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Article published In:
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Vol. 23:4 (2018) ► pp.467–493

General extenders and discourse variation

A focus on Lithuanian

| Vytautas Magnus University

The present study accounts for the use of general extenders (GEs) in spoken and written registers. The repertoire and usage of GEs is analysed in Lithuanian by focusing on their distribution across different registers, their structural properties, and discourse-pragmatic functions. The study is based on a reference corpus of Lithuanian, which includes four subcorpora of written discourse and a subcorpus of spoken discourse. The findings indicate that there are some significant cross-generic differences in GE frequency, but most frequently GEs in Lithuanian are used in written academic discourse. With regard to the structural types of GEs, adjunctives are considerably more frequent than disjunctives. GE structure allows for a large degree of variation, and in spoken interaction GEs can include deictic elements. Concerning discourse-pragmatic functions, GEs are predominantly used to serve textual and interpersonal functions, which appear to be strongly related to the structural type of the GE and discourse settings.

Keywords: general extenders, vague language, spoken Lithuanian, discourse variation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Context-sensitivity and variation of GEs
  • 3.Data and methodology
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1GE variation across registers: Spoken vs. written
    • 4.2Structural features of Lithuanian GEs
    • 4.3Qualitative analysis of discourse-pragmatic functions
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 27 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.17019.ruz
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