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Pragmatic Markers, Discourse Markers and Modal Particles: New perspectives
Edited by Chiara Fedriani and Andrea Sansó
[Studies in Language Companion Series 186] 2017
► pp. 257–287

Chapter 9
Vocatives as a source category for pragmatic markers

From deixis to discourse marking via affectivity

| Ludwig Maximilian University Munich
| University of Mainz

This paper considers familiarizers, a special class of vocatives denoting solidarity and intimacy, as possible sources for pragmatic markers and discourse markers. We argue that affectivity plays a crucial role in the use of vocatives in general and especially in this functional development. More precisely, terms of address have the potential to intensify the affectivity displayed by the speaker. In this quality, they may be employed as linguistic strategies to enhance the expressive and illocutionary force of utterances. These expressive uses may be the source of several more peculiar functions related to turn and information management. While this holds for familiarizers as well as for vocatives in general, not interferring with the deictic force of addressing contained in the vocative form, in several languages there are familiarizers which undergo an inflationary use and end up as mere elements of discourse marking, emphasizing and delimiting sequential units such as turns, utterances, and intonation units. The deictic reference to the collocutor is virtually lost, which is shown by the typical fossilization of the masculine singular form in the newly derived functions. We illustrate this development with vocative-based markers in different languages with special focus on the familiarizers güey in Mexican Spanish and alter in German. Although their sociopragmatic indexicalities are far from identical, this comparative approach reveals some interesting similarities. In our view, a definition as ‘pragmatic markers’ is justified for vocative-based markers at any point of their evolution, while the term ‘discourse marker’ should be restricted to functions that are no longer directly inferable from the vocative’s deictic and expressive qualities.

Keywords: vocatives, development of discourse markers, affectivity, expressivity, solidarity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Vocatives and familiarizers
  • 3.Affectivity and expressivity
    • 3.1Affective stance: A sociolinguistic notion
    • 3.2Expressive functions of vocative-based markers
  • 4.Functions of discourse organization
  • 5.The evolution of güey and alter
    • 5.1Sociopragmatic indexicalities
    • 5.2 Güey
    • 5.3 Alter
    • 5.4Discourse markers vs. pragmatic markers
  • 6.Conclusions: Affectivity as a catalyst
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 November 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.186.10kle
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