Diachronic studies of discourse markers suggest they follow a unidirectional developmental path, from propositional to textual and expressive uses. The present study tests whether children acquire the propositional (literal) before the expressive (pragmatic) functions of two adversative… read more
This corpus-based study investigates the inter-relation between discourse markers (DMs) and other contextual signals that contribute to the interpretation of coherence relations. The objectives are three-fold: (i) to provide a comprehensive and systematic portrait of the syntax and semantics of… read more
Coherence relations are expressed differently across languages, often leading to language learners misusing discourse connectives. We argue that the ability to detect these errors crucially depends on the coherence relation under scrutiny, as errors may remain unnoticed when the relation is… read more
This paper provides the first contrastive analysis of a coherence relation (viz. addition) and its connectives across a sign language (French Belgian Sign Language) and a spoken language (French), both used in the same geographical area. The analysis examines the frequency and types of… read more
In this study, we analyze to what extent the type of unit influences the position and function of discourse markers (DMs). By comparing DM use across peripheries and across units, we aim to identify which linguistic level (syntax, intonation, turns) is most functionally and cognitively motivated.… read more
The disambiguation and processing of coherence relations is often investigated with a focus on explicit connectives, such as but or so. Other, non-connective cues from the context also facilitate discourse inferences, although their precise disambiguating role and interaction with connectives… read more
This paper discusses the relevance and challenges of a corpus-based investigation of the scope of discourse markers. It builds on Lenk’s (1998) distinction between local and global scope of discourse markers and maps it with annotation variables available in existing corpora. Given the interplay of… read more
This chapter presents an empirical method for the identification and annotation of discourse markers (DMs) in in spontaneous spoken French (MDMA project). Central to the proposal is the assumption that DMs may be described as clusters of features that, in specific patterns of combination, allow… read more
The field of discourse markers (DMs) studies suffers from lack of consensus on the limits and definition of the category. There seems to be a crucial need for onomasiological studies that account for every kind of DM in cross-linguistic data. This study presents a proposal for an operational,… read more
While discourse markers (DMs) and (dis)fluency have been extensively studied in the past as separate phenomena, corpus-based research combining large-scale yet fine-grained annotations of both categories has, however, never been carried out before. Integrating these two levels of analysis, while… read more
This article presents a corpus-based contrastive study of (dis)fluency in French and English, focusing on the clustering of discourse markers (DMs) and filled pauses (FPs) across various spoken registers. Starting from the hypothesis that markers of (dis)fluency, or ‘fluencemes’, occur more… read more