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Article published In:
Languages in Contrast
Vol. 17:2 (2017) ► pp.205–228

I was going to say / j’allais dire as discourse markers in contemporary English and French

| University Paris Diderot, CLILLAC-ARP EA 3967

This paper investigates two emerging discourse markers based on verbs of saying in English and French – I was going to say and j’allais dire. Relying on various comparable corpora, the author shows that the markers under scrutiny have developed a similar use as “reduced parenthetical clauses” mitigating discourse. The corpus study also reveals an interesting difference, namely that I was going to say stands as a topical transition marker in some of its uses. It is thus hypothesized that the two markers do not exactly follow the same pragmaticalisation path.

Keywords: contrastive analysis, discourse markers, parentheticals, pragmaticalisation, English/French
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Presentation of the data
    • 2.1Comparable data
    • 2.2Selection of relevant occurrences
    • 2.3Distribution across corpora
  • 3.I was going to say and j’allais dire as DMs
    • 3.1 I was going to say and j’allais dire as “reduced parenthetical clauses”
    • 3.2From temporal markers to RPCs: a case of grammaticalisation or pragmaticalisation?
  • 4.Syntactic features
    • 4.1Position
    • 4.2Scope
  • 5.Semantic-pragmatic analysis
    • 5.1 J’allais dire: minimal speaker commitment and denomination
      • Type 1.Coexistence p/p’: reformulation
        • P’, j’allais dire p
        • J’allais dire p, p’
      • Type 2.J’allais dire p/p j’allais dire
    • 5.2 I was going to say: minimal speaker commitment, denomination and topical transition
      • Type 1.Coexistence p/p’: reformulation
      • Type 2.Only p
  • 6.Results
  • Notes
  • References
  • Corpora
Published online: 19 September 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.17.2.03lan
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Corpora

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, Présentation du corpus OFRUM – corpus oral de français de Suisse romande. Université de Neuchâtel 2012–2014, [URL]
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Cited by

Cited by 6 other publications

Awwad, Mousa, Marwan Jarrah & Ekab Al-Shawashreh
2023. The discourse uses of the verb dire ‘to say’ in Vernacular French: A corpus-based exploration. Cogent Arts & Humanities 10:1 DOI logo
Bres, Jacques & Emmanuelle Labeau
2018. Des constructions de aller et de venir grammaticalisés en auxiliaires. Syntaxe & Sémantique N° 19:1 ► pp. 49 ff. DOI logo
Lansari, Laure
2020. Overview of the Corpus Findings. In A Contrastive View of Discourse Markers, ► pp. 95 ff. DOI logo
Lansari, Laure
2020. Defining a Theoretical and Methodological Framework for DMs of “Saying”. In A Contrastive View of Discourse Markers, ► pp. 49 ff. DOI logo
Lansari, Laure
2020. Introduction: Discourse Markers Within Different Linguistic Traditions. In A Contrastive View of Discourse Markers, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Lansari, Laure
2020. Corpus Findings II: J’allais dire and I Was Going to Say. In A Contrastive View of Discourse Markers, ► pp. 175 ff. DOI logo

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