Open AccessDISCOURSE MARKERS IN THE LEXICAL CONSTRUCTIONAL MODEL: THE CASE OF THE ‘SO WHAT X’ CONSTRUCTION
Author(s) -
Alicia Galera Masegosa
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
revista de lingüística y lenguas aplicadas
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.175
H-Index - 3
eISSN - 1886-6298
pISSN - 1886-2438
DOI - 10.4995/rlyla.2010.752
Subject(s) - relevance theory , relevance (law) , utterance , interpretation (philosophy) , meaning (existential) , linguistics , discourse marker , sentence , perspective (graphical) , discourse analysis , psychology , computer science , epistemology , artificial intelligence , philosophy , cognition , political science , neuroscience , law
This article argues for an alternative analysis of discourse markers to that proposed within relevance-theoretic approaches, which attribute procedural (as opposed to conceptual) meaning to these words. This study provides a new perspective that brings together the main contributions of Relevance Theory (RT) and those that arise from the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM), thus shedding light on the role of discourse markers within sentence meaning. Rather than offering procedural information, discourse markers activate high-level conceptual mechanisms that help the hearer in his/her choice of the most appropriate interpretation of utterances. Furthermore, the present paper provides a fully-fl edged analysis of discourse markers and their contribution to implicated meaning, fi lling the gaps observable in relevance-theoretic views. Specifically, So and and have been found to be determinant elements in the creation of a new construction, the So Wh- X? construction, which explains the uncompromising importance of discourse markers in utterance interpretation. This article argues for an alternative analysis of discourse markers to that proposed within relevance-theoretic approaches, which attribute procedural (as opposed to conceptual) meaning to these words.This study provides a new perspective that brings together the main contributions of Relevance Theory (RT)and those that arise from the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM), thus shedding light on the role of discourse markers within sentence meaning. Rather than offering procedural information, discourse markers activate high-level conceptual mechanisms that help the hearer in his/her choice of the most appropriate interpretation of utterances. Furthermore, the present paper provides a fully-fl edged analysis of discourse markers and their contribution to implicated meaning, fi lling the gaps observable in relevance-theoretic views. Specifically, So and and have been found to be determinant elements in the creation of a new construction, the So Wh- X? construction, which explains the uncompromising importance of discourse markers in utterance interpretation