstrated by her subsequent repair in which JNA ‘YPA’ is replaced with predstavnici JNA ‘representatives of YPA’. Example (22) shows that ono can modify a verb phrase: (22) Žena ono → [popi flašu pelinkovca.] ‘The woman ono → [drank a bottle of liquor.’]

(22) is similar to (21) in that the speaker expresses her surprise at the unusual drinking habits of a woman she has met at a bar. The role of ono is to indicate a loosened interpretation, namely, that the relevance of the propositional constituent lies in the information about the overall (rather large) quantity of the consumed liquor during a (contextually provided) stretch of time, and not in the exact measure encoded in the logical form of the utterance (i.e. the entire bottle of alcohol in one take). Example (23) illustrates the pragmatic marker ono before an adverbial phrase. The speaker gives an approximation of the distance Marija has to cover on her way to work instead of providing exact information on the physical location of her work: (23) Marija radi ono → [blizu svoje zgrade.] ‘Marija works ono → [close to her apartment building.’]

Ono can also take an adjectival phrase under its scope. In (24), the speaker modifies the expression luda (‘crazy’) to signal that she does not intend to speak about the actual (diagnosed) mental state of the said woman but rather, means to convey an unexpected behavioral instance: (24) Ona je ono → [luda] žena. ‘She is ono → a [crazy] woman.’

Ono can also precede a prepositional phrase. The use of ono in (25) allows the speaker to indicate that he and his buddies enjoy hanging out in the town of Mostar (rather than describe a particular part of the town that is enjoyable): (25) Naljepše nam je kad smo ono → [u Mostaru.] ‘We like it best when we are ono → [in Mostar.’]

102 Aida Premilovac

The last three examples from the above set of naturally occurring data demonstrate that the particle ono may preface an entire declarative proposition (26), an interrogative proposition (27), and a direct quotation (28): (26) Ono → [on je imao neke kuće.] ‘Ono → [he had some houses.’] (27) Ono → [ko je mogao napraviti takvu grešku?] ‘Ono → [who could make such a mistake?’] (28)

Kad te zovne iz Amerike i pita te ono, ‘ when she calls you from America and asks you ono,’ → [“Mogu li ja ono iskoristiti?”] → ‘[“Could I use that thing?”]’

Having considered the different objects of loose interpretation which may come under the scope of ono, we see that there are striking parallels between this particle and the English like. In sum, the main pragmatic role of the discourse particle ono in informal discourse is to signal a loose interpretation of the speaker’s utterance.

4.2

Bosnian ono and onaj

Other Bosnian demonstratives, such as onaj, have also developed particle-like functions in informal talk. In the following conversational exchange both ono and onaj are used as particles: (29) 1. Aida: 2. 3. 4. Sejo: 5. Aida: 6. Irma:

Mislim da im je sada onaj… ‘I think that they now have onaj...’ da ne dovode sad. ‘that they are not bringing now.’ Obično petkom dovode. ‘They are usually bringing <someone> on Friday.’ Da, da. ‘Yes, yes.’ Ali sad pošto je ljeto znaš, ‘But since it is the summer now you know,’ Ja. ‘Yeah.’

. While apparent similarities between ono and like are shown and discussed, this contrastive topic is not the object of my study.


7. Aida: 8.

i raja se raštrkala i ono, ‘and people are dispersed and ono,’ ne isplati mu se. ‘he is not making money.’

In example (29), Sejo, Irma, and myself discuss a concert hall in a neighboring town which hosts different bands and singers on Friday evenings. However, I had previously found out that the place was not going to host anybody that summer because the owner could not make a profit with everyone being on vacation. Against this background, onaj in line (1) signals an interpretation which more closely resembles the literal interpretation (i.e. the linguistically encoded information) of the upcoming utterance than ono in (7).10 So, while ono loosens the propositional content, onaj prefaces the information that the speaker believes to be more factually relevant (i.e. that the place is not going to have any shows rather than the information about the reason given later on). This point is further illustrated in examples (30) and (31), both of which hostÂ€onaj: (30) 1. Irma: 2.

Onaj, kolika imaju stana? ‘Onaj, how many apartments do they have?’ Tri, četiri? ‘Three, four?’

(31) 1. Irma: 2. Aida: 3. 4. 5. 6.

Šta se radi sa onim kockicama? ‘What does one do with those small dice?’ Onaj, svaki igrač ima onaj svoje puce. ‘Onaj, each player has onaj his pieces.’ I sad kad bacaš kocke, ‘And when you throw the dice,’ <pokazuje rukom na stolu> Fazon je ‘<points with her hand on the table> The trick is’ da ovaj prebaci puce ovamo, ‘that this one moves pieces over here,’ ovaj ovamo. ‘this one over here.’ Teško mi je objasniti bez table. ‘It is hard for me to explain without the board.’

10. The relevance-theoretic notion of interpretive resemblance is contextually dependent: “two propositions P and Q may resemble one another closely in one context and less closely or not at all in another context” (Sperber and Wilson 1991:â•›542).

104 Aida Premilovac

In both (30) and (31), information is being sought or provided. In (30) Irma asks about the number of apartments that some people own in our hometown. It is difficult to imagine this type of request as a geniune request for information. Rather, as it is prefaced by onaj, it should be understood as a comment based on some existing knowledge of the apartments in question. Similarly, in (31) Irma asks me to explain how the game of backgammon is played. While telling Irma some of the rules of the game, it is in my interest to relay that information in a precise rather than vague manner.. Thus, if the utterance hosted ono instead of onaj, my response would presume that either the speaker has some previous knowledge of the game or that I am not taking her request for information seriously. Finally, to establish the difference between ono and onaj, let us briefly examine the co-occurrence of the two particles in (32): (32) 1. Tiho: 2. 3.

Ja sam, onaj, ‘I, onaj,’ ono kad je narod pokupljen, znaš, ‘ono when people were taken away, you know,’ doš’o pred zgradu. ‘came in front of the building.’

In (32) the speaker is describing the delicate position he is in as a Croat, and how lonely he felt in his hometown after Bosniaks had been driven out by Croat extremists. In line (1) Tiho shifts from marking the utterance “when people were taken away” with onaj to marking it with ono to signal a different interpretation. If Tiho prefaced the utterance with onaj, the hearer would get the impression that Tiho was in front of the building on the day of deportation, that he witnessed the event or even took part in it. By marking the utterance with ono, Tiho signals a loose interpretation of the message, namely, that he was in front of the building on some day following the deportation. The use of ono allows Tiho to veil his role in, or attitude toward, the actual event in front of his Bosniak audience. This and the above examples featuring ono and onaj indicate that these two discourse particles have distinct functions in informal discourse. While ono loosens the intended interpretation of the host utterance, onaj seems to mark a literally (or at least a less loosely) intended message, which is a result of either seeking or providing exact information. The particular status of ono as a discourse particle of loose talk will be further examined in the following section, where I discuss the relevance theoric approach to the notions of truth-conditionality, the procedural/conceptual distinction and the explicit/implicit distinction as they relate to ono.


4.3

Ono in truth conditions, the procedural/conceptual, and explicit/implicit distinctions

Pragmatic markers are usually defined as devices that do not affect the truth conditions of an utterance. So, the question is whether the absence of ono affects the truth conditions of its host utterance. Consider examples (33) and (34) below: (33) Bilo je ljudi ono koji su ostali u zgradi [za vrijeme rata]. ‘There were people ono who remained in the apartment building’ [during the war.] Bilo je ljudi koji su ostali u zgradi [za vrijeme rata]. ‘There were people who remained in the apartment building’ [during the war.] (34) Žena ono popi flašu pelinkovca. ‘The woman ono drank a bottle of brandy.’ Žena popi flašu pelinkovca. ‘The woman drank a bottle of brandy.’

In (33), three interlocutors discuss whether there were any robberies in their town during the war and agree that there were. Meanwhile, the current speaker constructs possible evidence for the opposite. Specifically, the speaker claims to not have heard of any robberies, which she explains with the fact that some apartments continued to be occupied during the war, like those in her building. Thus, the people’s continued presence in their apartments might have been the reason why they were not robbed. By using ono the speaker signals that she does not intend to say that the people who were around during the war were not leaving their apartments at all. Rather, she asserts that their presence (more abstractly construed) may have been the reason why she has not heard of any robberies committed. That the speaker intends to convey a loose interpretation is also evidenced by an utterance following the discussed example, in which she says Valjda su bile straže ‘There may have been guard posts’. What happens to the truth conditions of utterance (33) when ono is absent? I suggest that ono does not affect the truth condition of the utterance because when ono is absent, the hearer is not led to the interpretation (that the speaker meant) that people who were around during the war stayed in their apartments all the time. It may seem, out of context, that the absence of ono in (34) signals something different, namely, that the woman literally drank the entire bottle of brandy. However, as I have already pointed out, ono is a discourse particle that occurs in conversational discourse thereby clustering with other elements that contribute to the

106 Aida Premilovac

expression of non-literalness and depending on the speaker’s assessment of how much information is already known to the hearer. Thus, example (34) was additionally contextualized by preceding utterances with verb ellipsis and hedges (e.g. I kao ona stalno pelinkovac/ ‘And she non-stop brandy’), so that the overall message was that the woman had consumed more alcohol than the speaker expected, but not necessarily that she had consumed the entire bottle or drank it up at in one go. In other words, although ono signals the non-literalness of a host utterance, it nevertheless co-occurs with other syntactic and pragmatic elements that may also contribute to the loose meaning of expressions. This would point to the conclusion that the absence of ono alone does not affect the truth condition of an utterance. In her discussion of like, Andersen (1998:â•›164) points out that “a speaker cannot be accused of giving an untruthful or inadequate description of a state of affairs due to the occurrence of like in a sentence”. I suggest that the same holds for the discourse particle ono. Regarding the relevance-theoretic distinction between conceptual and procedural meaning, and based on my preceding analysis, I suggest that ono encodes procedural information by guiding the hearer to come to a non-literal interpretation of the intended meaning. Let us consider the following case of metalinguistic negation:

(35) On je ono slučaj za promatranje.

*On nije ono slučaj za promatranje, on je slučaj za promatranje.

He is ono a case to study. *He is not ono a case to study, he is a case to study.

Given that ono cannot be metalinguistically negated, as (35) shows, (i.e. it cannot be brought to consciousness in the same way as linguistic items which encode conceptual information can [Wilson and Sperber 1993]), points to a conclusion that ono does not encode a concept but rather functions as a procedural device. Lastly, according to relevance theory, a meaning can be discussed in relation to whether it contributes to the implicitly or explicitly communicated information. We have seen in the earlier discussion that the Bosnian ono is a non-truth conditional device. However, the distinction between truth-conditionality and non truth-conditionality does not coincide with the explicit/implicit distinction. That is, a linguistic expression can be non-truth conditional but still contribute to the explicitly communicated information.11 In the previous discussion of ono as a 11. For instance, certain illocutionary and attitudinal adverbials, such as frankly and fortunately, contribute to the explicit side of communication but have no role in the truth conditions of the host utterance because they form part (as conceptual constituents) of a higher-level explicature. On the other hand, personal pronouns, which encode procedural information about


marker of loose talk, it was argued that the speaker’s use of ono guides the hearer to recognize that something about the speaker’s proposition needs to be modified, namely, that the proposition needs to be loosely interpreted. Like the English marker like, ono contextually enriches a proposition, allowing the hearer to arrive at the intended interpretation, and is, therefore, used to constrain the explicitly rather than implicitly communicated information of a host utterance.

5.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have proposed a relevance-theoretic account of the Bosnian ono as a discourse particle that is typically used in informal discourse. I have suggested that ono is a non-truth conditional and procedural linguistic device which works at the level of explicatures. The proposed approach accounts for the vast uses of ono which cannot be attributed to the demonstrative pronoun ono. Indeed, a traditional approach to particles is unsatisfactory given its lack of interest in discourse and discourse phenomena in general and the fact that particles, in particular, are accorded a marginal role of meaningless or, at best, indeterminate hedges. As I showed in my analysis of utterances taken from a set of naturally occurring conversations, the occurrences of ono and onaj vary, and they need not be treated as random particles, signaling only speech production or processing efforts and errors. Indeed, such an understanding of pragmatic particles has led to their under- or mis-representation in didactic texts about language (e.g. Jahić et al. 2000). This discussion calls for a reevaluation of this earlier position by pointing to the important pragmatic functions that ono and onaj have in informal discourse. Further research on Bosnian particles will need to take into account the use of ovo, ovaj and (sometimes) ovi as pragmatic markers originating from demonstratives, and the nature of their relationship to ono and onaj (an examination of different discourse types in Bosnian may demonstrate the prevalence of particular markers and their distinct functions). Moreover, it needs to be established if and how ono may affect the pragmatic functions of kao (‘as if/like’) in the constructions kao ono, particularly because kao is assumed to be the equivalent of like (see Mišković-Luković this volume). Additionally, ono appears in the constructions with the focus marker baš (see Mišković-Luković, this volume) as in baš ono, which poses a question about the relationship of focus markers and markers of loose talk in the same pragmatic unit. Finally, a contrastive analysis of discourse/ intended referents, form part of the proposition expressed by a host utterance, and hence contribute to its truth conditions (Wilson and Sperber 1993).

108 Aida Premilovac

pragmatic particles/markers in Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian, which as part of the former Serbo-Croatian language appear identical in form (e.g. baš, dakle, kao and ono), might yield some interesting results in terms of their distribution and newly acquired discursive meaning.

References Andersen, Gisle. 1998. “The pragmatic marker like from a relevance-theoretic perspective.” In Discourse Markers: Descriptions and Theory, Andreas H. Jucker and Yael Ziv (eds.). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Blass, Regina. 1990. Relevance relations in discourse: A study with special reference to Sissala. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Diessel, Holger. 1999. Demonstratives. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Jahić, Dževad, Halilović, Senahid and Palić, Ismail. 2000. Gramatika bosanskoga jezika [The Grammar of the Bosnian Language]. Zenica: Dom Štampe. Laury, Ritva. 1997. Demonstratives in Interaction. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Mišković, Mirjana. 2001. “The particle baš in contemporary Serbian.” Pragmatics 11 (1): 17–30. Reed, Irene, Miyaoka, Osahita, Jacobsen, Steven, Afcan, Paschal and Krauss, Michael. 1977. Yup’ik Eskimo grammar. University of Alaska, Alaska Native Language Center and the Yup’ik Language Workshop. Scollon, Ron and Scollon, Suzanne Wong. 2003. Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London, New York: Routledge. Sperber, Dan and Wilson, Deirdre. 1986/95. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell. Sperber, Dan and Wilson, Deirdre. 1991. “Loose Talk.” In Pragmatics: A Reader, Steven Davis (ed.), 540–549. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson, Deirdre and Sperber, Dan. 1993. “Linguistic form and relevance.” Lingua 90: 1–25.

chapter 6

Reformulating and concluding The pragmatics of the Croatian discourse marker dakle Mirjana N. Dedaić

While it is primarily a reformulator, the Croatian discourse marker dakle also has several other functional pragmatic ingredients. Dedaić considers these elements in her attempt to both give a unitary account of this discourse marker and to tease out, in a comparative analysis, whether particles from different languages might share some common elements. In a unitary account of dakle (‘consequently’, ‘then’, ‘therefore’, ‘so’, ‘in other words’) as a discourse marker whose properties are of a primarily non-conceptual and highly multifunctional nature, Dedaić finds that its linguistic form contributes to the inferential processes involved in utterance understanding by making the causative-resultative relationship between the preceding and following discourse segments explicit. Furthermore, dakle seems to have developed two more functions in discourseÂ€– argumentative/rhetorical and attitudinal.

1.

Introduction

Since the early 1980s, research on discourse markers has produced a rich literature. Most of this literature, however, predominantly discusses English discourse markers. Schourup (1999:â•›260–261) asks whether generalizations that have been made about English discourse markers can be carried over to other languages. Are there functions that have been overlooked in discourse markers research because of a general over-dependence on English? These two related questions formulate the starting point for my analysis of the Croatian connective dakle. To what extent does dakle overlap with similar discourse markers in other languages? What, if anything, makes this Croatian discourse marker unique? To that aim, I analyze examples collected from conversation events, media talk shows and reports, various written material (Internet, newspapers, and books),

110 Mirjana N. Dedaić

and the Croatian National Corpus, which includes journalistic texts, essays, and fiction – more than three thousand occurrences in total. I begin by discussing features that qualify dakle as a discourse marker (2), including the scope of the marker dakle (3). Within the description of the specific discourse marking functions of dakle (4), which begins with the etymology of the word (4.1), I identify its reformulational (4.2), interactional (4.3), and rhetorical functions (4.4), before ending with the overarching, conclusional function of dakle (4.5). After a summary of the uses and functions of dakle, I conclude by offering a unitary account of dakle as a discourse marker whose properties are of a primarily non-conceptual and highly multifunctional nature. Dakle indicates the appropriate mutually manifest conclusion, which allows for occasional manipulation in the recipient’s reasoning. It also incites attitudes towards unfulfilled expectations, allowing for attitude-revealing explicatures.

2.

Dakle as a discourse marker

Discourse markers represent a category that is defined in discursive, functionalpragmatic terms, rather than according to features related to the formal, morphosyntactic level (cf. Hansen 1997:â•›155). Their main characteristics are: (i) connectivity, (ii) optionality, (iii) non-truth-conditionality, (iv) weak clause association, and (v) initiality (cf. Schourup 1999). Thus, a discourse marker is “a syntactically optional expression that does not affect the truth-conditions associated with an utterance it introduces and is used to relate this utterance to the immediately preceding utterance” (Schourup 1999:â•›234). Dakle is a connective that relates two discourse segments – the preceding one (S1) with the marker’s host (S2). In connecting two discursive units, dakle makes it clear that the host utterance is a(n) (implicit or explicit) conclusion of S1. Consider, for instance, (1a–c): (1) a. b.

Pada kiša. Dakle, ostajemo kod kuće. ‘It’s raining. Dakle (Consequently/So/Therefore), we are staying at home.’ CONTEXT: It is raining. A: Dakle, ostajemo kod kuće. A: ‘Dakle (So), we are staying at home.’

. Abbreviations S1 and S2 are borrowed from Fraser (2001). I, however, widen the scope that Fraser originally attributed to S1, which, according to him, only marks propositions, while S2 can mark an empty discourse. In the case of dakle, either S1 or S2, or both of them, can be empty. The difference between these terms will become clearer later in the discussion.

Chapter 6.â•‡ Croatian reformulator dakle

c. A: Pada kiša. B: Oh, dakle! B: ‘Dakle! (Oh!/Well!/Hell!)’

Dakle is procedural, that is, dakle does not contribute to the conceptual meaning of the proposition. The English translations indicate that dakle exhibits more grammaticalized functions if either S1 or S2 are not linguistically expressed. Furthermore, it seems that in the case of an empty S1 and S2, the marker has the capacity to convey to the hearer not only how to process the information, but also additional information about the speaker’s feelings and attitudes regarding that information (“Hell! It’s raining so we can’t go!”). Dakle is non truth-conditional, which is confirmed by the omission test. Omitting dakle from (1a) would not change the propositional meaning or the grammaticality of the utterance. Thus, (1d) suggests – by its syntax and pragmatics (the relevance of juxtaposing the two propositions) – that ‘we are staying at home’ because of the weather: (1) d. Pada kiša. Ostajemo kod kuće. ‘It’s raining. We are staying at home.’

While the linguistic form dakle has no truth conditional properties, it does contribute to the inferential processes involved in utterance understanding. Dakle makes the causative-resultative relationship between the preceding and following discourse units/segments explicit, thereby precluding any other possible interpretation. Hence, the core meaning of dakle is expressed in terms of two features: connectivity and conclusivity. Blakemore (1996) distinguishes two types of use of discourse markers – discourse sequence uses as in (2) and nominal apposition uses as in (3). Dakle is found in both: (2)

I pornografija slijedi književna pravila igre. ‘Even pornography follows literary rules.’ Dakle, i pornografija može biti književnost. ‘Dakle (Consequently/ Therefore/So), even pornography can be literature.’

. The translation will depend upon the intonation. . However, when provided with a different global context, (1d) can also be understood as “too bad that we are staying at home rather than going out to play in the rain, which we would rather do”. To reinforce such a reading, ‘and’ would be the most likely discourse marker in English (or ‘a’ in Croatian). Note that both the English ‘and’ and Croatian ‘a’ in this specific context introduce the utterance part that contrasts with the part preceding the connective.

111


(3) Vlasnik kliničkih bolnica i Zavoda za javno zdravstvo postala je ‘The owner of the hospitals and the Institute of the public health has become’ Republika Hrvatska, dakle država, a opće bolnice i ‘the Republic of Croatia, dakle the state, while general hospitals and’ domovi zdravlja pripali su, također odlukom Sabora… ‘emergency hospitals have gone to belong, also by the decision of the Parliament…’ “The Republic of Croatia, dakle (that is) the state, has become the owner of the hospitals and the Institute of the public health, while general hospitals and emergency health providers have gone to belong, also by the parliamentary decision…”

Example (2) suggests that the marker introduces a conclusion of the proposition given in S1 – it is the logical equivalent of therefore in an argument. In example (3) dakle is a marker that introduces a reformulation of the noun phrase ‘Republic of Croatia’. However, the conclusion in (3) is perhaps less obvious than that of the preceding example. The segment ‘the state’ in (3) represents a specific type of reformulation of the phrase ‘Republic of Croatia’: it aims to convey to the hearer a mutually manifest conclusion that ownership of hospitals has changed in a very significant way, from public or private to state ownership. While example (2) formulates a conclusion in S2 that draws from the premises of S1, example (3) reformulates the noun phrase so as to add saliency to a particular semantic aspect of the noun. Such a reformulation suggests to the hearer which part of the term ‘the Republic of Croatia’ is relevant for the given discourse. Since example (3) can be seen as a reformulation that contains conclusivity (The Republic of Croatia → state), we can test the previous example (1a) (for which I also claimed conclusivity) for the reformulatory element. Indeed, ‘It’s raining, dakle, we’re staying at home’ reformulates the message given in S1 that the rain is a reason to stay home. However, it is reformulating the inference rather than the explicit message. This brings us to the question of scope. What kind of reformulation does dakle trigger?

. Mutual manifestness is defined by Sperber and Wilson (1986/1995:â•›60–61) as a result of communicative intention, which is “to make it mutually manifest to audience and communicator that the communicator has this informative intention.”

Chapter 6.â•‡ Croatian reformulator dakle 113

3.

The scope of dakle

Depending on the context, dakle may be translated into English as ‘consequently’, ‘then’, ‘therefore’, ‘well’, ‘so’, ‘in other words’, ‘that is’, ‘I beg your pardon!/really (now)!’, ‘it seems’, ‘Wow!/W(h)ell!’. Its scope includes a message, that is, a relevant piece of information or point that needs to be made clear or salient. That message might be contained in an entire proposition, as in (2) and (4): (2)

I pornografija slijedi književna pravila igre. ‘Even pornography follows literary rules.’ Dakle, i pornografija može biti književnost. ‘Dakle (Consequently/ Therefore/So), even pornography can be literature.’

(4) Trideset posto muškaraca i dvadeset posto žena nije došlo na ‘Thirty percent of men and twenty percent of women did not come to’ posao, dakle, 219 muškaraca i 146 žena nije bilo na ‘work, dakle (that is/in other words), 219 men and 146 women were not at’ radnom mjestu. ‘[their] work place.’

It can also be contained in a propositional constituent (for instance, the NP in (3), repeated below): (3) Vlasnik kliničkih bolnica i Zavoda za javno zdravstvo postala je ‘The owner of the hospitals and the Institute of the public health has become’ Republika Hrvatska, dakle država, a opće bolnice i ‘the Republic of Croatia, dakle the state, while general hospitals and’ domovi zdravlja pripali su, također odlukom Sabora… ‘emergency hospitals have gone to belong, also by the decision of the Parliament…’ “The Republic of Croatia, dakle (that is) the state, has become the owner of the hospitals and the Institute of the public health, while general hospitals and emergency health providers have gone to belong, also by the parliamentary decision…”

. Blakemore (2002:â•›180–181) calls this “propositional form of thought”.


Various forms of inferences may also fall under the scope of dakle; for instance entailments, as in (5): (5)

A: Koliko je sati izostala Nada? A: ‘How many hours did Nada miss?’ B: Nogu je slomila u četvrtak, dakle, već je tri dana nema na poslu. B: ‘She broke her leg on Thursday, dakle, she’s been out of work for three days already.’

The fact that she broke her leg on Thursday presupposes that she has not come to work since. This then entails, at the moment of speech, that she hasn’t been at work for three days. Presuppositions triggered by S1 are also frequently reformulated in an utterance that hosts dakle. They might be derived directly from the proposition in S1, as in (5) above and (6): (6) A: Mislim da ćemo imati precizniju sliku ako provedemo A: ‘I think that we will have a more precise picture if we spend’ još dva-tri dana na analizi dokumenata. ‘two-three more days analyzing documents.’ B: Vi, dakle, predlažete da odgodimo sastanak. B: ‘You, dakle (So/In other words), are suggesting that we postpone the meeting.’

Or from an inference derived from a non-verbal context, as in (7), (8), and (9): (7) CONTEXT: A is on his death bed. A: To je dakle sve. A: ‘This is, dakle (then), all.’ (8) CONTEXT: A and B are planning to go on a date. After waiting for a while, A calls B up and asks: A: Dakle? A: ‘Well?/So?’ (9) CONTEXT: A comes to meet B, and sees that B has had a haircut and dyed her hair purple. A to B: Daaaakle! A to B: ‘Wow!/W(h)ell! [I can’t believe what I see!]’ . Vlemings (2003:â•›1097) has argued that some specific uses of donc suggest that the French marker indicates “that the utterance in which it occurs is to be inferred from some antecedent, be it linguistic or extralinguistic”. For this reason, Vlemings extends the scope of ‘discourse’ connectivity to a more pragmatic level so as to include the preceding extralinguistic situation. . Reformulation of entailments has been noted by Del Saz Rubio and Fraser (2004:â•›8).


In examples (2) and (3), S2 reformulates the message and its inferences in S1. The process of reformulation produces different degrees of conclusivity. Dakle in example (1) connects S1 and S2 in the so-called canonical format, represented as <S1. DM+S2> (cf. Fraser 1999:â•›944). In this format, S1 signals the (linguistic) proposition immediately preceding the DM (discourse marker), which is immediately followed by the (linguistic) proposition S2. In such an environment, DM operates locally. Closely related is the format <S1, DM+S2>, exemplified in (4) [repeated below]: (4) Trideset posto muškaraca i dvadeset posto žena nije došlo na ‘Thirty percent of men and twenty percent of women did not come to’ posao, dakle, 219 muškaraca i 146 žena nije bilo na ‘work, dakle (that is/in other words), 219 men and 146 women were not at’ radnom mjestu. ‘[their] work place.’

However, dakle can also connect discourses globally. In (7), for example, S1 (the referent of to) can be anything from a single proposition or a two-hour talk, to a thousand-page book or life narrative. Consider the example of an utterance a man produces on his death bed: (7) CONTEXT: A is on his death bed. A: To je dakle sve. A: ‘This is, dakle (then), all.’

In considering example (7), the conclusion introduced by dakle can be based on any number of preceding utterances that comprise the speaker’s life narrative. Alternatively, the referred to entity can also be something other than what Sperber and Wilson (1995) define as locally-produced “ostensive stimulus”. In other words, it can be any event or extralinguistic contextual stimulus. The content of to (‘this’) has to be known and recognized by all interlocutors if the utterance is to be understood. However, in (10), the S1 is typically the immediate extra-linguistic context: (10) Two friends arrive at the airport late for their flight. A: Dakle, što ćemo sad? A: ‘Dakle (So), what are we [going to do] now?’

In (10), dakle corresponds to the English marker so in the same context. Blakemore (1992:â•›139) describes the proposition that so introduces in the case of an empty S1 as “a contextual implication of an assumption which has been made


accessible”. The assumption can be drawn from either a linguistically expressed proposition or from perception. In certain cases of an empty S1, S2 functions as a contextual (not logical) conclusion, or a request for a conclusion. Consider (11), in which a web-log diarist concludes that this is a good time to begin the story of his life: (11) Dakle, zovem se Andrej i imam 16 godina. ‘Dakle (So), my name is Andrej and I am 16 years old.’

In (12), the speaker is asking her friend for his conclusion regarding a topic that was previously discussed: (12) Dakle, idemo li na izlet ovaj vikend? ‘Dakle (So), are we going for a trip this weekend?’

According to Fraser (2001:â•›1629), discourse markers that permit an empty S1 are (1) those that typically occur in paratactic constructions, and therefore imply a prior message, and (2) those which have the capability to make an anaphoric reference to the state of affairs in S1. In all the cases with an ‘empty S1’ that are presented above ((5), (8), (10), (12)), dakle fulfils one of these two requirements. Dakle can connect not only an inferred S1, but also an inferred S2. In other words, it can stand as a solitary explicit realization of the two silent/inferred propositions connected by it, making both an anaphoric and a cataphoric reference to the state of affairs in S1 and S2 even when unsaid. In that respect, dakle closely matches the pragmatic meanings of the English so: (13) a. So? b. Dakle?

In the case of so in (13a), S2 is implied so long as an interrogative intonation is imposed (cf. Fraser 2001:â•›1629), suggesting a request for a conclusive response based on the previous comment or some other contextual circumstances. While such connections are associated with dakle as well, the Croatian marker provides contextual implications of S2 even in non-interrogative utterances, as the following example illustrates: (14) Mother, upon entering a very messy child’s room: Dakle!

It has been noted that ‘pure reformulators’, such as in other words, cannot occur discourse initially because they are inferential and relate to ‘the words’ expressed . See 3.7 for a more detailed explanation.


in S1. Dakle, as can be seen from a number of the cited examples, does not fit into that category. The implication might be that there is a border between ‘pure reformulators’ and ‘conclusive reformulators’. Moreover, dakle does not introduce subordination, which is more likely to occur with other conclusive connectives in Croatian such as zato, jer, budući da (therefore, because, since).10 In summary, I have demonstrated that the feature of connectivity is rather complex in that discourse connectives sometimes connect a proposition to a nonpropositional context, or even two extralinguistic contexts to each other. Schourup’s (1999) definition, which was cited at the beginning of this section, accepts as discourse markers only those linguistic forms that connect the host utterance to the immediately preceding utterance. This obviously does not cover cases of connecting extralinguistic ‘discourses’. Hansen (1998a:â•›236) accounts for such cases by defining markers “as linguistic items which fulfill a non-propositional, metadiscursive (primarily connective) function, and whose scope is inherently variable, such that it may comprise both sub-sentential and supra-sentential units”. Taking into account both the cognitive and interactional sides of understanding, Hansen argues that semantically, markers are best seen as processing instructions that are intended to help the hearer integrate the unit hosting the marker into a coherent mental representation of the unfolding discourse. To account for all possible cases of dakle, however, the “unfolding discourse” has to be understood broadly as including “unspoken” discourse that does not need to be verbalized but rather is contextually inferred by the speaker and the hearer. Markers are therefore best seen as pragmatic functions that can be performed by a linguistic item that also has, in other contexts, propositional functions (cf.Â€Hansen 1998a:â•›242). However, the true adverbial function of dakle has been lost.11 In my data, dakle appears exclusively in parenthetical positions that are in written discourses signaled by commas. In the next section, I discuss the pragmatic meanings of dakle as they appear in varied contexts. This analysis develops the basis for a unitary account of the pragmatic meaning of dakle in Croatian discourse.

. It could be argued that the conceptual meaning of this reformulator constrains it to implicating only the verbalized S1. 10. Note, too, that these connectives cannot occur utterance-initially, except in poetic function. 11. On the grammaticalization of pragmatic markers see Brinton (2001).


4.

The meanings of dakle

In the examples provided thus far, we have seen that dakle reformulates, summarizes and concludes. After taking a closer look at dakle’s place in traditional grammar, I will explore its function in a variety of contexts, beginning with the most prominent – reformulatory function.

4.1

Previous accounts

While there is no separate study of dakle to date, comprehensive classificatory studies define dakle as a conclusive connective (Silić 1984:â•›114), a conclusive adverbial connective (Velčić 1987:â•›84), and a conclusive adverb which “turns into a connective after undergoing a syntactic transformation, during which its lexical meaning fades and it begins to express primarily syntactic properties and conclusive content” (Katičić 1986:â•›171; my translation). This latter definition strongly suggests that dakle is the product of grammaticalization. Indeed, its historical source comprises three conjunctions da (‘that’), ako (‘if ’), and li (“question particle”) (ESSJ 1980:â•›152). The various functions of dakle represent different stages of its semantic and pragmatic trajectory, originating as a meaning rooted in more conceptual semantics leading to one that is largely procedural. The conceptual meaning of dakle, however, has been lost and its etymological derivation is no longer transparent to contemporary speakers of Croatian. Dakle is just as likely to be a newer construction, since there are no cognates in South Slavic languages outside of the Serbo-Croatian vernaculars. For this reason, I will limit my analysis to a synchronic description. Thus far, the scarce and discordant accounts of dakle are found only in analyses that have been confined to the sentential level. My goal is to show that a unitary account of the various discursive functions of dakle must make reference to the fact that it operates primarily on the discourse level. Dakle has been traditionally seen as a conclusive adverb (Silić 1984). Consider examples (14) and (15). (14)

A: Spremi se, doći ćemo po tebe u sedam. A: ‘Be ready, we’ll pick you up at seven.’ B: Dakle, na večeru idemo poslije predstave. B: ‘Dakle (So), we’ll have dinner after the show.’

(15) CONTEXT: A eats in front of TV in her pajamas. B: Dakle, večeras nećemo u restoran. B: ‘Dakle (So), we aren’t going to the restaurant tonight.’


Dakle in (14) and (15) can be substituted with the phrase “the conclusion is that” or “I am concluding that”, which indicates that “the force of the utterance is a conclusion which follows from the preceding discourse” (Fraser 1996:â•›188). The proposition expressed by (14B) is unambiguously marked as an implicated conclusion, and any other interpretation becomes unavailable. In both examples, the discourse marker ‘dakle’ confirms that the proposition it introduces is indeed a contextual implication of an assumption that has been made accessible. Whereas in (14) this assumption is made accessible by another utterance (S1), in (15) the speaker is drawing attention to an assumption derived from observing the event. Dakle’s conclusive component is further intensified by its frequent co-occurrence with certain linguistic items that also convey conclusivity, such as proizlazi (‘it turns out’) (16), očito (‘obviously’) (17), eto (‘here’, ‘thus’) (18), and radi se o (‘this is about’) (19). In such cases, dropping one of the indicators of conclusivity (either dakle or the other linguistic item conveying conclusivity) would not cause any ambiguity as to the conclusive/resultative meaning of the proposition:12 (16)

Proizlazi, dakle, da je Grad Zagreb čelnicima ‘It turns out, dakle (thus/therefore), that the City of Zagreb to the leaders of ’ nogometnoga kluba dao stanove na uporabu. ‘the soccer team has given apartments for [personal] use.’ “It turns out, dakle (thus/therefore), that the City of Zagreb has given the leaders of the soccer team apartments for personal use.”

(17) Očito, dakle, predstoji ogorčena borba za glasove … ‘Obviously, dakle (thus/therefore), forthcoming is a bitter fight for votes…’ (18)

Eto, dakle, koliko bi tih šteta bilo manje da je ‘Here, dakle (thus), there would be fewer damages had’ ondašnji turistički vrh prihvatio predložene smjernice. ‘the tourism leadership of the time accepted the proposed directives.’

(19) Radi se dakle o jedinstvenoj viziji hrvatske književne povjesnice. ‘This is about, dakle (thus/therefore), a unique vision of the Croatian literary history.’

Compared to other Croatian conclusive connectives, dakle seems to be less conclusive than zato and stoga (‘therefore’, ‘consequently’), and more conclusive than those markers whose main purpose is reformulation, such as drugim riječima (‘in other words’).

12. Dropping one of the linguistic items would, however, affect the grammaticality of sentences (16) and (19), but we are not concerned with that issue here.


(2)

I pornografija slijedi književna pravila igre. ‘Even pornography follows literary rules.’ Zato/Stoga/Dakle/Drugim riječima, i pornografija može biti književnost. ‘So/Consequently/Therefore/In other words, even pornography can be literature.’

The implication of dakle’s comparative pragmatic field is that the strength of the feature ‘conclusivity’ depends on the level of semantic overlap between S1 and S2. In other words, more overtly semantic parallels result in a reduced need for pragmatic meaning. More semantic overlap results in lesser conclusivity, which is, on the other hand, more pronounced when S2 is inferentially based on S1, regardless of whether S1 is linguistic or extralinguistic. We will see that the notion of conclusivity appears central to all the remaining functions of dakle.

4.2

Reformulation

Reformulators are multidimensional devices whose common feature is the ability to relate the host sentence (S2) to the previous discourse (S1) in terms of representation. S2 is said to represent S1 on the basis of sharing some logical and contextual implications (cf. Blakemore 1997). However, the definition and examples given for reformulations in literature (Blakemore 1996, 1997, 2002; Tanaka 1997; Matsui 2002; Cuenca 2003; del Saz Rubio 2005) suggest that reformulations frequently include the notion of conclusivity. Such a notion is manifest in either the “logical or contextual implications” of S1, or in a reinterpretation of the previous utterance which is not just said ‘in other words’, but in stronger, more concise, pointed, or specific words. Such a restatement usually conveys a more suggestive proposition, which is reinforced by the repetition of the information stated in S1. This claim introduces the possibility that reformulations contribute to the illocutionary strength of the utterance. Thus, replacing dakle in (2) with drugim riječima (‘in other words’) (S21) or omitting the marker altogether (S22) lowers the saliency of the causal-resultative implication: (2) S1 I pornografija slijedi književna pravila igre. ‘Even pornography follows literary rules.’ S2 Dakle, i pornografija može biti književnost. ‘Dakle (Consequently/ Therefore/So), even pornography can be literature.’ S21 Drugim riječima, i pornografija može biti književnost. ‘In other words, even pornography can be literature.’ S22 I pornografija može biti književnost. ‘Pornography too can be literature.’


The conclusivity factor provided by the presence of the marker dakle, which produces the illocutionary force, places the hearer on the cognitive ground prepared by the speaker’s effort to reformulate previously given information. There is also the further question of whether all types of reformulation allow for a level of conclusivity that will render it relevant in discourse. Basing their conclusion on the analyses of English reformulation markers, Del Saz Rubio and Fraser (2004) put forward four types of reformulation: (1) expansion, (2) compression, (3) modification, and (4) reassessment. Most instances in my data set seem to fall into the category of expansion.

4.2.1 Expansion In (20), S2 reformulates the message in S1 by expanding the elements of the message to make them more easily accessible: (20) Dva su bitna segmenta fotografije: njezina forma, dakle elementi ‘There are two crucial segments of photography: its form, dakle, elements’ koje fotografija preuzima od slikarstva – kadar, perspektiva, ritam, ‘which photography takes from painitng – frame, perspective, rhythm,’ vrijednost tonske ljestvice. Drugi segment je… ‘value of the tonal scale. The other segment is…’

Del Saz Rubio and Fraser (2004) further specify this type of expansion as elaboration:13 S2 expands the message given in S1 making it more accessible. This type of expansion of the message still contains traces of conclusivity, since S2 offers a conclusion as to what is meant by the denser message in S1 (only experts would know what elements are comprised in the definition of the form of photography). Other subcategorizations that Del Saz Rubio and Fraser (2004) include in the category of expansion (identification, definition, and illustration) are not so clearly motivated. In my view, identification can easily be categorized under compression. Consider the next two examples in which identification is first executed in the form of elaboration (21a), and then in the form of compression (21b): (21) a. b.

Takvu ružnu stvar si rekla Ivanu, dakle, mom najboljem prijatelju! ‘You have said such an ugly thing to Ivan, dakle, to my best friend!’ Takvu ružnu stvar si rekla mom najboljem prijatelju, dakle, Ivanu! ‘You’ve said such an ugly thing to my best friend, dakle, to Ivan!’

13. It is not clear how the difference between elaboration and illustration is made since many examples, including this one, fall into both categories.


Similarly, the categories of compression, narrowing and correcting (the latter two are listed under modification) seem to be unnecessary elaborations that my data do not justify. Instead, I propose the category of summarizing to cover cases in which the utterance hosting dakle modifies the message given in S1 in such a way that semantic overlaps between S1 and S2 might be preserved to some degree while the message does not gain any additional elements (which, for instance, are provided in the case of elaboration).

4.2.2 Summarizing The speaker sometimes reformulates an idea presented in S1 in order to make it simpler and more specific, in a way that is cognitively easier for the hearer’s understanding. Dakle allows the host utterance to be taken as a summary of S1, which can be taken as a form of conclusion: (22) Neki izrazi imaju fatičku funkciju u prvom planu; ‘Some expressions have the phatic function first and foremost;’ pitanje ‘Kako ste?’, već je ukazano, ne zahtijeva ‘the question ‘How are you?’ it has been shown, does not require’ u svakodnevnoj situaciji podroban odgovor, ‘in an everyday situation an exhaustive reply,’ dakle nema informativnu vrijednost. ‘dakle (that is/in other words/therefore) it does not have an informative value.’ “Some expressions have primarily a phatic function; the question ‘How are you?’, as mentioned before, in an everyday situation does not require an exhaustive reply, dakle (that is/in other words/therefore), it does not have an informative value.”

Such conclusions might be obvious to the hearer to different degrees.14 The degree of obviousness depends on many factors, such as linguistic and extralinguistic contexts, the degree of intersubjectivity among the interactants, and the frame of communication (e.g. usual vs. exclusive). A weak form of conclusion is a summary of an already produced discourse. A summary usually concludes by re-configuring S1 into a more concisely formatted S2. Consider (23): (23) U našem istraživanju, značajno je više muškaraca (17,2%) ‘In our research, significantly more men (17.2%)’

14. This is sometimes explicitly indicated in expressions such as “The obvious conclusion is that…”, or “Contrary to expectations, we can conclude that…”.


doživjelo prijetnje ili fizički nasrtaj, ali je zato ‘experienced threats or physical attack, but on the other hand ‘ značajno više žena (15,7%) doživjelo seksualno ‘significantly more women (15.7%) experienced sexual’ ugrožavanje. Više je žena (48,1%) koje se žale na ‘harassment. There are more women (48.1%) who complain about’ psihičke probleme izazvane poslom koji rade, ‘psychological problems caused by the work they do,’ ali je zato više muškaraca (9,8%) ‘but on the other hand more men (9.8%)’ nego žena (5,2%) išlo na bolovanje zbog problema na poslu. ‘than women (5.2%) took sick leave because of problems at work.’ Mobing, dakle, podjednako doživljavaju i muškarci i žene. ‘Harassment, dakle (in other words) is equally experienced by men and women.’ “In our research, a significantly higher number of men (17.2%) experienced threats or physical attack, but a significantly higher number of women (15,7%) experienced sexual harassment. Women (48.1%) complain more about physical problems caused by their work; still, men (9.8%) took sick leave for jobrelated problems more than women did (5.2%). Harassment, dakle (in other words), is equally experienced by men and women.”

The content of S1 represents the background information which warrants the inductive inference in S2. Without such information, the proposition in S2 might very well correspond to the facts, but it would not have been so obviously warranted, as is the case when background evidence is presented. Thus, the inductive inference in S2 is an interpretation warranted by the background knowledge in S1 (see Schiffrin 1987:â•›204–205).15 In fact, S2 from the above example could be translated and made much more explicit by translating dakle as ‘To sum up, harassment is equally experienced by men and women.’ Reformulation is either speaker-oriented or hearer-oriented. In speaker-oriented reformulation, the speaker reformulates a message if she feels that the original message was not clear enough or when the inferences might be ambiguous. It is hearer-oriented if the speaker acts on the belief that the hearer needs more elaboration or summarization in order to understand the message. The latter depends on the speaker’s assessment of the hearer’s abilities to understand a certain type or amount of information, or the language used to express it. It is therefore important to look at the interactional value of dakle and the contexts in which its rhetorical properties are foregrounded. 15. In Schiffrin’s terminology, S1 is a ‘warrant’ and S2 ‘inferences’.


4.3

Interactional properties of dakle

Dakle is strictly periphrastic, its borders being defined away from both S1 and S2. This property makes dakle available for connecting two elements without blending with either and at the same time, also allows for a certain syntactic independence.

4.3.1 Initializing discourse In discourse-initial position (i.e. without explicit S1), dakle marks the fulfillment of inferred expectations about a discourse start (see also Vlemings 2003:â•›1103 for donc). Consider (11) (repeated below): (11) Dakle, zovem se Andrej i imam 16 godina. ‘Dakle (So), my name is Andrej and I am 16 years old.’

In (11), the young blogger starts his blog-writing process with dakle. Dakle’s availability to initiate an interaction is manifest in the most mundane phatic greetings exchanged among people on the street: (24) Dakle, kako ste? ‘Dakle (So), how are you?’

Velčić (1987:â•›91) stresses that in such a position, dakle cannot be replaced by any other conclusive or explicative. The only linguistic item that can stand in this position is a connective onda (lit. ‘then’, in this context, ‘so’): (24) a. Onda, kako ste? ‘Then/So, how are you?’

Unlike onda, dakle can also open a discourse. But in doing so, it introduces a question that includes a request for confirmation of the speaker’s doubt: (12) Dakle, idemo li na izlet ovaj vikend? ‘Dakle (So), are we going for a trip this weekend?’

Since S1 in such examples is not linguistically encoded, the implications in S2 are based on extralinguistic contextual information. In the three examples cited in this section, we see that discourse-initial dakle introduces an inferential conclusivity that is expressed in S2. In (11), S2 contains a message about the speaker’s (writer’s) decision to start writing his blog and introduce himself; in (24), S2 realizes the speaker’s intention (or obligation) to greet the person in the encounter; and in (12) S2 expresses the decision that this is the right moment to ask about an unlikely trip.


Another function of the discourse-initial dakle is to express the decision to return to a previously made point.

4.3.2 Returning to the previous point Returning to a previous point is a form of reformulation, which ties the host utterance to some earlier discourse. Dakle thus has the ability to manage the flow of discourse by connecting to the relevant point of a message that was produced prior to the adjacent discourse: (25) Plutonij je trebao biti pod nadzorom kada je sklopljen sporazum. ‘Plutonium was supposed to be under control when the agreement was made.’ Međutim, nedugo zatim je počeo intenzivni uvoz ‘However, immediately after that an intense import began’ iz susjednih država pa se koncentracija novca ‘from the neighboring countries so the concentration of the money’ i pozornosti prebacila na te zemlje. Ne znam, dakle, ‘and attention switched to those countries. I don’t know dakle, (that is/in other words)’ je li plutonij pod nadzorom, ali znam da je cijela ta situacija ‘if plutonium is under control, but I know that that whole situation is’ zajednička poteškoća. ‘a joint trouble.’ “Plutonium was supposed to be under control when the agreement was made. However, immediately following were intensive imports from the neighboring countries, and the investment and focus have shifted to those countries. I don’t know, dakle (that is/in other words), if the plutonium was under supervision [or not], but I do know that the whole situation is our joint trouble.”

Dakle is often used to indicate a return to the starting points of a speaker’s argumentation. According to Hansen (1998b:â•›7), alors fulfils the same function, signaling a return to a previous topic following a digression, which she calls “reperspectivization and reorientation” (Hansen 1997:â•›172). Vlemings (2003:â•›1103) describes a similar role for donc, which allows the speaker to resume her argumentation after being interrupted (not necessarily against her own will, she could have also interrupted herself).16 This function of dakle is frequently used

16. Hansen, on the other hand, talks of donc as an indicator that the information contained in the host utterance is treated by the speaker as being mutually manifest to interlocutors (cf. Â€Hansen 1997:â•›168). She concludes that the relevance of such particles lies in their transmission of a speaker’s attitude or by reducing the effort involved in processing.


by lecturers in order to remind students of a topic that was already talked about, or a point made earlier: (26) Dakle, prošli smo put govorili o Matoševoj poeziji. Danas ćemo se osvrnuti na njegovu prozu. ‘Dakle (OK/So), last time we spoke about Matoš’s poetry. Today, we will reflect upon his prose.’

Dakle in the above example introduces a return to a previous point and, simultaneously, a shift to a lecturing frame. Dakle prompts the discourse that is to be understood as a relevant continuation of the preceding topic or lecture. Metatextual properties, such as the one exemplified in (26) that allow the speaker to issue a reminder about a previous utterance or start a turn, seem to be typical of some reformulators (Mišković-Luković 2006:â•›8). Such properties are activated as mutually manifest in the interactants’ cognitive environment, which contributes to the argumentativeness of the host utterance, although argumentativeness is not necessarily part of the semantics of the host utterance. Hansen (1997:â•›165) asserts the same relationship between the French marker donc and discourse inferences. In this role, donc typically occurs in environments wherein it marks a conclusion or result, on the one hand, or repetition of something said earlier and known to both interlocutors, on the other. In the case of dakle, the argumentativeness feature is most salient in rhetorical questions.

4.4

Rhetorical questions

Rhetorical questions are very frequently prefaced by dakle. Pragmatically, rhetorical questions suggest that there is an obvious conclusion that should be induced from the previous discourse. This contention opens up the view that dakle introduces a conclusive or mutual manifestness that lends itself to the induction of a premise that has a stronger or weaker conclusive value. Rohde (2006) points out that rhetorical questions have obvious answers that are (believed by the speaker to be) shared among the discourse participants. LeeGoldman (2006), on the other hand, emphasizes their confrontational nature. A question that hosts dakle functions as a prompt for the hearer(s), who is expected to come up with the most logical conclusion to the preceding discourse. (27) Jesmo li, dakle, na početku nove utrke u naoružanju ili gledamo nastavak stare? ‘Are we, dakle (therefore), at the beginning of a new arms race or are we looking at the continuation of the old one?’


Dakle implies that such a conclusion is evident. Through the rhetorical question, the hearer is offered an opportunity to participate in the conclusion-making assumption offered by the speaker. This is also an effective rhetorical strategy for captivating the audience’s attention. The pragmatic meaning of prompting extends to other uses of dakle, which is discussed in the next section.

4.5

The prompting function of dakle

We have seen thus far that dakle can be found in resultative structures on the content level as in (2), the epistemic level as in (3), and the speech act level as in (9) (see pp. 113–114). However, dakle has an additional function that suggests activity on the interactional level. When it stands alone, dakle connects two extralinguistic dimensions: the context of the empty S1 that is manifest to the interlocutors, and the anticipated explanation for the conclusion (empty S2) that presents itself on the basis of the situational circumstances experienced through non-verbal means. (28) illustrates one such situation: (28)

CONTEXT: A hangs up after talking with a job search committee chair. B is present, but could hear only one side of the conversation. A: (hangs up the phone.) B: Dakle?

In (28), B’s utterance is seeking information that is apriori conclusive in nature the result of A’s phone conversation. Here, dakle prefaces an inferred question “tell me what happened?” or “did you get the job?”. A proposition that is introduced by dakle should be interpreted as a reformulation of the message that the hearer was unable to attend/hear the conversation, and thus expects the speaker to reformulate it for him (summarize, compress, or re-interpret). By doing so, A will fill up the S2 left empty by B’s interrogative use of the marker. Moreover, A is likely to use dakle at the start of her answer (e.g. Dakle, rekli su da će konačnu odluku donijeti u ponedjeljak – ‘Dakle, they said they would make the final decision on Monday’). In cases with strong verbal contextualization, dakle primes S2 as containing the most logical/accessible conclusion for the assumptions in S1. However, in utterances with the solitary marker (with empty S1 and S2), dakle foregrounds the speaker’s irritation, which has been caused by not having reached such logical conclusions or the fact that the expected conclusions have not been acted upon, contrary to the presented extralinguistic context. Thus, we can say that dakle inquires whether or not the hearer will adhere to the speech act of promising, or to some previous obligation and responsibility. Consider (29):


(29) CONTEXT: Margarita and Ivan are supposed to go out. Margarita sees that Ivan is not ready yet. Margarita: Dakle?

Dakle seems to prompt the question of adherence to expectations in all its occurrences, regardless of whether the expectations are verbally expressed or inferred from non-verbal context. These two solitary occurrences of dakle in (28) and (29) both express speaker attitudes. In (29) dakle, in conjunction with rising intonation, raises a question about a conclusion that does not seem to be forthcoming, mixed with a dose of irritation (cf. Hansen 1997:â•›183 for a similar function of alors). Schourup (2001:â•›1053– 1054) attributes a similar pragmatic function to the solitary uses of markers so and well, calling it the “prompting use” (see also Blakemore 1992:â•›139): (30) A: I learned three new words today [pause] B: So?/Well? (from Schourup 2001:â•›1054)

However, while so and well express B’s uncertainty as to the conclusion that is to be drawn from A’s remark, dakle in (30) suggests that the conclusion is obvious and expected from the interlocutor, and that it is to be made ostensible (verbally or behaviorally). Example (29) also shows that dakle actively manages participation structures by marking the loci of a potential shift of responsibility from the speaker to the hearer. In contrast, the shift is not equally clear in (30): it is centered on the accomplishment of a particular interactional task, and most likely provides an explanation of why the expected conclusion has not been reached yet. Cognitively, dakle stresses the evident and logical nature of what is appropriate for the hearer to do in a certain situation (cf. Vlemings 2003:â•›1110 for donc). A different pronunciation of a solitary dakle, with an extended first vowel (daaaakle!) and falling intonation contour, announces the speaker’s consternation with the conclusion that was based on the observation of extralinguistic context. (31) CONTEXT: Mother enters her son’s room and sees window glass shattered all over. Mother: Daaakle!?!

In this sense, dakle functions akin to ‘mental state’ interjections (cf. Schourup 2001:â•›1046): it expresses the speaker’s state of mind at the moment of enunciation. However, the expression implies the speaker’s disappointment regarding the conclusion made readily accessible to her at the moment of enunciation. An array of other verbal interjections and gestures could be used in the same context to express disappointment; the list includes Ajme!, Zaboga!, Gle!, Bože! and, of course, any handy swearword. However, while these expressions convey


surprise, anger, pain, etc., none express conclusivity as the basis for the comment of disappointment. Essentially, this use of dakle suggests that in the process of grammaticalization, it might have become a lexicalized interjection, just as the interjections Jesus!, My god!, and Dis donc! (cf. Vlemings 2003:â•›1100).

5.

Towards a unitary pragmatic account of dakle

Dakle then seems to belong to the group of connectives that instructs the hearer in the following: (i) the forthcoming discourse represents a conclusive reformulation of the preceding discourse and/or (local or global, extralinguistic) context; (ii) the forthcoming discourse implies an expectation of a conclusion based on inferences from the preceding discourse and/or (local or global, extralinguistic) context. My analysis of dakle includes frequent comparative references to the accounts of the English so (Schiffrin 1987; Blakemore 1992, 1996, 2002), French alors and donc (Hansen 1997, 1998b; Vlemings 2003) and Japanese dakara (Matsui 2002), because these four markers relate to the pragmatics of dakle in certain contexts. Just like so in English, dakle can function alone to instruct a hearer to recover a mutually known conclusion from the context. Dakle signals that a premise has been, or should have been, derived. The utterance hosting dakle is either the verbalization of that premise, a request for acting upon it, or a consequence of that premise. If S2 is empty, the premise is unsaid, but still inferred on the basis of the present extralinguistic contexts. Dakle occurs by and large in two environments roughly defined as environment (1), in which dakle marks a causative-resultative relationship between S1 and S2, and (2), in which it marks S2 to be a reformulation of S1, with consequential inferences. These two environments are not mutually exclusive, as sometimes, dakle might mark both a reformulation (including re-interpretation and summary) and a conclusion. The degree of reformulatory vs. conclusivity is deduced from the semantic overlap between S1 and S2. Dakle is also found in constructions that contain a request for confirmation or information, specifically in cases where these result from inference, and are thus related to conclusions (cf. Hansen 1997:â•›167). Dakle seems to have developed four principal functions in discourse: (a) conclusional; (b) reformulational; (c) argumentative/rhetorical; and (d) attitudinal. These four functions exhibit certain common properties that allow for a unified pragmatic description of the marker dakle. Dakle is never used to mark results or conclusions that are in any way unexpected (Hansen 1997:â•›167 makes similar claims about donc).


As a discourse marker, dakle is similar to donc in its ability to stress the evident and logical nature of what is appropriate for the hearer to do in a certain situation. Since the hearer sometimes does not act accordingly, pragmatic effects may arise from the context. Along with impatience and irritation, dakle sometimes expresses excitement, or a combination of these effects (for similar functions of donc see Vlemings 2003:â•›1110). What ties together all these facets is that whatever follows the marker dakleÂ€– regardless whether it is linguistically explicit or an empty S2 – represents the speaker’s expectation that both the speaker and hearer should have arrived at the same conclusion. That expectation can carry inferential material. The degree of semantic overlap between S1 and S2 is a logical indicator of the level of inferential processes involved in arriving at conclusions that are mutually expected and accepted. For such mutual manifestness to take place, the existence of mutual cognitive environment is required. A mutual cognitive environment is a set of assumptions which the individual is capable of mentally representing and accepting as true; this environment is created by linguistic or extralinguistic contextual elements (Sperber and Wilson 1995:â•›46). Dakle signals the manipulatory nature of reasoning in that it presents a conclusion as following logically from what is commonly manifest – which, in fact, might not be very ‘common’ or ‘manifest’ at all, or only partly so. Such a use of dakle, where the hearer is told what she should have deduced from the preceding discourse, be it linguistic or extralinguistic, is surely manipulative. Endowed with the ability to suggest a conclusion to the hearer, dakle is a proper rhetorical and argumentation marker that appears frequently in scholarly and legalÂ�(istic) discourse.

References Blakemore, Diane. 1992. Understanding Utterances: An Introduction to Pragmatics. Oxford, UK & Cambridge, USA: Blackwell. Blakemore, Diane. 1996. “Are opposition markers discourse markers?” Journal of Linguistics 32: 325–347. Blakemore, Diane. 1997. “Restatement and exemplification: a relevance-theoretic reassessment of elaboration.” Pragmatics and Cognition 5 (1): 1–19. Blakemore, Diane. 2002. Relevance and Linguistic Meaning: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Discourse Markers. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Brinton, Laurel J. 2001. “From matrix clause to pragmatic marker: The history of look-forms.” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 2 (2): 177–199. Cuenca, Maria-Josep. 2003. “Two ways to reformulate: A contrastive analysis of reformulation markers.” Journal of Pragmatics 35: 1069–1093.


Del Saz Rubio, Milagros. 2005. An analysis of English discourse markers of reformulation. Unpublished dissertation, Universitat de València. Del Saz Rubio, Milagros and Fraser, Bruce. 2004. “Reformulation in English.” Retrieved from http://people.bu.edu/bfraser/Reformulation%20Marker20Papers/deSaz%20&%20Fraser %20-%202003%20-%20RF%20in%20English.doc (accessed on 2 February 2007). ESSJ (1980) (Etymologický slovník Slovanských jazyků) vol. 2: Spojky, častice, zájmena, a zájmenná adverbial [Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Languages, vol. 2: Connectives, particles, pronouns, and pronominal adverbials]. Prague: Academia. Fraser, Bruce. 1996. “Pragmatic markers.” Pragmatics 6 (2): 167–190. Fraser, Bruce. 1999. “What are discourse markers?” Journal of Pragmatics 31: 931–952. Fraser, Bruce. 2001. “The case of the empty S1.” Journal of Pragmatics 33: 1625–1630. Hansen, Maj-Britt Mosegaard. 1997. “Alors and donc in spoken French: A reanalysis.” Journal of Pragmatics 28: 153–187. Hansen, Maj-Britt Mosegaard. 1998a. “The semantic status of discourse markers.” Lingua 104: 235–260. Hansen, Maj-Britt Mosegaard. 1998b. Function of Discourse Particles: A Study with Special Reference to Spoken Standard French. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Katičić, Radoslav. 1986. Sintaksa hrvatskoga književnog jezika: Nacrt za gramatiku [The Syntax of the Croatian Literary Language: An Outline for Grammar]. Zagreb: Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti; Globus. Lee-Goldman, Russell. 2006. “Rhetorical questions and scales: Just what do you think constructions are for?” Presentation at International Conference on Construction Grammar 4, Tokyo University, Japan. Matsui, Tomoko. 2002. “Semantics and pragmatics of a Japanese discourse marker dakara (so/ in other words): A unitary account.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 867–891. Mišković-Luković, Mirjana. 2006. “Reformulation markers: Do they mean what they say?” In ELLSII75 Proceedings (vol. I), Katarina Rasulić and Ivana Trbojević (eds.), 359–369. Belgrade: Faculty of Philology. Rohde, Hannah. 2006. “Rhetorical questions as redundant interrogatives.” San Diego Linguistic Papers, Department of Linguistics, UCSD. Available at http://repositories.cdlib. org/cgi/ viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=ucsdling (last accessed on 12 January 2007). Schiffrin, Deborah. 1987. Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schourup, Lawrence. 1999. “Discourse markers.” Lingua 107: 227–265. Schourup, Lawrence. 2001. “Rethinking well.” Journal of Pragmatics 33: 1025–1060. Silić, Josip. 1984. Od rečenice do teksta: Teoretsko-metodološke pretpostavke nadrečeničnog jedinstva [From sentence to text: Theoretical-methodological assumptions for the transsentential concord]. Zagreb: Sveučilišna naklada Liber. Sperber, Dan and Wilson, Deirdre. 1995. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford, UK; Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 2nd ed. Tanaka, Hiroaki. 1997. “In other words and conversational implicature.” Pragmatics 7 (3): 367– 387. Velčić, Mirna. 1987. Uvod u lingvistiku teksta [An introduction to textual linguistics]. Zagreb: Školska knjiga. Vlemings, Joeri. 2003. “The discourse use of French donc in imperative sentences.” Journal of Pragmatics 35: 1095–1112.

chapter 7

Pa, a modifier of connectives An argumentative analysis* Igor Ž. Žagar

Taking data from contemporary press, this paper examines the meaning of the Slovenian connective pa (‘and’, ‘but’), especially in relation to the connectives ker (‘because’) and sicer (‘otherwise’) with which it forms the compound connectives ker pa (‘but since’) and sicer pa (‘anyway’). As a starting point, Žagar assesses a dictionary definition of pa, ker and sicer. Arguing that a more traditional, classificatory account is inadequate, Žagar focuses on two central issues: the first is an explanation of the meaning of pa in compound connectives, and the second is an account of the roles of ker and sicer when used independently and in concert with pa. To clarify these two issues, Žagar relies on the notions of topoi and polyphony as employed in the framework of argumentation theory.

1.

Lexical definitions

The connective pa (usually translated into English as ‘and’ or ‘but’) is one of the (contextually) most diversified and most widely used lexemes of the Slovenian language, as well as one of the least researched. Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika (A Dictionary of the Slovene Literary Language, hereinafter SSKJ) distinguishes the following four general uses of the connective pa: a. in adversative clauses (with a comma); b. between sentential constituents (without a comma); c. in conjunctive clauses (without a comma); auxiliary words are typically omitted in the second clause; d. at the beginning of a new sentence. * Pa, ker, sicer and other linguistic entities I am discussing in this article are usually (and mostly within grammatical theories) considered to be particles. Since I am looking at their argumentative function in connecting arguments to other arguments or arguments to conclusions, I will be referring to them as argumentative connectives.

134 Igor Ž. Žagar

Within these four general uses, 29 traditional grammatical distinctions are made. In adversative clauses: (1) to express opposing propositions, (2) to express the unexpected, (3) to express moderate opposition, (4) to reformulate/explicate, (5) to stress the subsequent constituent, (6) to emphasize a constituent, (7) to express a causative-consecutive relation, (8) to express a causative-conclusive relation, (9) to express a conditional-consecutive relation, (10) to introduce the condition despite which the action in the previous clause is performed, (11) to emphasize opposition. Between sentential constituents: (12) to link two equivalent constituents, (13) to connect two last lexems in a list, (14) for gradation of emphasis, (15)Â€to connect two similar concepts into a single semantic unit, (16)Â€to emphasize a quantity or degree, (17) to connect constituents in counting, (18) to express addition, (19) in formulaic expressions such as ta pa ta (‘this and that’) and tak pa tak (‘such and such’). In conjunctive clauses: (20) to link two clauses, expressing simultaneity or sequentiality, (21) for gradual sentential emphasis, (22) to link two verbs into a semantic unit, (23) to express intensity of action, (24)Â€to express intention. Sentence-initially: (25) to express the same meanings as in adversative and conjunctive clauses, (26) to introduce an emphasis, (27)Â€to introduce an interrogative clause, (28) to introduce a new topic, and (29) to express wonder, astonishment, or reluctance. Checking this classification against the corpus of spoken and written Slovenian Nova beseda (New word) reveals yet another use of pa. Compare examples (1)–(3) in which pa cannot be ommited without affecting the semantics and pragmatics of the utterance with examples (4)–(6) where an omission of pa changes the pragmatic meaning only: (1) JANKO: Drugače te ne bi ovadil. Sicer pa, kaj naj drugega počnem. Naj jarke kopljem? “JANKO: Otherwise I wouldn’t turn you in. Sicer pa (‘anyway’), what else am I supposed to do? Dig trenches?” (2) Postala je ujetnica v zlati kletki in ugrabitelj je uporabil vsa sredstva, ki jih ponuja bogastvo, da bi jo omrežil in zapeljal. Ker pa je premogla veliko duševno moč, v kateri jo je podpirala vera, ni popustila prilizovanjem tega človeka, ki je bil za kraljem najmogočnejši veljak Anglije. “She became a prisoner in a golden cage, and her kidnapper used all the means the wealth can offer to draw her into his net and seduce her. Ker pa (‘but since’) she possessed great spiritual power, supported by her faith, she

. http://bos.zrc-sazu.si/s_beseda.html . http://bos.zrc-sazu.si/cgi_new/ad.exe?n=a_si_s&e=A_I_DR_DJ_DED% 201 047

Chapter 7.â•‡Slovenian pa, a modifier of connectives 135

didn’t give in to the flattery of this man of note, the most potent one after the King of England.” (3) Ni mi preveč pri srcu, nikakor pa ga nisem umoril. “I don’t like him too much, nikakor pa (‘but on no account’) have I murdered him.” (4) Tam raziskujem že eno leto, dve leti dela pa sta še pred mano. Pravkar pa sem napisal še en predlog, in če bo sprejet, to pomeni še dodatna tri leta dela na Antarktiki. “I have been researching over there for one year now, and I still have two years of work coming. Pravkar pa (‘but just now’) I wrote another proposal, and if it is accepted that means another three years of work in the Antarctic.” (5) Že na prejšnjih tekmovanjih se je šušljalo, da se zadnje leto praktično nepreÂ� magljivi par razhaja. Govorice so se izkazale za resnične, bojda pa trenutno oba iščeta nova partnerja. “At previous competitions, there had already been a rumour that the practically unbeatable couple in the last year was breaking up. Rumours proved to be true, bojda pa (‘but allegedly’) they are both seeking new partners.” (6) Nisem videl samo belih obrazov, temveč tudi rumene, bronastorjave in čisto črne. Kakor pa so si bili obrazi različni po rodu in plemenu, po letih in oblikah, nekaj jih je družilo, kar sem občutil v srcu, ko sem jih gledal, ali kar se nikakor ne dá razložiti z besedo. “I haven’t seen only white faces, but also yellow, bronze-brown, and completely black ones. Kakor pa (‘but as’) the faces were different by birth and tribe, by years and shapes, there was something that united them, something I felt in my heart when I was looking at them, but which can not be explained in words.”

If pa is omitted from the compound connectives sicer pa (1), ker pa (2) and nikakor pa (3), the connective’s meaning and function (and the meaning of the examples) will change. On the other hand, pa can be omitted in other compounds

. http://bos.zrc-sazu.si/cgi_new/ad.exe?n=a_si_s&e=A_P_PR_AD_TM% 203 871 . http://bos.zrc-sazu.si/cgi_new/ad.exe?n=a_si_s&e=A_P_PR_MB_HNT% 20 9712 . http://bos.zrc-sazu.si/cgi_new/ad.exe?n=a_si_s&e=D_01926%203485 . http://bos.zrc-sazu.si/cgi_new/ad.exe?n=a_si_s&e=D_00X14%201591 . http://bos.zrc-sazu.si/cgi_new/ad.exe?n=a_si_s&e=A_I_PR_IC_KMT% 20 33 . Since nikakor pa contains additonal features related to negation, it will not be discussed in this paper.

136 Igor Ž. Žagar

with pa, as shown in (4)–(6). However, the force of the remaining connective will change: without pa it becomes weaker and less definite. Why is that? My hypothesis is that in certain compound connectives, pa can act either as a modifier (reverser) of argumentative expectation and orientation, as in examples (1)–(3), or as a modifier (reinforcer) of the meaning and force of the preceding connective, as in examples (4)–(6). In short, it is not just a propositional (or grammatical) operator, as proposed in traditional grammar books. In this paper, I shed some light on this specific use of pa, especially when pa acts as a modifier of argumentative expectation and orientation. I will argue that in this latter case pa goes beyond the ongoing discourse in order to reinforce it and give it interpretive autonomy (relative to the immediate context) and independence (Žagar 1991, 1992, 1995).

2.

Logic vs. argumentation in the language-system

Certain argumentative connectives have an exceptional directional force. Moreover, the accumulation or ‘buffering’ of several argumentative connectives enables us to see what this directional force (orientation) might be. However, argumentative relation (between arguments and conclusion) differs from logical relation (between premises and conclusion). Some conclusions, despite being argumentatively (and discursively) completely acceptable, make no logical sense at all. Let us consider the following conversational fragment (borrowed from Moeschler 1985): (7) A: Is dinner ready by now? B: Yes, almost.

In terms of logic, this dialogue makes no sense at all. Dinner can either be ready by now, or not ready yet. If it is almost ready, this logically means that it is not ready yet. Therefore, ‘Yes, almost’ is not a logically possible answer to the question ‘Is dinner ready by now?’ because this would make the utterance contradictory (‘Yes, dinner is not yet ready.’). In contrast, this dialogue is pragmatically acceptable, and it owes this acceptability – paradoxical as it may seem – to the (problematic) connective almost. The utterance ‘Dinner is almost ready’ thus presents an argument in favor of an implicit conclusion such as ‘I must hurry up’. The same conclusion is also supported by the (logically “purer”) argument ‘Dinner is ready by now’ – the

. All tokens of ‘utterance’ are made-up examples, unless the source is indicated.


argument that is stronger (for drawing the implicit conclusion ‘I must hurry up’) than the argument ‘Dinner is almost ready’ (but still within the same argumentative orientation). In other words, if we construct an argumentative scale of ‘dinner’s readiness’ as in (8), the argument ‘Dinner is almost ready’ might be weaker, but it nevertheless supports the same conclusion as the stronger (or the strongest) argument on the scale: (8) /dinner’s readiness/

å°“

– ready – almost ready – ready soon

Regardless of the context, argumentative orientation appears to be inherent to the connective almost. That is, every argument containing this connective imposes a restriction on the continuation of the discourse: a conclusion following it must (argumentatively) pursue the course mapped out or delimited by the use of the connective almost. Thus, from ‘Dinner is almost ready’, it is impossible to conclude (in the direction of) ‘There is still time, you don’t have to hurry’ (unless some additional connectives are introduced to buffer the initial one). In Ducrot’s theory of argumentation in the language-system (Ducrot 1972, 1973, 1980, 1984, 1996; Ducrot et al. 1980), the transition from A(rgument) to C(onclusion) is made possible by (usually implicit) reference to certain structures of background knowledge called topoi. The (basic) structure of Ducrot’s topoi could be represented by the following two forms: (9) The more (something is) P, the more (something is) Q (The warmer it is, the more pleasant it is to go for a walk) (10) The less (something is) P, the less (something is) Q10 (The less warm it is, the less pleasant it is to go for a walk)

Topoi are general, common, and scalar. They are general and very abstract schemes or matrices allowing a multitude of particular conclusions that are not obligatory or binding in the way that a syllogism or logical deduction is. The topos (i.e. referring to a topos, applying or evoking it) can allow certain conclusions, but it does not bind the speaker to that conclusion. Therefore, the addressee can recognize the validity (appropriateness) of the topos employed in a conclusion without actually agreeing with it.

10. There is no ‘exact’ formulation or phrasing of topoi. We always have to reconstruct them from the given argument and the conclusion it yields.

138 Igor Ž. Žagar

Topoi are common in that a given community recognizes their validity, as well as the appropriateness of the conclusions that are based on them. The application of a topos, and the conclusion it leads to can always be refuted (the nature of argumentation is essentially polemical) by applying some other topos that suports a different conclusion. Anscombre and Ducrot (1983) and Ducrot (1990a) heuristically defined this application of topoi as ‘strong’ and ‘weak’: – to apply a topos strongly means that there are only a few arguments that can be stronger than the one used; – to apply a topos weakly means that there are only a few arguments that can be weaker than the one used. But what about the strength of arguments? Let us first assume that we operate with a two-part argument (A and B). We shall then say that the following two (heuristic) definitions apply: 1. Argument A is stronger than B, if: B, even A holds true. 2. Argument A is weaker than B, if: B, at best/at worst A holds true. Let us now check these definitions against examples (11) and (12): A B (11) It is a cold, or at worst a flu. > Don’t worry!11 A B (12) It is pneumonia, or at best a bad flu. > Take care!

Argumentative string (11) may be relying on a topos such as ‘The less we are ill, the less reason to worry’, and argumentative string (12) on a topos such as ‘The more we are ill, the more reason to worry’. In light of our definitions, argument A is stronger than argument B. In other words, if the given conclusion proceeds from B, it must also proceed from A. With regard to the argumentative scales that could be constructed in accordance with our knowledge of the force of arguments in both cases, we can say that both utterances apply their topoi in the direction of argumentative scales, and therefore tend towards the stronger application of topoi:

11. The ‘>’ sign is used to indicate the transition from an argument to a conclusion (A > C), and the ‘ Take care! A B ( 12’) It is pneumonia, even a (bad) flu. > Take care!

The replacement of the argumentative connectives does not only reverse the force of the arguments (B is now stronger than A), but it also affects the argumentative orientation of the utterances. From the argument ‘It is a cold, even a flu’, we can no longer conclude ‘Don’t worry’, but only ‘Take care’, which accords perfectly with the argumentative scale of worry (–), where flu occupies a lower position than cold, and is thus situated closer to the cause of worry on the negative scale. To show how decisive the choice of the argumentative connective(s) is, let us replace the connective in (12). Even assigns to the (bad) flu, which occupies a lower position than pneumonia on the argumentative scale of worry (+), the force of the stronger argument, thus leading to the conclusion ‘Take care’. The argumentative orientation inherent in even does not allow the succeding argument to be weaker than the preceding one. On the contrary, the argument introduced by even is supposed to escalate the force of a preceding argument. Therefore, if we want to avoid reference to a topos such as ‘The less we are ill, the more reason to worry’ (which is hardly common) in order to restore the argumentative balance, we must introduce an additional argumentative connective like just (and further mitigate the utterance with a hedge like maybe): (12’’) This is pneumonia, even just a bad case of the flu. > Don’t worry! (12’’’) This is pneumonia, maybe even just a bad case of the flu. > Don’t worry!

If just functions to attenuate (possibly alter) the (potential) argumentative orientation of even, then maybe functions to attenuate a (potential) logical disparity between coordinately related propositional elements: if the illness is pneumonia, then it is not a (bad) flu, and vice versa. If we temper both propositional elements with maybe, we place them outside the realm of logical necessity where they can (only) be either true or false.

140 Igor Ž. Žagar

Anscombre and Ducrot (1983) and Ducrot (1980) also allow for moderately strong/weak applications of a topos. Consider the following examples: (14) The bottle is already half empty. > Another one needs to be opened.

((14) applies a topos such as ‘The more we drink, the more liquor we need’). (15) The bottle is still half full. > There is no need yet to open another one.

((15) applies a topos such as ‘The less we drink, the less liquor we need’). An utterance, acccording to Ducrot, applies a topos Tx moderately strongly if, at the same time, it allows a moderately strong application of some topos Ty. This is the case with utterances (14) and (15). The beauty of moderately strong/weak applications is in their explicit exposure of what is informative and what is argumentative in language: already half empty and still half full describe one and the same state of affairs as far as informativeness is concerned, but their argumentative orientations are opposite, and so are the conclusions to which they lead. Already half empty and still half full allude to the act of emptying, not filling a bottle. If we exchange the places of the two argumentative connectives so that we now get still half empty and already half full, the new expressions will not only be differently oriented argumentatively, but this exchange will also create a new potential context, since we are no longer dealing with the act of emptying, but with the act of filling. In the light of what has just been said, we now return to the discussion of the role of pa in compound connectives ker pa (‘but since’) and sicer pa (‘anyway’). The choice of connectives ker (‘because’) and sicer (‘otherwise’) is in no way arbitrary. A study of the corpus of the Slovenian language Nova beseda shows that ker and sicer, when they are used together with pa, significantly change their function and argumentative orientation. This, however, does not happen to kakor (‘as’) in kakor pa (‘as’, ‘but as’) or vendar (‘but’) in vendar pa (‘but’), where pa mostly emphasizes the function and argumentative orientation of kakor and vendar.

3.

Ker pa and sicer pa

Let us compare utterances with and without pa in the following examples: (16) Ker si razbil šipo, ne boš šel v kino. “Ker (‘because’) you broke the window, you cannot go to the cinema.” ( 16’) ?Ker pa si razbil šipo, ne boš šel v kino. ?“Ker pa (‘but since’) you broke the window, you cannot go to the cinema.”


Example (16) contains a kind of causal-consecutive ker that argumentatively connects two speech acts: an assertion that the person spoken to has broken the window (argument) and an interdiction (directive) related to his/her departure for the cinema (conclusion). As an argumentative connective, ker links the two speech acts so firmly that (16) turns out interpretively autonomous (the selection of each of the components of this potential discourse segment is conditioned by the selection of the whole (the other segments)) and independent (it reflects, to a sufficient degree, the uttering situation and does not require additional co(n)textual information for its interpretation). But what happens if pa is inserted, as in (16’)? The first thing to notice is the dramatic change in the meaning of the (now) compound connective ker pa, and the utterance’s loss of interpretative autonomy and independence. In other words, in order to understand and interpret (16’), we have to assume that ker pa may be alluding to some possible (previous) argument for the opposite conclusion (‘You can go to the cinema’): the one which is, in fact, absent from the given argumentative string. It is precisely this ‘missing’ argument that is (implicitly) rejected by (16’) as insufficient for the actual conclusion to be drawn (‘You can not go to the cinema’). In order to make utterance (16’) interpretively autonomous and independent, we have to reconstruct the (implicit) part of discourse to which pa might be alluding to, for instance:12 (16’’) Res si bil priden: pomil si posodo in pobrisal prah. > Ker pa si razbil šipo, ne boš šel v kino. “You were really a good boy: you washed the dishes and wiped the dust. > Ker pa (‘but since’) you broke the window, you cannot go to the cinema.”

Let us now consider example (17). (17) Pridi sem, sicer pridem pote. “Come here, sicer (‘otherwise’) I’ll come for you.”

Sicer can be (quite easily) paraphrased as the exclusive ‘either – or’: Ali prideš sem, ali pridem pote (‘Either you come here, or I’ll come for you’). The introduction of pa in such a paraphrase (Ali prideš sem, ali pa pridem pote) does not affect interpretation, as it does not involve any change in meaning. However, if pa is introduced to form a compound connective with sicer, as in (17’), the meaning is affected:

12. Reconstruction, in this case, does not mean an exact and literal reconstruction of a certain part of discourse; it means a reconstruction of a type of (part of) discourse that may yield certain conclusion(s).

142 Igor Ž. Žagar

( 17’) ?Pridi sem, sicer pa pridem pote. ?“Come here, sicer pa (‘anyway’) I’ll come for you.”

Intuitively, (17’) makes no sense: in the main clause the speaker issues an order (to a second person) for the realization of a given propositional content, while in the subordinate clause he/she says that he/she will grant it its pragmatic value with his/her own action. Here are some further examples that corroborate this: (18) Ugasni luč, sicer (?pa) jo bom sam. “Turn off the light, sicer (‘otherwise’)/?sicer pa (‘anyway’) I will do it myself.” (19) Zapri vrata, sicer (?pa) jih bom sam. “Close the door, sicer (‘otherwise’)/?sicer pa (‘anyway’) I will do it myself.”

(18) and (19) can be interpreted as the exclusive ‘either – or’. However, if pa is inserted, the subordinate clause, which is introduced by sicer pa, somehow cancels the illocutionary force of the main clause (in this case an imperative) and gives the entire segment an ambivalent, even nonsensical status: in the main clause the speaker is ordering somebody to do something, while in the subordinate clause he/she is saying that he/she will do it himself/herself. It seems, therefore, that (17’)Â€– and all the other examples where the subordinate clause is introduced by sicer pa – is not interpretively autonomous and independent.13 However, this is not the only use of sicer pa known to the Slovenian language, as the following examples show: (20) Petra je vzela ključe. < Sicer pa to ni prvič. “Petra has taken the keys. < Sicer pa (‘anyway’) this is not the first time.” (21) Avto je fuč. < Sicer pa tako ni bil vreden piškavega oreha. “The car has had it. < Sicer pa (‘anyway’) it wasn’t worth a dime.” (22) Prešeren je bil velik pijanec. < Sicer pa je to znano. “Prešeren14 was a big drunk. < Sicer pa (‘anyway’) this is a well-known fact.”

Let us now apply the opposite procedure to the one used in examples (18) and (19), and drop pa: (20’) ?Petra je vzela ključe. < Sicer to ni prvič. ?“Petra has taken the keys. < Sicer (‘otherwise’) this is not the first time.”

13. In contrast to (16’), we cannot reconstruct even an (implicit) discourse segment to which pa might be alluding. 14. France Prešeren was a 19th century Slovenian poet.


(21’) ?Avto je fuč. < Sicer tako ni bil vreden piškavega oreha. ?“The car has had it. < Sicer (‘otherwise’) it wasn’t worth a dime.” ( 22’) ?Prešeren je bil velik pijanec. < Sicer je to znano. ?“Prešeren was a big drunk. < Sicer (‘otherwise’) this is a well-known fact.”

Examples (20’)–(22’) lack interpretive autonomy and independence – they appear to be unfinished and somehow ‘hanging in the air’. In order to make them autonomous and independent, we have to complete them: (20’) = … vendar bi vseeno lahko prej povedala (‘nevertheless she could have told us about it beforehand’); (21’)Â€= … vendar je bil še vedno uporaben (‘nevertheless it was still operational’); (22’) = … vendar za oceno njegove pesniške veličine to ni pomembno (‘nevertheless, this is not significant for the appraisal of his poetic greatness’). And while such complements can only be introduced by adversative clauses, examples (20) to (22), where the compound connective sicer pa intervenes, are discursively and interpretively completely autonomous and independent in their own right. In comparison with ker pa, sicer pa does turn the given discourse segment into an independent one simply by evoking a preceding discourse segment or situation. On the contrary, it seems that sicer pa explains, attenuates, or even rejects such a segment by making some previous but, in the on-going discourse, unexpressed information (or knowledge) explicit. In other words, pa reaches back into the ongoing discourse in order to clarify the given, expressed discourse segment. Furthermore, it enters the area of implicit background (personal or general) knowledge in order to provide the discourse segment with the necessary interpretive autonomy and independence. An initial hypothesis can be formulated at this point: In compound connectives ker pa and sicer pa, pa is used to activate common, general or implicit background knowledge, as well as some local – whether discursive or extra-discursive – contextual knowledge, so as to provide the given discourse segment with interpretive autonomy and independence. While ker pa mostly invokes (possible) reasons, sicer pa mostly conveys (possible) explanations of what is being related in the ongoing discourse. If used without pa, ker and sicer do not generate such implications.

3.1

An example from the press

Let us examine an article by Dragan Džurić entitled ‘Slovenia and Democracy’, published by the Croatian newspaper Vjesnik, the translation of which was printed by the Slovenian newspaper Delo on June 22, 1988.

144 Igor Ž. Žagar

(23) Slovenska javnost je v zadnjih tridesetih dneh doživela dva nova “šoka”. Potem ko so se maja pojavile govorice, da so v tej naši najsevernejši republiki pripravljali “vojaški udar”, se je junij začel z aretacijo Janeza Janše, Ivana Borštnerja in Davida Tasića. Publicista, zastavnika v JLA in enega od urednikov Mladine. Vse tri so priprli zaradi suma, da so izdali vojaško skrivnost. […] Očitno je torej, da ima pripor Janše – na podlagi suma, da je zakrivil dejanje izdaje vojaške skrivnosti – hude politične implikacije. Ker pa1 gre za enega od kandidatov za prihodnjega predsednika ZSMS, nas vse to ne bi smelo presenetiti. Oglasil se je tudi sedanji predsednik slovenske mladine Tone Anderlič in v imenu svoje organizacije od republiškega ministra za notranje zadeve Tomaža Ertla zahteval uradno pojasnilo o priporu Janše, za katerega je, kot pravi, izvedel iz časopisov. To zahtevo bi si dejansko lahko razlagali kot nedemokratično dejanje. Zakaj naj bi sekretariat za notranje zadeve, če je ravnal v skladu s svojimi zakonskimi pooblastili, mladinsko organizacijo obveščal drugače kot ostalo javnost? Ali to pomeni, da bi morali Janšo v primerjavi z ostalimi smrtniki obravnavati drugače? Ker pa2 se kandidacijski postopek za volitve v mladinski organizaciji že približuje koncu – in zaradi tega postaja prvorazredni politični dogodek – je Anderličeva zahteva po svoje kljub vsemu upravičena. […] Dejstvo pa je, da bo moralo pravosodje v prihodnje računati s tem javnim hrupom, pa tudi z javnostjo, ki je vse bolj lačna popolnejših informacij. Sicer pa je to običajna cena, ki jo je treba plačati takrat, ko se odprejo demokratični ventili. “In the past thirty days, the Slovenian public has experienced two new shocks. After the May rumors that our northernmost republic was getting ready for a ‘military coup’, June began with the detention of Janez Janša, Ivan Borštner and David Tasić, a journalist, a second lieutenant in the Yugoslav Armed Forces and an editor of Mladina respectively. All three have been arrested on suspicion of having divulged a military secret. […] It is obvious that the detention of Janša – on the basis of suspicion for having divulged a military secret – carried severe political implications. Ker pa1, he is one of the candidates for president of ZSMS (League of the Socialist Youth of Slovenia), this certainly should not come as a surprise. The current president of the Slovenian youth organization Tone Anderlič also made a statement and on behalf of his organization demanded from Tomaž Ertl, Slovenian Minister of Internal Affairs, an official explanation of Janša’s arrest, which he claimed to have learned about from the newspapers. This request could be in fact interpreted as an undemocratic act. Why should the Secretariat of Internal affairs, proceeding in compliance with its lawful competencies, inform the youth organization differently than the rest of the public? Does this mean that Janša should receive preferential treatment? Ker pa2 the pre-electoral procedure


for the youth organization elections is drawing to a close – and due to this, it is becoming a prime political event – Anderlič’s demand is, despite all that, justified. […] The fact remains that in the future, the judiciary will have to take into consideration public opinion and the public itself, which increasingly hungers for complete, accurate information. Sicer pa this is the usual price to pay when the doors of democracy are opened.”

If we take a closer look at the compound connectives ker pa1 and ker pa2, we can see that they do not allude to any actual and explicit part of the text. Instead, they reach outside the text and introduce some new facts: such as the fact that at the given time, Janez Janša ran for the post of president of RK ZSMS, and the fact that the election procedure was drawing to an end (both these facts were common knowledge). Ker pa1 and ker pa2, therefore, (implicitly) introduce new “utterers”15 into the text, as well as new uttering positions and new voices. To put it in terms both abstract and precise, they introduce new viewpoints and pieces of information which were not explicitly and transparently incorporated in the text. In order to give the text coherence (interpretive autonomy and independence), we must presume that the standpoint of the speaker (in this example the author of the article) results from the confrontation of several utterers or uttering positions (which are only reflected in the article, but not directly stated). This kind of text structuring is what we will call (with Ducrot, who borrowed the concept from Bakhtin, and further generalised it to the language-system as a whole) polyphonic, manyâ•‚voiced structuring.16

15. The concept (énonciateurs in French) was coined by Oswald Ducrot. Its conceptualization and use will be explained later in the text. 16. Ducrot (1984, 1996; Ducrot et al. 1980) claims that what is in traditional linguistics standardly referred to as speaker is in fact a very complex (and ambigous) notion that covers a number of wholly different ideas. He thus proposes a distinction between producer, speaker and utterer of an utterance. The producer of an utterance is the one whose activity results in the production of an utterance, i.e. the producer is the one who carries out the intellectual activity necessary for the production of the utterance. That may seem obvious, but there are cases where it becomes rather puzzling. Ducrot (1996) offers the following example: Think of yourself as a pupil: the school organizes a walk in the country side and in order to take that trip you must have your parents’ permission. Your teacher therefore gives you a form for your parent to sign. You bring your parent(s) a form that says: ‘I allow my son/daughter to take part in the excursion’, and at the bottom of the form there is a word ‘signature’. What your parent has to do is to put her/his signature under the word ‘signature’. Now, it is very difficult to discern the producer of ‘I allow my son/daughter…’ Is it the one who signed it, the teacher who gave it to you or the secretary who typed it? It seems that, in fact, producer is not a very clear notion. That is why we need the categories of speaker and utterer.

146 Igor Ž. Žagar

The concept of polyphony distinguishes not only between the producer (a hypothetically empirical entity) and the speaker (an entity belonging to the discourse), but also splits the speaker into several utterers or uttering positions which are purely discursive and intra-linguistic entities. The speaker is responsible only for the concrete discourse fragment, or more precisely, for the act of uttering (the emergence of a given discourse fragment). Within this discourse fragment, the speaker presents several utterers as the initiators of the viewpoints expressed through and by the discourse fragment (the representation of different viewpoints mirrors the context in which the utterance was uttered). To clarify, let us briefly consider the following utterance: (24) This fence is not red.

The speaker of (24) presents two utterers: – U1 affirms that the fence is red (implicitly). – U2 opposes this affirmation (explicitly). But the question is what makes it possible to distinguish between several utterers even within a single utterance? In the case of (24), we are helped by the fact that there are no fences that are non-red, non-yellow or non-brown. Of course, there are fences that could be described as non-red, non-yellow or non-brown, but such a description does not give us any clear idea of the real color of the fence. Therefore, if somebody is affirming that ‘X is not …’, it is very likely that he/she is objecting to somebody who is affirming the contrary, namely that ‘X is …’.17 Let us now turn back to ker pa1. In order to analyze it polyphonically, we will have to split the speaker (the author of the article) into two utterers (uttering positions): The speaker is the one who is (or is held to be) responsible for the utterance, or, at least, for the act of uttering the utterance. In the case of our pupil and his/her mother/father, there seems to be no problem: the utterance contains a pronoun ‘I’ that clearly points to the assumed speaker. But what happens if the utterance contains no explicit devices such as pronouns? And do we really have to hold the speaker responsible for everything that is said in the utterance, and take it as his/her own point(s) of view? This is where Ducrot introduces the notion utterers. According to Ducrot, there may be several utterers or uttering positions within an utterance. In other words, several different viewpoints may be expressed in just one utterance. However, Ducrot’s position is even more radical: every utterance can be analyzed in terms of at least two uttering positions. Note that a similar distinction is proposed by Goffman’s (1963, 1971, 1981) “participation framework”. 17. This, of course, does not mean that affirmations cannot be polyphonic. When someone says ‘This fence is red’, one could be affirming something that someone else has denied.


– U1 presents some fact F1 (arresting a citizen), which has an unusual characteristic C1 (serious political implications). – U2 opposes C1 (introduced by U1) by presenting some new fact F2 (it is a citizen who is involved in politics) whereby he/she obviously implies a topos such as ‘The more one is involved in politics, the more politically his/her actions are interpreted’. The speaker S, the author of the article, joins U2 in his/ her opposition. Even more interesting is another possible interpretation of ker pa2. It might be based on the confrontation of either the two utterers or two topoi (taken as generalized – and simplified – forms of implicit background knowledge), namely: – U3 presents some fact F3 (democratic methods should be observed), with the characteristic C3 (equal treatment for all), thus alluding to a topos such as ‘The more democratic the laws, the more strictly we must observe them’. – U4 agrees with U3 by invoking an even stronger version of the previous topos ‘The more tense the situation, the more democratic methods we must use’. And the speaker (the author of the article) joins this (latter) argumentation. Especially interesting is the interpretation of sicer pa (‘anyway’) in the following example, particularly because it sheds more light on the nature of topoi and the arguments to which they give rise. It shows that the same topos can be the basis for various, even opposite, conclusions so that one topos can be crossbred with different uttering positions. (23) a. Dejstvo pa je, da bo moralo pravosodje v prihodnje računati s tem javnim hrupom, pa tudi z javnostjo, ki je vse bolj lačna popolnejših informacij. Sicer pa je to običajna cena, ki jo je treba plačati takrat, ko se odprejo demokratični ventili. “The fact remains that in the future the judiciary will have to take into consideration public opinion and the public itself, which increasingly hungers for complete, accurate information. Sicer pa this is the usual price to pay when the doors of democracy are opened.”

Sicer pa could thus be split into a speaker and two utterers: – U5 presents a fact F1’ (the same fact as in the case of ker pa1, namely, the arrest of a citizen) while ascribing it a characteristic C1’ (the great commotion among the public) other than the one used by U1 (in the case of ker pa1). – U6 opposes U5 with a fact F3’ (the same fact as in the case of ker pa2, namely, that democratic methods should be observed) while ascribing it a characteristic C3’ (the freedom of information) which differs from the one used by U3 in the case of ker pa2. By so doing, U6 is evoking a topos such as ‘The more tense

148 Igor Ž. Žagar

the situation, the more democratic the methods we must use’ (which is the topos that U4 used to refute/oppose U3). In other words, U6 is using gradation (intensification) to oppose/refute the argumentation of U3.18

4.

The extended hypothesis

In light of what has been said so far, we can now advance the second hypothesis: Connective pa – when used in compound connectives ker pa and sicer paÂ€– acts as an enabler to reaching for the common, general or implicit background knowledge, or information provided by a local discourse, or extra-discursive context; it exposes the polyphonic structure of such a discourse, and thus gives it the necessary interpretive independence and autonomy.

More generally, connective pa as a (discursive-argumentative) modifier of other connectives could be described as having two distinct functions: 1. pa emphasizes the role (meaning and function) of the preceding connectives as in pravkar pa (‘but just now’), bojda pa (‘but allegedly’), kakor pa (‘but as’) and vendar pa (‘but then’); 2. (a) pa constrains the choice of the subsequent argument whose (argumentative) orientation has to be opposite to that of an (possible, potential) argument preceding the connective that pa modifies; (b) pa opposes the (possible, potential) argument preceding the connective that pa modifies by enabling access to some preceding discourse segment or extra-discursive situation, or to some common, general or implicit background knowledge. In its latter uses, pa19 is best described as the reverser of argumentative expectation (the expectation created by an (possible, potential) argument that might follow from the ongoing discourse is reversed by evoking some kind of common, general or implicit background knowledge, information from the preceding discourse, or extra-discursive context). The mechanics of ker pa and sicer pa could thus be illustrated as follows: 18. From the polyphonic perspective, the internal dynamics of the text is even more complex than that: by his/her own presentation of the fact F1, U5 is (at least implicitly) opposing U1, on the grounds that U5 is ascribing a different characteristic to the same fact. On the other hand, U6 is (at least implicitly) opposing U3, on the grounds that U6 is ascribing a different characteristic to the fact F3. 19. The uses of pa under 1. remain outside the scope of this paper.


Two questions immediately come to mind: What are the roles of the connectives ker and sicer when used separately, and when used in conjunction with pa? Are they really different? According to SSKJ (1975: 312) ker (‘because’) serves: a. to express the fact that the subject matter of the subordinate clause is the cause of the action related in the main clause: (25) Ker resnice ni smel povedati, je rajši molčal. “Ker (‘because’) he could not tell the truth, he chose silence.”

b. to provide a causative explanation of the previously stated fact: (26) Skrb je odveč, ker delavci so zanesljivi. “There is no need to worry, ker (‘because’) the workers are reliable.”

On the other hand, sicer (‘otherwise’) serves (SSKJ 1985:â•›652): a. to express the outcome if what has previously been stated fails to come true: (27) Brž pomagaj, sicer bo prepozno. “Help me quickly sicer (‘otherwise’) it will be late.”

b. to introduce a restrictive assertion opposed by the assertion related in the second clause: (28) Sicer je še mlad in neizkušen, vendar zelo spreten. “Sicer (‘even though’) he is young and inexperienced, he is most deft.”

c. to supplement or explain what was previously stated: (29) Kmalu se bodo pripeljali, in sicer iz te smeri. “They will arrive soon in sicer (‘and that’) from this direction.”

d. to express circumstances or states of being in other, different situations: (30) Zakaj mi ni nič povedala, saj je sicer tako odkritosrčna. “Why did she not say a word, she is sicer (‘otherwise’) so frank.”

e. to express a slight limitation or reservation: (31) To je sicer lepo, je pa zame predrago. “This is sicer (‘in fact’) fine, but too expensive for me.”

150 Igor Ž. Žagar

f. to express the realization of the real state of things: (32) Vsi mu morajo streči. Sicer pa si samo domišlja, da je bolan. “Everybody has to please him. Sicer pa (‘anyway’), he only imagines that he is ill.”

g. to express the general validity of a statement: (33) Njihovo ravnanje ljudem ni bilo všeč. Sicer pa so delali po že preizkušenih metodah. “Their conduct was not met with approval. Sicer pa (‘anyway’), they were using already known metods.”

h. to stress a denial: (34) Kdo tako kriči? Sicer pa mi to nič mar. “Who is shouting so loud? Sicer pa (‘anyway’), I do not care.”

For the purpose of this paper, the use of ker in (25), and the uses of sicer pa in (32)–(34) seem to be especially interesting. Example (25), repeated here for convenience, shows that the SSKJ definitions are misleading: (25) Ker resnice ni smel povedati, je rajši molčal. “Ker (‘because’) he could not tell the truth, he chose silence.”

Although “the subject matter of the subordinate clause” might be interpreted as “the reason for the action related in the main clause”, this could not and should not be understood in a chronologically causative way. One cannot say that the agent of (25) went silent because he could not tell the truth, or more precisely, that his sudden realization that he could not tell the truth caused his silence. Rather, the “subject matter of the subordinate clause” is the interpretation of the events related in the main clause. Indeed, the agent could have gone silent before “the subject matter of the subordinate clause” was made known to him or even afterwards. Moreover, we are dealing here with a supposedly real event and the two belief-systems relating it (those of the silent agent’s and the speaker’s). To listeners/readers then, only the speaker’s truth is made available: the agent was silent because he could not tell the truth. Still, we cannot know if the silent agent would agree with the speaker’s interpretation (irrespective of the real state of affairs). The “subject matter of the subordinate clause” may thus solely be taken as the speaker’s interpretation of the agent’s silence, but not (necessarily) as the cause of it. We can conclude that it is X that may be the cause (and, consequently, the argument) for the event related in the main clause. On the other hand, we saw that “the subject matter of the subordinate clause”, introduced by ker, is only the interpretation of the main clause, or one of its (possible) interpretations. And it


is plausible that X should be of an entirely psychological nature (in (25), say, his knowledge/conviction/fear etc. is why he could not tell the truth). What is important for the present analysis is the possibility that there was some knowledge/ conviction/fear, etc. which existed before the discourse segment in question was uttered, and that this knowledge/conviction/fear was used as an indirect reason (argument) for the occurence of the event related in the main clause. In the case of the connective sicer (‘otherwise’), which is used in conjunction with pa much more frequently than ker, some of the SSKJ definitions explicitly show that the discourse segment introduced by sicer pa is supported by some previous fact which is related in the given discourse segment. Consider (32): (32) Vsi mu morajo streči. < Sicer pa si samo domišlja, da je bolan. “Everyone must serve him. < Sicer pa (‘in any case’) he is only imagining that he is ill.”

If pa is ommitted, the utterance yields unusual, even senseless implicatures (given in square brackets): ( 32’) Vsi mu morajo streči. < Sicer si samo domišlja, da je bolan. “Everyone must serve him. < Sicer (‘otherwise’) he is only imagining that he is ill.” > [If he is not served by everybody, he only imagines that he is ill (even though in fact he is not)] > [If he is served by everybody, he is (in fact) ill (otherwise he is only imagining that he is ill)].

The omission of pa in (33), on the other hand, robs the sentences of their interpretive autonomy and independence, and makes them co(n)textually misplaced, as shown in (33’): (33) Njihovo ravnanje ljudem ni bilo všeč. < Sicer pa so delali po že preizkušenih metodah. “Their conduct was not approved. < Sicer pa (‘anyway’) they were using wellknown methods.” (33’) ?Njihovo ravnanje ljudem ni bilo všeč. < Sicer so delali po že preizkušenih metodah. “Their conduct was not approved. < Sicer (‘otherwise’) they were using wellknown methods.”

The same problem has already been discussed in relation to examples (20’)–(22’), but it is interesting to note that (33’) recovers its interpretive autonomy and independence if, in addition to pa, sicer is omitted as well:

152 Igor Ž. Žagar

(33’’) Njihovo ravnanje ljudem ni bilo všeč. < Delali so po že preizkušenih metodah. “Their conduct was not approved. < They were using well-known methods.”

Such a substitutive analysis leads to the conclusion that it is the compound connective sicer pa (‘anyway’), and not sicer alone, to which the SSKJ definitions (a)– (h) must surely apply. However, such an analysis also raises a quandary: if the connective sicer pa (‘anyway’) can be omitted without affecting the autonomy and independence of the analyzed argumentative string(s), why use it at all? My hypothesis is that it is used in order to lend complexity to an argument – or at least the appearance of complexity – in order to transform the (usually) linear argumentative structure, A > C, C < A, into a complex, multi-layered structure – precisely by alluding to some kind of common, general or implicit background knowledge, local discursive or extra-discursive context.

4.1

Additional examples from the press

Let us now test the extended hypothesis on a few newspaper articles taken, once again, from the principal Slovenian daily, Delo. (35) Ker je bila stranka za enakopravnost občanov na zadnjih volitvah okradena, z oblastjo ne more komunicirati drugače kot prek sredstev javnega obveščanja, je najprej povedal predsednik te stranke Dragiša Marojević na današnji tiskovni konferenci. […] Kazenske prijave temeljnemu javnemu tožilstvu in prijava pri pristojnem občinskem organu za registracijo političnih strank zaradi “spornega” besedila v strankinem sporočilu za javnost v zvezi s kninskimi dogodki nam samo dokazujeta, da v tej demokratični družbi nismo zaželeni, je dejal Dragiša Marojević. Najbolj čudno pa je to, da verbalni delikt ponovno oživljajo vsi tisti demokrati, ki so se prej soglasno zavzemali za njegovo odpravo. Dragiša Marojević je med drugim tudi povedal, da je po objavi strankinega sporočila prejel v seriji petnajst anonimnih pisem z grobimi žalitvami, za katera v stranki sumijo, da so prišla s policije. Sicer pa stranka meni, da so človekove pravice najbolj kršene v Sloveniji. “Since the party’s votes were stolen at the last elections, we have no other way to communicate with the government but through the mass media’, said the president of the party Dragiša Marojević at today’s press conference. […] Indictments regarding the party’s controversial “expression” in its public announcement on events in Knin are in Marojević’s opinion only more proof that they are not wanted in this (Slovenian) democratic society. The most


surprising fact, however, is that the delict of verbal offence is being called for again by those democrats who used to be unanimous in demanding its abolition. Dragiša Marojević also said that after the release of the public notice he received 15 anonymous and seriously offensive letters and that the party members assume that these letters came from the police. Sicer pa (‘anyway’), the party thinks that it is in Slovenia that human rights are the most badly violated [in the region].”20

The concluding sentence, when considered in relation to other statements at the press conference, appears quite unusual in that the party’s leader has been giving examples of what he considered to be human rights violations in Slovenia. The expected conclusion could thus only be something like: (36) Stranka torej meni, da so človekove pravice najbolj kršene prav v Sloveniji. “The party therefore thinks that it is in Slovenia that human rights are most violated.”

or (maybe): (37) Stranka meni, da so človekove pravice torej najbolj kršene prav v Sloveniji. “The party thinks that it is therefore in Slovenia that human rights are most violated.”

but by no means: (38) Sicer pa stranka meni, da so človekove pravice najbolj kršene prav v Sloveniji. “Anyway, the party thinks that it is in Slovenia that the human rights are most violated.”

Why? Because (as already seen in the analysis of sicer pa) the use of the compound connective sicer pa (‘anyway’) implies that the speaker is going to change the subject, or is shifting to another strain of thought, or that the speaker is going to employ some already known fact in order to support and reinforce what was already stated. At first glance, the author does not do any of the above. To be more precise: why should anyone round off a detailed list of human rights violations in Slovenia with just another assertion that human rights have been the most badly violated in Slovenia; that is, with an assertion that obviously cannot be understood as a

20. Mihaela Žitko, ‘We are obviously not wanted in this society: The Press conference of the Party for the Equality of Citizens – Pressures on the party’. Delo, September 7, 1990.

154 Igor Ž. Žagar

conclusion that sums up what has previously been stated, since it is introduced with the compound connective sicer pa (‘anyway’)? The idea seems unusual, maybe even contradictory, only for as long as we assume that there is only one speaker (uttering position, point of view) involved (i.e. the author of the article). Even the superficial reader would have noticed that the author simply reports the words of the politician who spoke at the press conference (Marojević) – until the last sentence. But who is the speaker of the last sentence: the author, or somebody else? The last sentence would present no co(n)textual difficulties if it were paraphrased as: (39) Sicer pa, kot že vemo, stranka meni, da so človekove pravice najbolj kršene prav v Sloveniji. “Anyway, as we already know, the party thinks that Slovenia is where the human rights are the most violated.”

In other words, the insertion of the paraphrase kot že vemo (‘as we already know’), which overtly refers to some implicit common knowledge, makes it easier to detect several utterers (uttering positions or viewpoints) in the article, signed by only one journalist. In the given text we can identify three: – U1 “discloses” the violation of human rights in Slovenia (“empirically”, at the level of persons appearing in this text, this could be Dragiša Marojević). – U2 (maybe by giving proof of instances of actual respect of human rights in Slovenia, or by comparing the state of human rights in Slovenia with those in other ex-Yugoslav republics, or in some other way) opposes U1 (at the level of persons appearing in the text, U2 has no empirical representative; its opposition to U1 (i.e. the fact that the uttering position of U2 is inherent to the text), becomes clear only with (and because of) the appearance of U3). – U3 sums up the dispute by referring to the previous, general or implicit, common knowledge (in our example the knowledge about the “disclosure” or the manner of argumentation of U1), which weakens the argument put forward by U1.21 Of course, the structure of the connective sicer pa need not be this complex. In certain instances, such as (40), it seems that a polyphonic structure cannot be ascribed at all:

21. Interestingly enough, U3 could be the author herself in the role of a commentator (and not that of a reporter). Empirically then, it is one and the same person who has two separate uttering roles in the given discourse.


(40) Kaj storiti s Titovimi slikami in kipi v javnih prostorih? Ker to niso državni simboli in ker doslej ni bilo nobenega predpisa, ki bi veleval, da Titove slike ali kipi morajo biti, je slovenska vlada danes na svoji seji menila, da je te slike ali kipe mogoče odstraniti. […] Slovenska vlada je o tej temi razpravljala v zvezi s pobudo vojvodinske skupščine, ki je zvezni skupščini predlagala, naj razveljavi zakon o rabi imena in podobe Josipa Broza Tita, ki je bil sprejet v začetku osemdesetih let. Izvršni svet podpira vojvodinsko pobudo, o tej temi pa so obširneje spregovorili tudi zato, ker ljudje menda pogosto sprašujejo, kaj naj storijo s Titovimi slikami v šolah in drugih javnih ustanovah. Sicer pa so na tiskovni konferenci po seji vlade danes največ časa odmerili zagatam slovenskega zdravstva. Za normalno delo bi slovensko zdravstvo do konca leta potrebovalo 12 milijard dinarjev. “What should be done with Tito’s pictures and busts in public places? Since they are not state symbols and there is no law which prescribes that they must be there, the Slovenian government at today’s session expressed the opinion that these pictures could be removed. […] This discussion is related to the initiative of Vojvodina’s assembly, which put forward a proposal that the Federal Assembly annul the law from the ‘80s mandating the usage of the name and image of Josip Broz Tito. The Executive Council supports this initiative. The issue was given consideration also because people often ask what they should do with Tito’s pictures in schools and other public institutions. Sicer pa (‘anyway’), the main part of the press conference following today’s session was devoted to the quandary of the public health care in Slovenia. In order to function normally, Slovenian health care will need some 12 billion dinars by the end of the year.”22

At a glance, the connective sicer pa in the above text functions in accordance with one of the SSKJ definitions of sicer: the connective indicates a switch to another thought. Let us, however, check this by substituting sicer pa, as used in the article, with another connective which generally indicates a switch to another thought, namely, poleg tega (‘in addition to that’):

22. ‘A Ray of Hope for Health Service: The Slovenian government looks for ways out of the health service quandary – Tito’s pictures to be removed from public places’. Delo, SeptemberÂ€21, 1990.

156 Igor Ž. Žagar

(41) Sicer pa so na tiskovni konferenci po današnjem zasedanju največ časa odmerili zagatam slovenskega zdravstva. “Anyway the main part of the press conference following today’s session was devoted to the quandary of the public health service in Slovenia.” (42) Poleg tega so na tiskovni konferenci po današnjem zasedanju največ časa odmerili zagatam slovenskega zdravstva. “In addition to that, the main part of the press conference following today’s session was devoted to the quandary of the health service in Slovenia.”

While poleg tega (‘in addition to that’) makes it explicit that there are (at least) two topics in the text, sicer pa (‘anyway’) does not suggest such an explicit inference. Still, let us have a closer look at the connective poleg tega (‘in addition to that’). Using simple arithmetical logic, we could argue that the “main part of the press conference” can be devoted to only one issue. If the main part of the press conference is devoted to the quandary of the health service, then the amount of time and attention devoted to the removal of Tito’s pictures cannot possibly be the same. Similarly, if the main part of the conference focussed on the removal of Tito’s pictures, then the main part of the conference could not have been devoted to the quandary of the health service, and vice versa. This rather trivial issue becomes controversial with the introduction of the connective poleg tega (‘in addition to that’), which is neutral in relation to (the importance of) the subject matters it connects. It is this neutrality that distinguishes poleg tega (‘in addition to that’) from sicer pa (‘anyway’). Example (35) makes it obvious that sicer pa (‘anyway’) does not indicate a switch to just another subject matter (e.g. one of the subject matters of the text, one subject matter among other subject matters, etc.). On the contrary, it indicates a switch to a highly specific subject matter (i.e. the one that is the topic of the text). In fact, sicer pa (‘anyway’) unambigously introduces an uttering position that is different from the one that was at the forefront up to that point – the uttering position that will be, at the level of the “surface structure”, adopted and summed up by the speaker (author). The proper analysis of sicer pa (‘anyway’) in (40) must, therefore, split the speaker into two utterers: – U1 presents some fact F1 (the removal of Tito’s pictures). – U2 emphasizes another fact, F2, as being more important (F2 can be anything; what makes it more important is precisely the fact that it is introduced by the connective sicer pa (‘anyway’)), and the speaker S merges with (or adopts the position of) U2. Provided that this analysis holds true, how are we to explain sicer pa (‘anyway’) in the following example?


(43) “Jezus je tu med nami in zdravi bolne. Nekaterim med vami bodo izginile bolečine v ramenih in kolenih. Dvignite roke, če ste ozdraveli”, je po molitvi začel zdravljenje p. Emilian Tardif, misijonar iz Dominikanske republike, sicer pripadnik karizmatične skupine Prenova v Duhu. Med tisočimi na stadionu v Spodnji Šiški v Ljubljani je zavladala tišina. “Ne bojte se. Dvignite roke. Jezus je vas ozdravil”, je spodbujal p. Emilian Tardif. Nenadoma je nekdo dvignil roko, drugi pa je pomahal z robčkom. In potem še neka starejša ženica. Stadion je postal nemiren. “Hvala bogu. Gospod je velik”, je zanosno zaklical p. Emilian Tardif, udeleženci seminarja pa so začeli navdušeno ploskati. Nastala je nepopisna evforija. […] In kaj pravijo zdravniki? Dr. Janez Zajc, specialist za fizikalno medicino in rehabilitacijo na Kliničnem centru v Ljubljani, ki je na seminar prišel na povabilo prijatelja p. Marjana Šefa iz župnijskega urada sv. Jakoba v Ljubljani (enega izmed prirediteljev), je na sobotni tiskovni konferenci za novinarje dejal, da so pregledali 18 čudežno ozdravljenih. Pri štirih so ugotovili, da je gibljivost v ramenih oziroma kolenih zelo dobra, čeprav so ozdravljeni pričevali, da so imeli pred seminarjem močne bolečine. “To še ne pomeni, da so resnično ozdraveli na seminarju. Najprej moramo namreč primerjati njihovo prejšnjo bolezen s sedanjim stanjem”, je še dejal dr. Janez Zajc. Sicer pa je na seminarju evangelizacije bilo kar 15 zdravnikov in 35 medicinskih sester. “‘Jesus is among us and he heals the sick. Some of you will be relieved of the pain in your shoulders and knees. Raise your hands if you are cured’. Thus started the cure and prayer by pater Emilian Tardif, the missionary from the Dominican Republic, otherwise known as the member of the charismatic group “Renovation in Spirit”. The thousands gathered at the stadium in Spodnja Šiška went silent. ‘Do not be afraid. Raise your hands. Jesus healed you’, encouraged pater Emilian Tardif. Suddenly someone raised his hand, someone else waved a scarf. Then an elder woman raised hers. There was a commotion at the stadium. ‘Thank God. The lord is great’, called out pater Emilian Tardif ecstatically, while the participants at the seminar erupted in fervent applause. An indescribable euphoria followed thereafter. […] And what do doctors have to say? Dr. Janez Zajc, physical medicine and convalescence specialist at the Ljubljana Clinical Center, who was invited to attend the seminar by his friend pater Marjan Šef of the parochial office of St. Jacob in Ljubljana (also among the organizers), said at Saturday’s press conference that they examined 18 miraculously cured patients. Four of the participants, who claimed intense pain in their shoulders and knees before the session, demonstrated improved flexibility in their shoulders and knees during their meeting with the physician. ‘This does not mean that they were

158 Igor Ž. Žagar

miraculously cured at the seminar. We must first compare their previous condition with the present one’, cautioned Dr. Janez Zajc. Sicer pa (‘anyway’) there were as many as 15 doctors and 35 nurses at the seminar.”23

If sicer pa is to be interpreted simply as a switch to some other thought, we would expect that it could easily be substituted or paraphrased with poleg tega (‘in addition to that’), or even with tudi (‘also’). For instance: (44) Na seminarju je bilo tudi 15 zdravnikov in 35 medicinskih sester. “There were also 15 doctors and 35 nurses at the seminar.”

Such paraphrasing is obviously inaccurate since it does not yield implicatures that the variant with the connective sicer pa (‘anyway’) typically does: (45) Sicer pa (‘in any case’), there were as many as 15 doctors and 35 nurses at the seminar. > [All (of them) together will be able to establish what really happened.]

or (45’) Sicer pa (‘in any case’) there were as many as 15 doctors and 35 nurses at the seminar. > [Maybe it was their presence that helped the healing.]

The substitution of sicer pa (‘anyway’) with poleg tega (‘in addition to that’) or tudi (‘also’) turns the conclusive sentence into a textual dead-end, or a forced appendix that has no impact on the previous text. This, however, cannot be said of the connective sicer pa (‘anyway’), which lends the text – somehow retroactively – a specific, polyphonic structure. With regard to the implicatures in (45) and (45’), we can distinguish between three utterers/uttering positions, out of which the first two generate both implicatures: – U1 presents some fact F as miraculous (healing of several people). – U2 presents the same fact F as ambiguous (as to the causes of the healing). – (U3) vary, depending on the implicature one has chosen. If the implicature of (45) is chosen, U3 does not support either the view of U1 or the view of U2, but takes a neutral position: the forthcoming examinations will show whether U1 or U2 is right (this implicitly means that U3 supports U2). On the other hand, if the implicature (45’) is chosen, U3 vacillates between the views of 23. “The Missionary Healed the Sick: The seminar entitled ‘Evangelization 2000’, at which pater Emilian Tardif was to heal the sick, attracted some 20.000 people”. Delo, September 3, 1990.


U1 and U2: if it was the presence of many doctors that helped the healing, U3 obviously supports the view of U2. However, if it was their mere presence that helped, and not their medical knowledge and expertise, then we are obviously dealing with a case of miraculous healing, which means that U3 supports the view of U1. What implicature we intend to settle on depends on the topos (the condensed background, implicit and/or common knowledge) we apply: the same topos (e.g. ‘more people, more knowledge’) can, in fact, support both implicatures even though they are different. This does not only mean that the speaker S (in this case the author), who “merges” (or identifies) with U3, is evoking some implicit background knowledge common to a given (social, professional, etc.) group, but also that whatever argumentation one is relying on is of a very general structure, so general that it is possible to use it (within different groups or different systems of beliefs) to support distinct arguments leading to the same conclusion. The move of the speaker/writer is thus very subtle. By maintaining two possible U3s, the speaker/writer extracts (for listeners/readers) the basic structure of his/her own conclusion, while at the same time implying that it is this very basic structure that allows a variety of (possible) conclusions, thus lending the article its polyphonic structure. It is this usage of sicer pa (‘anyway’) that is probably the most typical one. The analysed examples and texts make it quite clear that the role of sicer pa (‘anyway’) (and ker pa (‘but since’)) is to stage the polyphonic structure of text – a task that would not be possible without pa modifying sicer. Furthermore, polyphony, despite having only two levels (as in (40)), seems to be inherent in the connective sicer pa (‘anyway’). In order to test this hypothesis, let us analyse one last example. (46) Reden obiskovalec Tivolija nas je opozoril, da so nekatere table, ki opozarjajo lastnike psov, da morajo pripeti svoje štirinožne prijatelje z vrvico, že polomljene. Kdo lomi table, niso vedeli povedati tudi v podjetju Rast, ki vzdržuje Tivoli. Povedali pa so nam, da imajo vsako leto veliko škode zaradi polomljenih tabel in klopi ter razbitih luči, saj izživljanje nekaterih nad mestno lastnino ne pozna meja. “A regular visitor to the Tivoli Park drew attention to the fact that some signs reminding dog owners to put their pets on a leash have already been damaged. Nobody could identify the vandals, not even the people from Rast, the company in charge of the Tivoli Park. But they told us that each year they incur considerable expense because of damaged signs, benches and lights. The pleasure that some derive from destroying public property knows no limits.”24 24. Broken Warning Signs in Tivoli [a comment under a photograph]. Delo, November 2, 1990.

160 Igor Ž. Žagar

Until the last sentence, the text seems to be interpretively autonomous and independent – it does not call for any additional explanation(s). Yet, it is concluded with the following sentence: (47) Sicer pa vsako večjo škodo prijavijo miličnikom. “Sicer pa (‘anyway’, ‘in any case’), all serious damage is reported to the police.”

With this addition, the previously perfectly coherent text suddenly loses its transparency. A very simple analysis will reveal that the main ‘culprit’ for the resulting opacity is the compound connective sicer pa (‘anyway’). Namely, the last part of the text tells us that some unidentified persons do not only break the signs in the park, but also the benches and lights, and that the “pleasure that some seem to derive from destroying the public property knows no limits”. It would be quite unambiguous and the journalist would be entirely justified (especially since this is a short comment under a photograph) if the text was concluded with a simple ‘All serious damage is reported to the police’, omitting the connective sicer pa (‘anyway’) entirely. The text would thus retain its autonomy and transparence. The very appearance of sicer pa, however, enlivens its linear structure and robs it of its direct transparency by eliciting some extra-discursive support (in relation to the text in question). This causes an interpreter to accept two additional utterers (inherent in sicer pa). The basic (polyphonic) structure of the compound connective … pa – where pa does not only serve to reinforce the preceding connective, but also acts as a modifier of its argumentative orientation – therefore consists of (at least) two utterers: – U1 (not necessarily the first utterer in the text) relates some fact (in the given example, this is done by taking an exception to the irresponsibility or a careless attitude toward public property, etc.). – U2 replies to U1 (opposing U1, calming U1 down, etc.) by making some (common, general or implicit) background knowledge or discoursive/extra-discursive contextual information (in the case of the damaged signs in Tivoli: every damage is reported to the police) explicit.

5.

Concluding remarks

I started with the hypothesis that in certain compound connectives, most notably ker pa and sicer pa, pa acts as either a modifier (reverser) of argumentative expectation and orientation, or as a modifier (reinforcer) of the meaning and


force of the preceding connective, and not just as a propositional (or grammatical) operator. The substitutive analysis of the press examples showed that the role of pa in compound connectives ker pa and sicer pa was to enable (or make possible) an invocation of (common, general or implicit) background knowledge or (extra-) discursive information. In sum, pa exposes the polyphonic structure of a given discourse segment and thus gives it the necessary interpretive independence and autonomy. While ker pa mostly invokes (possible) reasons, sicer pa mostly invokes (possible) explanations of what is related in the ongoing discourse. If used without pa, ker and sicer do not make such implicit information available. As a conclusion, I propose that the basic structure of the compound connective … pa, in polyphonic terms, consists of (at least) two uttering positions: – U1 (not necessarily the first utterer in the text) relating some fact. – U2 replying to U1 (opposing U1, calming U1 down, etc.) by making explicit some common, general or implicit, background knowledge, discoursive, or extra-discursive information.

References Anscombre, Jean-Claude and Ducrot, Oswald. 1983. L’Argumentation dans la langue. Brussels: Mardaga. Ducrot, Oswald. 1972. Dire et ne pas dire. Paris: Herman. Ducrot, Oswald. 1973. Le preuve et le dire. Paris: Mame. Ducrot, Oswald. 1980. Les échelles argumentatives. Paris: Minuit. Ducrot, Oswald. 1984. Le dire et le dit. Paris: Minuit. Ducrot, Oswald. 1996. Conférences slovènes/Slovenian lectures. Edited by Igor Z. Žagar. Ljubljana: ISH. Ducrot, Oswald, Bourcier, Danièle, Bruxelles, Sylvie and Sirdar-Iskandar, Christine. 1980. Les mots du discourse. Paris: Minuit. Goffman, Erving. 1963. Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings. New York: Free Press. Goffman, Erving. 1971. Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. New York: Harper and Row. Goffman, Erving. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Moeschler, Jacques. 1985. Argumentation et conversation, Element pour une analyse pragmatique du discourse. Paris: Hatier-Credif. Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika [A Dictionary of the Slovenian Literary Language]. 1975, 1985, 1986. Ljubljana: SAZU/DZS. Žagar, Igor Ž. 1991. “Argumentacija v jeziku proti argumentaciji z jezikom” [“Argumentation in language vs. argumentation by language”]. Anthropos 23 (4–5): 172–185.

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Žagar, Igor Ž. 1992. “O polifoniji, argumentativnem pričakovanju in njegovem sprevračanju” [“On polyphony, argumentative expectation and its distortion”]. Časopis za kritiko znanosti 140/141: 111–130. Žagar, Igor Ž. 1995. “Argumentation in language and the Slovenian connective pa.” Antwerp Papers in Linguistics 84. Antwerp: University of Antwerp (UIA).

Note on contributors

Mirjana N. Dedaić (Ph.D., Sociolinguistics, Georgetown University) teaches linguistics and communication in the Communication, Culture and Technology Program at Georgetown University, Washington, DC. Her research interests are interdisciplinary, applying pragmatics, critical theory and critical discourse analysis on topics concerning identity construction, gender and politics. She has taught at several universities in the United States and Croatia and published in leading linguistic journals. Email: [email protected] Grace E. Fielder (Ph.D., UCLA) is a professor of Slavic Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition and Teaching at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Her research interests are discourse, pragmatics and sociolinguistic approaches to both synchronic and diachronic linguistics, and she has published on synchronic and diachronic issues in verbal categories and discourse markers of the Balkan languages. Email: [email protected] Mirjana Mišković-Luković is an assistant professor of English Linguistics at the University of Kragujevac, Serbia. Working primarily within the cognitive framework provided by Relevance Theory, her main research interest lies in semantics and pragmatics of discourse connectives and particles. She has published in proceedings and journals such as Pragmatics, Journal of Pragmatics, Cognition in Language Use, Interaction and Cognition in Linguistics (Peter Lang) and Filološki pregled. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Belgrade. Email: [email protected] Aida Premilovac is an independent scholar. She holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Georgetown University. She has presented and published on language and identity in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina and translated books on war trauma in women (The Years of Support: Psychosocial Work in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2005; A Contextual Approach to Fear, Trauma and Loss, 2008). Her research interests include language in clinical settings, language planning and the language of death and dying. Email: [email protected]

164 South Slavic Discourse Particles

Alexandre Sévigny is an associate professor of communication studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He is also the co-director of the McMaster Communication Metrics Laboratory, which focuses on the theory and application of communication measurement. Sévigny has published in the areas of cognitive pragmatics, communication disorders, linguistic theory, applied linguistics and political communication. He is half Franco-Ontarian and half Macedonian, and a fluent speaker of both languages, as well as of English. Email: [email protected] Igor Ž. Žagar is a senior research fellow and the head of the Center for Discourse Studies at the Educational Research Institute in Ljubljana, and a professor in Rhetoric and Argumentation at the University of Maribor, Slovenia. He received his doctoral degree in Sociology of Culture from the University of Ljubljana. His interests lie in pragmatics, argumentation and rhetoric. He has lectured around the world and is the (co)author and editor of ten books and about a hundred articles. Email: [email protected]

Index

A action structureâ•… 33 ad hoc conceptâ•… 73, 74, 78, 81–83, 87 admirativeâ•… 40 adverbialsâ•… 5, 8, 21, 68, 71–72 adverbsâ•… 4–5, 8, 49, 73 adversative/adversativityâ•… 23–28, 31, 33, 34, 40, 42, 133, 134, 143 Albanianâ•… 13 alorsâ•… 125, 128–129 Anscombre, Jean-Claudeâ•… 138, 140 Argumentationâ•… 18, 133, 136– 138, 147–148 argumentative connectivesâ•… 133, 136, 139–140 orientationâ•… 137, 139–140, 160 relationâ•… 136 scalesâ•… 138 attitudeâ•… 37, 45, 51–54, 56–62, 72, 85–87, 104 B Balkan Sprachbundâ•… 13 Bosniakâ•… 16 Bosnianâ•…8, 11–12, 14–19, 91–107 broadeningâ•… 73 Bulgarianâ•… 9, 13, 16–17, 19, 23–42, 48 C cognitive effectsâ•… 6, 10, 11, 50, 77, 83 principle of relevanceâ•… 9 semantic informationâ•… 6 cohesion textualâ•… 31

colloquial registerâ•… 36 communicative intentionâ•… 10, 83 principle of relevanceâ•… 9 comprehension strategyâ•… 9 conceptual adjustmentâ•… 72, 74, 78 conclusion, implicatedâ•… 11, 119 conclusivityâ•… 111–112, 115, 119– 121, 124, 129 connectivesâ•… 5, 8, 23, 27–29, 31, 33, 36–37, 60, 117, 119, 129, 133, 135–137, 139–140, 160–161 connectivityâ•… 110–111, 117 constraintâ•… 3, 79 contextâ•… 11, 32–34, 113–115, 124, 127–130, 137 Croatianâ•…8, 11–12, 14–19, 47–48, 109–130 Croatian dialectsâ•… 15 Czechâ•… 14 D dakaraâ•… 129 decoding-inferentialâ•… 10 demonstrativesâ•…8, 91–95, 97, 102, 107–108 desemanticizationâ•…87 dialogueâ•… 25, 28–31 differential dictionariesâ•… 15 discourseâ•… 3 levelâ•… 39, 118 markerâ•… 2, 4–6, 29–34, 110 particleâ•… 5–6, 95–98, 102–107 discourse/pragmaticâ•… 1–3 dissociative attitudeâ•… 52, 87 doncâ•… 124–126, 128–130 Ducrot, Oswaldâ•… 137, 138, 140, 145, 161

E echoic mentionâ•… 49, 51–52 Egyptian-Macedonian speech communityâ•… 45–46 eliminationâ•… 27, 37 emphaticâ•… 65, 67, 78, 87 encoded meaningâ•… 3, 98 encyclopaedic entryâ•… 73, 77 entailmentâ•… 114 exchange structureâ•… 33, 36 explicatureâ•… 10, 58–60, 83, 85, 87 higher-levelâ•… 10, 60 extralinguistic contextual stimulusâ•… 115 F faceâ•… 35–37, 39 face-saving actionâ•… 36 face-threatening actâ•… 35, 39 fillersâ•…8 focus particleâ•… 67, 91 formal registerâ•… 36 G genreâ•… 29–30, 38 grammaticalizationâ•… 62, 118, 129 Greekâ•… 13, 29 Grice, H. P.â•… 27, 50 H homonymousâ•… 23, 32 I idea unitâ•… 34, 40 ideational structureâ•… 33 implicatureâ•… 10, 26, 81, 158–159 indexical symbolsâ•… 7 inferencesâ•… 3, 7, 59, 114–115, 123 inferential routeâ•… 27, 37 informal discourseâ•… 96–98, 104, 107

166 South Slavic Discourse Particles

information plane/stateâ•… 33, 34, 39 informative intentionâ•… 10, 112 instigative questionsâ•… 62 interjectionâ•… 36, 129 interrogativesâ•… 48 ironyâ•… 52, 53, 84–88 J Jakobson, Romanâ•… 7–8 jedinoâ•… 67 K Kopitar, Jernejâ•… 14 Kosovoâ•… 11 L lexical conceptâ•… 77–78, 80–82 likeâ•… 99 linguistic identityâ•… 46–47 semanticsâ•… 66 underdeterminacyâ•… 72–73 literal/less-than-literal (nonliteral)â•… 72–73, 77 logical entryâ•…82 logical formâ•… 10, 77, 101 loose talkâ•… 98 looseningâ•… 73–74, 81 M Macedonianâ•…8, 11–13, 16–17, 19, 45–63 Macedonian name controversyâ•… 13 markerâ•… 2–6 metarepresentationâ•… 49–51, 53, 63, 86 Misirkov, Krsteâ•… 13 Montenegrinâ•… 12, 14ff, 15 mutual manifestnessâ•… 10, 110, 126 mutual parallel adjustmentâ•… 11

N narrativeâ•… 25, 28–30, 115 narrowingâ•… 73, 122 negationâ•… 25 negative polarity itemâ•… 72 nije bašâ•…80 O onajâ•… 92–93, 102–104 optimal relevanceâ•… 9, 27 origin of particlesâ•…8 ostensive-inferentialâ•… 10 ostensionâ•… 9 P participation frameworkâ•… 33–34 particleâ•… 2–5, 7 Polishâ•… 14 polyphonyâ•… 146 polysemousâ•… 23, 32 pragmatic markerâ•… 2–3 premise, implicatedâ•… 11 presuppositionâ•… 36, 114 proceduralâ•… 6, 66 producerâ•… 146 Q quotativeâ•…84 R rebuttalâ•… 34 reformulationâ•… 112, 120–123, 129 reformulatorsâ•… 116–117, 126 registerâ•… 24–25, 28–29 relevance theoryâ•… 7, 9, 49–50, 59–60, 83, 91–92, 97–102, 105–107 repairâ•… 35, 101 reported speechâ•… 35–36, 84 representational-computationalâ•… 6

resemblanceâ•… 74–75, 83–84 interpretiveâ•… 49–50, 57–58 rhetorical questionsâ•… 126–127 Romanianâ•… 13 S samoâ•… 67, 77 semantic encodingâ•… 7 meaningâ•… 1–3 Serbianâ•… 9, 11–12, 14, 15, 17, 19, 48, 65–87 Serbo-Croatianâ•… 12–15, 47, 118 shiftersâ•… 7–8 Slovakâ•… 14 Slovenianâ•…8, 11–12, 14, 17–19, 48, 133–161 soâ•… 129 South Slavicâ•… 1, 11–17, 19, 48 dialectal continuumâ•… 11, 13 speaker intentionâ•… 50 specificatoryâ•… 65, 67–68, 87 spoken discourseâ•…8, 23 strengtheningâ•… 73–74, 80 T terminological conservatismâ•… 7–8 topoiâ•… 137–138 truth-conditionalâ•… 6 turn exchangeâ•… 34, 38 U upravoâ•… 67 utterance particleâ•… 5 uttering positionâ•… 154, 156 Y Yugoslaviaâ•… 11–16

Pragmatics & Beyond New Series A complete list of titles in this series can be found on www.benjamins.com 197 Dedaic, Mirjana N. and Mirjana Miskovic-Lukovic (eds.): South Slavic Discourse Particles. 2010. ix, 166 pp. 196 Streeck, Jürgen (ed.): New Adventures in Language and Interaction. vi, 269 pp. + index. Expected June 2010 195 Pahta, Päivi, Minna Nevala, Arja Nurmi and Minna Palander-Collin (eds.): Social Roles and Language Practices in Late Modern English. viii, 227 pp. + index. Expected June 2010 194 Kühnlein, Peter, Anton Benz and Candace L. Sidner (eds.): Constraints in Discourse 2. 2010. v, 180 pp. 193 Suomela-Salmi, Eija and Fred Dervin (eds.): Cross-Linguistic and Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Academic Discourse. 2009. vi, 299 pp. 192 Filipi, Anna: Toddler and Parent Interaction. The organisation of gaze, pointing and vocalisation. 2009. xiii, 268 pp. 191 Ogiermann, Eva: On Apologising in Negative and Positive Politeness Cultures. 2009. x, 296 pp. 190 Finch, Jason, Martin Gill, Anthony Johnson, Iris Lindahl-Raittila, Inna Lindgren, Tuija Virtanen and Brita Wårvik (eds.): Humane Readings. Essays on literary mediation and communication in honour of Roger D. Sell. 2009. xi, 160 pp. 189 Peikola, Matti, Janne Skaffari and Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen (eds.): Instructional Writing in English. Studies in honour of Risto Hiltunen. 2009. xiii, 240 pp. 188 Giltrow, Janet and Dieter Stein (eds.): Genres in the Internet. Issues in the theory of genre. 2009. ix, 294 pp. 187 Jucker, Andreas H. (ed.): Early Modern English News Discourse. Newspapers, pamphlets and scientific news discourse. 2009. vii, 227 pp. 186 Callies, Marcus: Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English. The syntax–pragmatics interface in second language acquisition. 2009. xviii, 293 pp. 185 Mazzon, Gabriella: Interactive Dialogue Sequences in Middle English Drama. 2009. ix, 228 pp. 184 Stenström, Anna-Brita and Annette Myre Jørgensen (eds.): Youngspeak in a Multilingual Perspective. 2009. vi, 206 pp. 183 Nurmi, Arja, Minna Nevala and Minna Palander-Collin (eds.): The Language of Daily Life in England (1400–1800). 2009. vii, 312 pp. 182 Norrick, Neal R. and Delia Chiaro (eds.): Humor in Interaction. 2009. xvii, 238 pp. 181 Maschler, Yael: Metalanguage in Interaction. Hebrew discourse markers. 2009. xvi, 258 pp. 180 Jones, Kimberly and Tsuyoshi Ono (eds.): Style Shifting in Japanese. 2008. vii, 335 pp. 179 Simões Lucas Freitas, Elsa: Taboo in Advertising. 2008. xix, 214 pp. 178 Schneider, Klaus P. and Anne Barron (eds.): Variational Pragmatics. A focus on regional varieties in pluricentric languages. 2008. vii, 371 pp. 177 Rue, Yong-Ju and Grace Zhang: Request Strategies. A comparative study in Mandarin Chinese and Korean. 2008. xv, 320 pp. 176 Jucker, Andreas H. and Irma Taavitsainen (eds.): Speech Acts in the History of English. 2008. viii, 318 pp. 175 Gómez González, María de los Ã†ngeles, J. Lachlan Mackenzie and Elsa M. González Ã†lvarez (eds.): Languages and Cultures in Contrast and Comparison. 2008. xxii, 364 pp. 174 Heyd, Theresa: Email Hoaxes. Form, function, genre ecology. 2008. vii, 239 pp. 173 Zanotto, Mara Sophia, Lynne Cameron and Marilda C. Cavalcanti (eds.): Confronting Metaphor in Use. An applied linguistic approach. 2008. vii, 315 pp. 172 Benz, Anton and Peter Kühnlein (eds.): Constraints in Discourse. 2008. vii, 292 pp. 171 Félix-Brasdefer, J. César: Politeness in Mexico and the United States. A contrastive study of the realization and perception of refusals. 2008. xiv, 195 pp. 170 Oakley, Todd and Anders Hougaard (eds.): Mental Spaces in Discourse and Interaction. 2008. vi, 262 pp. 169 Connor, Ulla, Ed Nagelhout and William Rozycki (eds.): Contrastive Rhetoric. Reaching to intercultural rhetoric. 2008. viii, 324 pp. 168 Proost, Kristel: Conceptual Structure in Lexical Items. The lexicalisation of communication concepts in English, German and Dutch. 2007. xii, 304 pp.

167 166 165 164

Bousfield, Derek: Impoliteness in Interaction. 2008. xiii, 281 pp. Nakane, Ikuko: Silence in Intercultural Communication. Perceptions and performance. 2007. xii, 240 pp. Bublitz, Wolfram and Axel Hübler (eds.): Metapragmatics in Use. 2007. viii, 301 pp. Englebretson, Robert (ed.): Stancetaking in Discourse. Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction. 2007. viii, 323 pp. 163 Lytra, Vally: Play Frames and Social Identities. Contact encounters in a Greek primary school. 2007. xii, 300 pp. 162 Fetzer, Anita (ed.): Context and Appropriateness. Micro meets macro. 2007. vi, 265 pp. 161 Celle, Agnès and Ruth Huart (eds.): Connectives as Discourse Landmarks. 2007. viii, 212 pp. 160 Fetzer, Anita and Gerda Eva Lauerbach (eds.): Political Discourse in the Media. Cross-cultural perspectives. 2007. viii, 379 pp. 159 Maynard, Senko K.: Linguistic Creativity in Japanese Discourse. Exploring the multiplicity of self, perspective, and voice. 2007. xvi, 356 pp. 158 Walker, Terry: Thou and You in Early Modern English Dialogues. Trials, Depositions, and Drama Comedy. 2007. xx, 339 pp. 157 Crawford Camiciottoli, Belinda: The Language of Business Studies Lectures. A corpus-assisted analysis. 2007. xvi, 236 pp. 156 Vega Moreno, Rosa E.: Creativity and Convention. The pragmatics of everyday figurative speech. 2007. xii, 249 pp. 155 Hedberg, Nancy and Ron Zacharski (eds.): The Grammar–Pragmatics Interface. Essays in honor of Jeanette K. Gundel. 2007. viii, 345 pp. 154 Hübler, Axel: The Nonverbal Shift in Early Modern English Conversation. 2007. x, 281 pp. 153 Arnovick, Leslie K.: Written Reliquaries. The resonance of orality in medieval English texts. 2006. xii, 292 pp. 152 Warren, Martin: Features of Naturalness in Conversation. 2006. x, 272 pp. 151 Suzuki, Satoko (ed.): Emotive Communication in Japanese. 2006. x, 234 pp. 150 Busse, Beatrix: Vocative Constructions in the Language of Shakespeare. 2006. xviii, 525 pp. 149 Locher, Miriam A.: Advice Online. Advice-giving in an American Internet health column. 2006. xvi, 277 pp. 148 Fløttum, Kjersti, Trine Dahl and Torodd Kinn: Academic Voices. Across languages and disciplines. 2006. x, 309 pp. 147 Hinrichs, Lars: Codeswitching on the Web. English and Jamaican Creole in e-mail communication. 2006. x, 302 pp. 146 Tanskanen, Sanna-Kaisa: Collaborating towards Coherence. Lexical cohesion in English discourse. 2006. ix, 192 pp. 145 Kurhila, Salla: Second Language Interaction. 2006. vii, 257 pp. 144 Bührig, Kristin and Jan D. ten Thije (eds.): Beyond Misunderstanding. Linguistic analyses of intercultural communication. 2006. vi, 339 pp. 143 Baker, Carolyn, Michael Emmison and Alan Firth (eds.): Calling for Help. Language and social interaction in telephone helplines. 2005. xviii, 352 pp. 142 Sidnell, Jack: Talk and Practical Epistemology. The social life of knowledge in a Caribbean community. 2005. xvi, 255 pp. 141 Zhu, Yunxia: Written Communication across Cultures. A sociocognitive perspective on business genres. 2005. xviii, 216 pp. 140 Butler, Christopher S., María de los Ã†ngeles Gómez González and Susana M. Doval-Suárez (eds.): The Dynamics of Language Use. Functional and contrastive perspectives. 2005. xvi, 413 pp. 139 Lakoff, Robin T. and Sachiko Ide (eds.): Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness. 2005. xii, 342 pp. 138 Müller, Simone: Discourse Markers in Native and Non-native English Discourse. 2005. xviii, 290 pp. 137 Morita, Emi: Negotiation of Contingent Talk. The Japanese interactional particles ne and sa. 2005. xvi, 240 pp. 136 Sassen, Claudia: Linguistic Dimensions of Crisis Talk. Formalising structures in a controlled language. 2005. ix, 230 pp. 135 Archer, Dawn: Questions and Answers in the English Courtroom (1640–1760). A sociopragmatic analysis. 2005. xiv, 374 pp.

134 Skaffari, Janne, Matti Peikola, Ruth Carroll, Risto Hiltunen and Brita Wårvik (eds.): Opening Windows on Texts and Discourses of the Past. 2005. x, 418 pp. 133 Marnette, Sophie: Speech and Thought Presentation in French. Concepts and strategies. 2005. xiv, 379 pp. 132 Onodera, Noriko O.: Japanese Discourse Markers. Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis. 2004. xiv, 253 pp. 131 Janoschka, Anja: Web Advertising. New forms of communication on the Internet. 2004. xiv, 230 pp. 130 Halmari, Helena and Tuija Virtanen (eds.): Persuasion Across Genres. A linguistic approach. 2005. x, 257 pp. 129 Taboada, María Teresa: Building Coherence and Cohesion. Task-oriented dialogue in English and Spanish. 2004. xvii, 264 pp. 128 Cordella, Marisa: The Dynamic Consultation. A discourse analytical study of doctor–patient communication. 2004. xvi, 254 pp. 127 Brisard, Frank, Michael Meeuwis and Bart Vandenabeele (eds.): Seduction, Community, Speech. A Festschrift for Herman Parret. 2004. vi, 202 pp. 126 Wu, Yi’an: Spatial Demonstratives in English and Chinese. Text and Cognition. 2004. xviii, 236 pp. 125 Lerner, Gene H. (ed.): Conversation Analysis. Studies from the first generation. 2004. x, 302 pp. 124 Vine, Bernadette: Getting Things Done at Work. The discourse of power in workplace interaction. 2004. x, 278 pp. 123 Márquez Reiter, Rosina and María Elena Placencia (eds.): Current Trends in the Pragmatics of Spanish. 2004. xvi, 383 pp. 122 González, Montserrat: Pragmatic Markers in Oral Narrative. The case of English and Catalan. 2004. xvi, 410 pp. 121 Fetzer, Anita: Recontextualizing Context. Grammaticality meets appropriateness. 2004. x, 272 pp. 120 Aijmer, Karin and Anna-Brita Stenström (eds.): Discourse Patterns in Spoken and Written Corpora. 2004. viii, 279 pp. 119 Hiltunen, Risto and Janne Skaffari (eds.): Discourse Perspectives on English. Medieval to modern. 2003. viii, 243 pp. 118 Cheng, Winnie: Intercultural Conversation. 2003. xii, 279 pp. 117 Wu, Ruey-Jiuan Regina: Stance in Talk. A conversation analysis of Mandarin final particles. 2004. xvi, 260 pp. 116 Grant, Colin B. (ed.): Rethinking Communicative Interaction. New interdisciplinary horizons. 2003. viii, 330 pp. 115 Kärkkäinen, Elise: Epistemic Stance in English Conversation. A description of its interactional functions, with a focus on I think. 2003. xii, 213 pp. 114 Kühnlein, Peter, Hannes Rieser and Henk Zeevat (eds.): Perspectives on Dialogue in the New Millennium. 2003. xii, 400 pp. 113 Panther, Klaus-Uwe and Linda L. Thornburg (eds.): Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing. 2003. xii, 285 pp. 112 Lenz, Friedrich (ed.): Deictic Conceptualisation of Space, Time and Person. 2003. xiv, 279 pp. 111 Ensink, Titus and Christoph Sauer (eds.): Framing and Perspectivising in Discourse. 2003. viii, 227 pp. 110 Androutsopoulos, Jannis K. and Alexandra Georgakopoulou (eds.): Discourse Constructions of Youth Identities. 2003. viii, 343 pp. 109 Mayes, Patricia: Language, Social Structure, and Culture. A genre analysis of cooking classes in Japan and America. 2003. xiv, 228 pp. 108 Barron, Anne: Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics. Learning how to do things with words in a study abroad context. 2003. xviii, 403 pp. 107 Taavitsainen, Irma and Andreas H. Jucker (eds.): Diachronic Perspectives on Address Term Systems. 2003. viii, 446 pp. 106 Busse, Ulrich: Linguistic Variation in the Shakespeare Corpus. Morpho-syntactic variability of second person pronouns. 2002. xiv, 344 pp. 105 Blackwell, Sarah E.: Implicatures in Discourse. The case of Spanish NP anaphora. 2003. xvi, 303 pp. 104 Beeching, Kate: Gender, Politeness and Pragmatic Particles in French. 2002. x, 251 pp. 103 Fetzer, Anita and Christiane Meierkord (eds.): Rethinking Sequentiality. Linguistics meets conversational interaction. 2002. vi, 300 pp.

102 Leafgren, John: Degrees of Explicitness. Information structure and the packaging of Bulgarian subjects and objects. 2002. xii, 252 pp. 101 Luke, K. K. and Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou (eds.): Telephone Calls. Unity and diversity in conversational structure across languages and cultures. 2002. x, 295 pp. 100 Jaszczolt, Katarzyna M. and Ken Turner (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume 2. 2003. viii, 496 pp. 99 Jaszczolt, Katarzyna M. and Ken Turner (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume 1. 2003. xii, 388 pp. 98 Duszak, Anna (ed.): Us and Others. Social identities across languages, discourses and cultures. 2002. viii, 522 pp. 97 Maynard, Senko K.: Linguistic Emotivity. Centrality of place, the topic-comment dynamic, and an ideology of pathos in Japanese discourse. 2002. xiv, 481 pp. 96 Haverkate, Henk: The Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics of Spanish Mood. 2002. vi, 241 pp. 95 Fitzmaurice, Susan M.: The Familiar Letter in Early Modern English. A pragmatic approach. 2002. viii, 263 pp. 94 McIlvenny, Paul (ed.): Talking Gender and Sexuality. 2002. x, 332 pp. 93 Baron, Bettina and Helga Kotthoff (eds.): Gender in Interaction. Perspectives on femininity and masculinity in ethnography and discourse. 2002. xxiv, 357 pp. 92 Gardner, Rod: When Listeners Talk. Response tokens and listener stance. 2001. xxii, 281 pp. 91 Gross, Joan: Speaking in Other Voices. An ethnography of Walloon puppet theaters. 2001. xxviii, 341 pp. 90 Kenesei, István and Robert M. Harnish (eds.): Perspectives on Semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse. A Festschrift for Ferenc Kiefer. 2001. xxii, 352 pp. 89 Itakura, Hiroko: Conversational Dominance and Gender. A study of Japanese speakers in first and second language contexts. 2001. xviii, 231 pp. 88 Bayraktaroğlu, Arın and Maria Sifianou (eds.): Linguistic Politeness Across Boundaries. The case of Greek and Turkish. 2001. xiv, 439 pp. 87 Mushin, Ilana: Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance. Narrative Retelling. 2001. xviii, 244 pp. 86 Ifantidou, Elly: Evidentials and Relevance. 2001. xii, 225 pp. 85 Collins, Daniel E.: Reanimated Voices. Speech reporting in a historical-pragmatic perspective. 2001. xx, 384 pp. 84 Andersen, Gisle: Pragmatic Markers and Sociolinguistic Variation. A relevance-theoretic approach to the language of adolescents. 2001. ix, 352 pp. 83 Márquez Reiter, Rosina: Linguistic Politeness in Britain and Uruguay. A contrastive study of requests and apologies. 2000. xviii, 225 pp. 82 Khalil, Esam N.: Grounding in English and Arabic News Discourse. 2000. x, 274 pp. 81 Di Luzio, Aldo, Susanne Günthner and Franca Orletti (eds.): Culture in Communication. Analyses of intercultural situations. 2001. xvi, 341 pp. 80 Ungerer, Friedrich (ed.): English Media Texts – Past and Present. Language and textual structure. 2000. xiv, 286 pp. 79 Andersen, Gisle and Thorstein Fretheim (eds.): Pragmatic Markers and Propositional Attitude. 2000. viii, 273 pp. 78 Sell, Roger D.: Literature as Communication. The foundations of mediating criticism. 2000. xiv, 348 pp. 77 Vanderveken, Daniel and Susumu Kubo (eds.): Essays in Speech Act Theory. 2002. vi, 328 pp. 76 Matsui, Tomoko: Bridging and Relevance. 2000. xii, 251 pp. 75 Pilkington, Adrian: Poetic Effects. A relevance theory perspective. 2000. xiv, 214 pp. 74 Trosborg, Anna (ed.): Analysing Professional Genres. 2000. xvi, 256 pp. 73 Hester, Stephen K. and David Francis (eds.): Local Educational Order. Ethnomethodological studies of knowledge in action. 2000. viii, 326 pp. 72 Marmaridou, Sophia: Pragmatic Meaning and Cognition. 2000. xii, 322 pp. 71 Gómez González, María de los Ã†ngeles: The Theme–Topic Interface. Evidence from English. 2001. xxiv, 438 pp. 70 Sorjonen, Marja-Leena: Responding in Conversation. A study of response particles in Finnish. 2001. x, 330 pp. 69 Noh, Eun-Ju: Metarepresentation. A relevance-theory approach. 2000. xii, 242 pp. 68 Arnovick, Leslie K.: Diachronic Pragmatics. Seven case studies in English illocutionary development. 2000. xii, 196 pp. 67 Taavitsainen, Irma, Gunnel Melchers and Päivi Pahta (eds.): Writing in Nonstandard English. 2000. viii, 404 pp.

South Slavic Discourse Particles (Pragmatics and Beyond. New Series)

Constraints in Discourse 2 (Pragmatics and Beyond. New Series)

Constraints in Discourse (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series, 172)

Connectives As Discourse Landmarks (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Discourse Constructions of Youth Identities (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

Discourse Constructions of Youth Identities (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

Perspectives on Semantics, Pragmatics and Discourse: A Festschrift for Ferenc Kiefer (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Discourse Markers in Native And Non-native English Discourse (Pragmatics and Beyond. New Series)

Early Modern English News Discourse: Newspapers, pamphlets and scientific news discourse (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Japanese Discourse Markers: Synchronic And Diachronic Discourse Analysis (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Cognitive Semantics: Meaning and Cognition (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Verbal Aspect in Discourse (Pragmatics & Beyond)

Mental Spaces in Discourse and Interaction (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Impoliteness in Interaction (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Humor in Interaction (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Cognitive Semantics: Meaning and Cognition (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

Style Shifting in Japanese (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Second Language Interaction (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Youngspeak in a Multilingual Perspective (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Recontextualizing Context: Grammaticality Meets Appropriateness (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Metapragmatics in Use (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Discourse Perspectives on English: Medieval to Modern (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Collaborating towards Coherence: Lexical cohesion in English discourse (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Creativity and Convention: The pragmatics of everyday figurative speech (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Approaches to Discourse Particles

Hedging in Scientific Research Articles (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

Political Discourse in Transition in Europe 1989-1991 (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

Discourse Description: Diverse Linguistic Analyses of a Fund-raising Text (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

Political Discourse in the Media: Cross-cultural Perspectives (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

South Slavic Discourse Particles (Pragmatics and Beyond. New Series)

Constraints in Discourse 2 (Pragmatics and Beyond. New Series)

Constraints in Discourse (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series, 172)

Connectives As Discourse Landmarks (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Discourse Constructions of Youth Identities (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

Discourse Constructions of Youth Identities (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

Perspectives on Semantics, Pragmatics and Discourse: A Festschrift for Ferenc Kiefer (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Discourse Markers in Native And Non-native English Discourse (Pragmatics and Beyond. New Series)

Early Modern English News Discourse: Newspapers, pamphlets and scientific news discourse (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Japanese Discourse Markers: Synchronic And Diachronic Discourse Analysis (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Cognitive Semantics: Meaning and Cognition (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Verbal Aspect in Discourse (Pragmatics & Beyond)

Mental Spaces in Discourse and Interaction (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Impoliteness in Interaction (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Humor in Interaction (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Cognitive Semantics: Meaning and Cognition (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

Style Shifting in Japanese (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Second Language Interaction (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Youngspeak in a Multilingual Perspective (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Recontextualizing Context: Grammaticality Meets Appropriateness (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Metapragmatics in Use (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Discourse Perspectives on English: Medieval to Modern (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Collaborating towards Coherence: Lexical cohesion in English discourse (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Creativity and Convention: The pragmatics of everyday figurative speech (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

Approaches to Discourse Particles

Hedging in Scientific Research Articles (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

Political Discourse in Transition in Europe 1989-1991 (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

Discourse Description: Diverse Linguistic Analyses of a Fund-raising Text (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

Political Discourse in the Media: Cross-cultural Perspectives (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

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