Discourse and Pragmatic Markers from Latin to the Romance Languages [Hardcover]

This book examines the historical development of discourse and pragmatic markers across the Romance languages. These markers serve to indicate the organization of the discourse, the speaker's relationship with the interlocutor, and the speaker's stance with regard to the information expressed. Their relevance is in assisting interpretation, despite the fact that they have little or no propositional content.

In this book, distinguished scholars from different theoretical backgrounds analyse the different classes of discourse and pragmatic markers found in Latin and the Romance languages and explore both their diachronic development and their synchronic properties. Following an introduction and overview of the development of these markers, the book is divided into two parts: the first part investigates pragmatic markers developed from verbs, such as Latinquaeso, Romanianma rog, and Spanisho sea; the second looks at adverbs as discourse markers, such as Frenchdejaand Italiangia, Romanianatunciand Portuguesealias. Chapters address a variety of theoretical issues such as the cyclic nature of functional developments, the nature of grammaticalization and pragmaticalization, semantic change, and the emergence of new pragmatic values. The arguments presented also have consequences for any analysis of the interfaces between grammar, discourse, and interaction.

1. Discourse and pragmatic markers from Latin to the Romance languages: New insights,Chiara Ghezzi and Piera Molinelli
2. The development of discourse and pragmatic markers,Chiara Ghezzi
1 VERBS AS PRAGMATIC MARKERS
3. Call markers in French, Italian, and Romanian,Maria Iliescu
4. On disagreement markers in French and Romanian dialogue,Adriana Costachescu
5. Deverbal pragmatic markers from Latin to Italian (Lat. quaeso and It. prego): The cyclic nature of functional developmentlÃq