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Chapter 9. Vocatives as a source category for pragmatic markers

From deixis to discourse marking via affectivity
  • Friederike Kleinknecht and Miguel Souza
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Pragmatic Markers, Discourse Markers and Modal Particles
This chapter is in the book Pragmatic Markers, Discourse Markers and Modal Particles

Abstract

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.

Abstract

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.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface ix
  4. Introduction. Pragmatic Markers, Discourse Markers and Modal Particles 1
  5. Part 1. General theoretical questions and quantitative approaches
  6. Chapter 1. The emergence of Hebrew loydea / loydat (‘I dunno masc/fem ’) from interaction 37
  7. Chapter 2. Towards a model for discourse marker annotation 71
  8. Chapter 3. Towards an operational category of discourse markers 99
  9. Chapter 4. A corpus-based approach to functional markers in Greek 125
  10. Chapter 5. Discourse markers and discourse relations 151
  11. Part 2. The status of modal particles
  12. Chapter 6. Modal particles and Verum focus 171
  13. Chapter 7. Italian non-canonical negations as modal particles 203
  14. Chapter 8. A format for the description of German modal particles and their functional equivalents in Croatian and English 229
  15. Part 3. Language-specific and diachronic studies
  16. Chapter 9. Vocatives as a source category for pragmatic markers 257
  17. Chapter 10. Paths of development of English DMs 289
  18. Chapter 11. Grammaticalization of PMs/DMs/MMs in Japanese 305
  19. Chapter 12. Dubitative-corrective constructions in Italian 335
  20. Chapter 13. On the pragmatic expansion of Polish gdzieś tam ‘somewhere (there)/about’ 369
  21. Chapter 14. A pragmatic approach to Joseph Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary 399
  22. Part 4. Language contact and variation
  23. Chapter 15. Italian discourse markers and modal particles in contact 417
  24. Chapter 16. Functional markers in llanito code-switching 439
  25. Chapter 17. Just a suggestion 459
  26. Author index 481
  27. Language index 487
  28. Subject index 489
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.186.10kle

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface ix
  4. Introduction. Pragmatic Markers, Discourse Markers and Modal Particles 1
  5. Part 1. General theoretical questions and quantitative approaches
  6. Chapter 1. The emergence of Hebrew loydea / loydat (‘I dunno masc/fem ’) from interaction 37
  7. Chapter 2. Towards a model for discourse marker annotation 71
  8. Chapter 3. Towards an operational category of discourse markers 99
  9. Chapter 4. A corpus-based approach to functional markers in Greek 125
  10. Chapter 5. Discourse markers and discourse relations 151
  11. Part 2. The status of modal particles
  12. Chapter 6. Modal particles and Verum focus 171
  13. Chapter 7. Italian non-canonical negations as modal particles 203
  14. Chapter 8. A format for the description of German modal particles and their functional equivalents in Croatian and English 229
  15. Part 3. Language-specific and diachronic studies
  16. Chapter 9. Vocatives as a source category for pragmatic markers 257
  17. Chapter 10. Paths of development of English DMs 289
  18. Chapter 11. Grammaticalization of PMs/DMs/MMs in Japanese 305
  19. Chapter 12. Dubitative-corrective constructions in Italian 335
  20. Chapter 13. On the pragmatic expansion of Polish gdzieś tam ‘somewhere (there)/about’ 369
  21. Chapter 14. A pragmatic approach to Joseph Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary 399
  22. Part 4. Language contact and variation
  23. Chapter 15. Italian discourse markers and modal particles in contact 417
  24. Chapter 16. Functional markers in llanito code-switching 439
  25. Chapter 17. Just a suggestion 459
  26. Author index 481
  27. Language index 487
  28. Subject index 489
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