Chapter published in:
Information-Structural Perspectives on Discourse Particles
Edited by Pierre-Yves Modicom and Olivier Duplâtre
[Studies in Language Companion Series 213] 2020
► pp. 27–46

Chapter 1
Discourse particle position and information structure

| University of California

Discourse markers differ cross-linguistically not only in their functions but also in their positions within the sentence. Some are sentence-initial, some are sentence-final, and some occur in what has been termed the ‘middle-field’. But many appear simply in second position in the sentence. In many cases the positions of the markers can be explained in terms of the source constructions from which they emerged. Here one likely pathway of development is traced in Mohawk, indigenous to North America, illustrated with a pervasive marker of discourse coherence. Patterns in the modern language suggest that it and others emerged from marked information structures, which, over time, evolved into basic clause structures via familiar mechanisms of grammaticalization.

Article outline
  • 1.The position of discourse markers
  • 2.Mohawk
  • 3.Topic shift constructions
  • 4.Focus constructions
  • 5.Antitopic constructions
  • 6.Grammaticalization
  • 7.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 04 March 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.213.01mit
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