Discourse Markers

1
Discourse Markers
Yes/No-Units
University of
Technology Chemnitz PS
Pragmatics
Philosophical Faculty
Lecturer Ph.D. M. Weisser
2
Content

• Discourse Markers 1. Introducing Example
• 2. Difference
• 3. I
  Characteristics of Discourse Markers (DM)
• 3.1 Exercise 1
• 3.2 Solution
• 4. II Characteristics of
  Discourse Markers (DM)
• 4.1 I Lexical Why an indefinable word
  class?
• 4.2 II Lexical Why an indefinable word
  class?
• 5. Exercise 2
• 6. Solution
• 7. Conclusion
• Yes/No-Units 1. Introduction
• 2. Examples
• 3. Exercise
• 4. Solution
• 5. Conclusion

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1. Introducing Example

• A I suppose if you got experience in American
  University administration you could still come
  back here?
• B Mh. Oh yes, certainly. Well theyre desperate
  for people to work in universities cos the
  moneys not good so anyone
• A Oh really? Well, you know, oh here
• B So, anybody whos soft enough to enjoy it and
  sort-
• A Yes.
• B -of actually want a job, you know, is welcomed
  with open-
• A Yes.
• B -arms.

cf. Stenström,A-B.An Introduction to Spoken
Interaction.LondonLongman,1994.
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1. Introducing Example

• A If you got experience in American University
  administration you could still come back here?
• B Theyre desperate for people to work in
  universities cos the moneys not good so anyone
• A here
• B So, anybody whos soft enough to enjoy it and
  want a job is welcomed with open arms.
• What is the difference?

cf. Stenström,A-B.An Introduction to Spoken
Interaction.LondonLongman,1994.
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2. Difference

• Makes still perfect sense
• BUT
• Conversation sounds - more artificial
  - unpersonal
  - not that lively
• ? Signals for receipt of information, agreement
  and involvement are missing.

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3. I Characteristics of Discourse Markers (DM)

• serve to - start an utterance -
  introduce and mark the end of a topic
  - introduce a digression and mark the
  resumption of the old topic
  - signal the end of an utterance
  
• ? organize and hold the turn
• ? mark boundaries in the discourse
• help the speaker to organize the discourse

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Exercise 1 gt Find out the function of
the highlighted DMs lt

• a) utt49 u and then ltsilgt go ltsilgt via
  Corning ltsilgt to Bath ltsilgt to get the
  other ltsilgt two ltsilgt which is ltsilgt
  sevenutt50 s oh okay so let's see ltsilgt now
  did the boxcars ha- I can't
  remember the problem now did they have to be
  loaded with anything or
• utt51 u oh yeah boxcar of ltsilgt oranges
  
• utt52 s oh okay
• utt53 u so we have to stop at
  Corning to get oranges
• utt76 u am I ltsilgt finished utt77 s um
  well let's see I guess uh utt78 u cause they
  had to be ltsilgt tis- ltsilgt by seven a.m.
• c) utt3 s uh yes I'll need to know what the
  problem is

trains93-corpus, Dialogue d92a-1.2
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Solution

• a) Marks the resumption of the old topic
• b) Signals the end of an utterance
• c) starts an utterance

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II Characteristics of Discourse Markers (DM)

• lexical - form a rather indefinable word class
• semantic - multifunctional
• - optional (leave them out without
  making the utterance incomplete)
• - show the attitude of the speaker
  towards the linguistic action
• syntactic - not in the syntactic structure of a
  sentence
• - often used with other DMs
• stylistic - marked as colloquial
• - unwanted in written texts
• Sociolinguistic - high-frequently

Laurel J. Brinton 1996 Pragmatic markers in
English Grammaticalization and discourse
functions. Berlin/NY Mouton der Gruyter.
Jucker, Andreas /Ziv, Yael 1998 "Discourse
markers Introduction". Jucker, Andreas/Ziv, Yael
(Hg.) Discourse Markers. Descriptions and
Theory. Amsterdam/Philadelphia Benjamins. 1-12.
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I Lexical Why an indefinable word class?

• multifunctional DMs at the same or other places
  can have different
  meaningsutt102 s so that would be ltsilgt six
  a.m. utt103 u alright ltsilgt and now how what
  time will it be utt104 s okay so then
  it'll take ltsilgt then it'll take ltsilgt three
  hours so it'll be nine a.m.
  utt97 s yes you could send the engine ltsilgt
  from ltsilgt Avon ltsilgt to Corning
  it'll take it four hours to get there utt101
  u okay ? first okay signals that the speaker
  understood the former utterance? second okay
  signals agreement
• optional you can leave them out and the
  utterance makes still sense

trains93-corpus, Dialogue d93-8.3
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II Lexical Why an indefinable word class?

• Syntactical variety Dms were derived from
  different grammatical categories
• - conjuntions utt76 u but I have two
  tankers in El-
• - adverbs utt135 s well that's
  actually go- that's gonna take
  six hours no matter
  
• - verbs utt79 s right by seven a.m.
  there probably isn't time to
  ltsilgt get any ltsilgt I mean you could go
  back but no that
  won't it'll take two hours to go back to Corning
  so there won't be
  time
• - interjections utt3 s uh that means
  ltsilgt uh ltsilgt

trains93-corpus, Dialogue d93-8.3, d92a-1.2
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Exercise 2Discourse Marker or not and why

• But the three women did well enough, having also
  inherited a rooster.Well we can still use the
  boxcars.
• By 'politics' I mean something specific and much
  narrower than.I mean you could go back

trains93-corpus, d92a-1.2
http//ell.phil.tu-chemnitz.de/search/
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Solution

• did well enough adverb, refers to
  did Well we could DM,
  expresses an objection
• By 'politics' I mean....
  subject predicate, the latter refers to
  
  bypoliticsI mean
  you could go back DM, introduces
  suggestion

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Conclusion

• many labels such as - discourse markers
• -
  discourse connectives
• -
  discourse operators
• -
  discourse particles
• -
  pragmatic connectives
• -
  sentence connectivesbecause - DMs could have
  so many different meanings - one
  word can belong to many grammatical
  categorisations
• - no concrete meaning, just
  in context
• - words have nothing in
  common because of their various
  functions gt hard to find general criteria

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Yes/No Units - Introduction

• Same problem How to classify yes or no?
• Reply to Yes/No-Questions?
• utt75 s no I think we have ltsilgt two with the
  first engine ltsilgt
• with the ltsilgt the we have the
  orange juice in two ltbrthgt
• oh how many did we need
• utt76 u uh-
• utt77 we needed five so well
• utt78 s oh we needed five in ltsilgt uh
  total
• utt79 u yeah well
• utt80 s oh we need one more yes

trains93-corpus, d92a-1.3
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Examples

• a) utt1 s hello ltsilgt can I help you
• utt2 u okay the prob- ltsilgt do I need
  to state the problem
• utt3 s uh yes I'll need to know what
  the problem is
• ? Reply to a Yes/No-Question

trains93-corpus, d92a-1.2
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Examples

• utt3 all three commodities must be in Bath
  ltsilgt by noon ltsilgt
• it is now twelve midnight
• utt4 okay first I need to find out um
  ltsilgt
• I need to get an engine and a
  boxcar of bananas
• utt5 um ltsilgt okay I can take ltsilgt engine
  number two pick up a ltsilgt
• mm engine number one ltsilgt no I
  can't do that
• ? Talks to himself, kind of rejection

trains93-corpus, d92a-1.2
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Examples

• C12 d'accord, e aujourd'hui y'a pas
  d'problème
• O14-- ben non
• ? agreement

Sncf non-uni-unicode, sncf001all.txt
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Examples

• M6-- désirez-vous d'autres renseignements ?
  
• C5-- e non merci
• ? refusal

Sncf non-uni-unicode, sncf00all.txt
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Examples

• ltturn speaker"W" id""gt
• Schmatzen Herr Z. wollen Sie mal Pause
  Vorschläge machen Sie sind ja durch Ihre Familie
  sehr stark eingespannt also Atmung richte ich
  mich mal Atmung nach Ihren Vorschlägen
  Klicken
• lt/turngt
• ? Expresses acknowledge? as everybody knows

ltdialogue corpus"Verbmobil" id"7G401A"gt
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Examples

• ltturn speaker"W" id""gt
• ich schaue grad mal nach Donnerstag Atmung ja
  das ist Donnerstag ist der Donnerstag nach Buß-
  und Bettag Pause und äh Atmung ich äh
  bestehe also darauf daß Buß- und Bettag
  unbedingt als Feiertag erhalten bleiben Atmung
  muß als guter Christ äh Atmung bin ich da der
  festen "Uberzeugung daß das nicht äh weichen
  darf zugunsten Atmung eines äh Atmung
  sonstigen Urlaubstages Atmung also äh ja
  Pause unmittelbar Pause nach Buß- und Bettag
  siebzehnter und Pause achtzehnter November
  wäre möglich Klicken
• lt/turngt

ltdialogue corpus"Verbmobil" id"7G401A"gt
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Examples

• ltturn speaker"T" id""gt
• also Schmatzen Pause di... vom dritten bis
  bei mir bis zum vierzehnten würde das würde das
  sehr gut passen Schmatzen Atmung hm
  Schmatzen viell ähm bloß die die Idee war
  eben noch daß wir uns vielleicht noch mal um b...
  gewisse Dinge nicht nicht daß wir alles doppelt
  äh mitnehmen daß wir uns noch mal vorher äh
  Atmung treffen Atmung aber häs wollen wir
  dann mal für die vielleicht für die Reise häs
  siebenten bis bis vierzehnten äh festhalten
  Atmung und daß wir unverständlich uns
  vielleicht äh davor noch mal einen Tag hm
  mu... Pause muß ja nicht ein kompletter Tag
  sein Atmung daß wir uns dann noch mal sehen
  Klicken
• lt/turngt

ltdialogue corpus"Verbmobil" id"7G444A"gt
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ExerciseIn which way is the word yes used?

• ltturn speaker"G" id""gt Herr W. Atmung
  Rascheln wir müssen ja dann leider diese
  Koordinationsgeschichten machen Atmung
  Schmatzen Atmung für den Atmung Studienplan
  Atmung Schmatzen und das muß Pause heute
  und Pause spätestens bis übermorgen fertig sein
  Atmung ich kann eigentlich Atmung immer
  Atmung zwischen acht Uhr und zwanzig Uhr außer
  Pause morgen bin ich ab sechzehn Uhr nicht
  mehr verfügbar Pause Schmatzen Atmung wie
  sieht es bei Ihnen aus Klicken
• lt/turngt
• ltturn speaker"M" id""gtja ich könnte Atmung
  äh Atmung morgen Pause ginge das d... äh
  bei mir das den ganzen Tag eigentlich das ist
  also kein Problem Atmung Schmatzen Atmung
  da können w... das können wir also machen was
  welche Zeit schlagen Sie vor Klicken
• lt/turngt

ltdialogue corpus"Verbmobil" id"7G427A"gt
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Solution

• First yes signals common acknowledge
• Second yes - starts the turn and the agreement

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Conclusion

• Yes/No- Units are very frequent
• Yes much more frequent than no
• Too much funtions to show them all
• Again hard to find a general definition

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The End

• Thank you for your attention!