Meaning potentials and discourse markers: The case of focus management markers in Persian

This study takes a corpus-based discourse analysis approach to provide an overview of a class of discourse markers that primarily take part in the information structure of Persian and function as focus management markers. It is shown that the original lexical forms of the discourse markers digé, hâlâ, and tâzé share a temporal semantic feature which has seemingly resulted in shared discourse functions. As a discourse marker, digé predominantly appears in multi-nuclear discourse where paratactic relations exist. Digé functions cataphorically to point forward to an upcoming discourse unit; whereas, tâzé operates within hypotactic units, marks subordinate discourse segments, and functions anaphorically to point back to a prior discourse segment. The host units of the discourse marker hâlâ, on the other hand, are nuclear segments with final locus in the discourse. Hâlâ typically anchors focus in the discourse.
Source: Lingua - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research