Information structure and grammaticalization. Discourse markers and utterance position in Catalan and German

Abstract

Summary: This paper explores the relation between the position of discourse markers and the instructions they provide on the information structure of utterances. We assume that, next to other types of indications, discourse markers encode during their grammaticalization process instructions about the informative status of the discourse constituents on which they operate and about their relevance for text progression. Our aim is to account for these indications and show the benefits of using a model of discourse units for the description of markers. For this purpose, we will adopt the Basel model for discourse segmentation, which regards text as a pragmatic unit consisting of hierarchically organized information units. The study concludes that metalinguistic operations such as reformulation in written language can be better explained on the grounds of the dynamics governing text construction and organization. Keywords: Discourse markers, grammaticalization, information structure, reformulation, argumentation, relevance