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Similarity of mirative and contrastive focus: three parameters for describing attention markers

  • Juha Yliniemi EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: November 1, 2021

Abstract

This article addresses the heretofore unacknowledged similarity of mirative-like and contrastive-focus-like functions by describing data from Denjongke (Tibetic, sip), Bih (Chamic, Vietnam, ibh) and Nepali (Indo-Aryan, nep). The similarity between mirative-like and contrastive-focus-like functions in the aforementioned languages is captured by the notion of something being brought to the forefront of attention. Mirative-like semantics are shown to be epiphenomenal to attention-oriented phenomena, and the functional domain in which the morphemes operate is shown to be attention rather than knowledge structure. The morphemes in the study are described in terms of three parameters, which are put forward as potentially useful tools for describing similar morphemes in other languages: speaker versus addressee orientation, clausal versus phrasal scope, and anaphoric versus cataphoric use. The first two parameters form a fourfold table in which the heuristically named “mirative-like function” has clausal scope and is speaker-oriented (i.e. speaker signals that something has come to the forefront of their attention). “Contrastive-focus-like function”, on the other hand, has phrasal scope and is addressee-oriented (i.e. speaker intends to bring something to the forefront of the addressee’s attention). Cognitively, contrastive-focus-like function is shown to establish joint attention.


Corresponding author: Juha Yliniemi ['juhɑ 'yliniemi], SIL International, Leppävesi, Finland, E-mail:

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Seppo Kittilä, Kaius Sinnemäki, Anette Tombleson, Steve Watters and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on previous versions of this paper. Needless to say, remaining errors are mine.

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Received: 2020-11-30
Accepted: 2021-09-05
Published Online: 2021-11-01
Published in Print: 2023-05-25

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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