From: clayton stirling bartholomew (c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Thu Dec 14 2000 - 12:31:21 EST
on 12/13/00 11:30 PM, Iver Larsen wrote:
> Again, I am coming from the perspective of a discourse linguist, not a
> classical scholar . . .
Iver,
Thanks for your comments on this. Most intriguing. What school of though
are you following in "discourse linguistics?" Could you name some
representative scholars?
> In
> linguistics we talk about different hierarchies or levels in the grammar. From
> the bottom up these are: morpheme, word, phrase, clause, sentence, discourse.
> PWS functions within the clause as an interrogative word. EPEI functions
> within the sentence as a subordinating conjunction and connects two clauses
> together showing a logical relationship.
Agreed.
>GAR functions not within the
> sentence, but within the discourse. It binds sentences together and it
> indicates that the sentence in which GAR occurs picks up a concept in the
> preceding sentence (it may skip parenthetical material) and further explains
> or supports it. It is not helpful to tag GAR as a subordinating conjunction.
> It would be better to tag it as what it is, a discourse particle or a sentence
> connector. In fact, it occurs so frequently that it deserves its own unique
> tag, for instance, "explanatory discourse particle".
I wonder about limiting the scope of GAR to discourse level. There are
different types of functions. It seems to me that GAR might perform a
semantic function at the clause (=your sentence) level while performing a
structuring function at the discourse level. In other words GAR marks
relationships between medium or high level discourse constituents (clauses
and paragraphs) which is a structuring function but also contributes some
semantic color to the following clause by identifying it as a consequence or
what ever of something preceding.
I am a little bit hesitant to restrict the influence of a constituent like a
particle to a single level of the discourse structure. I think this
procedure my cause us to over look some of what is going on in the text.
Your comments on this are worth pondering. I would like to know more about
the school of thought you are following.
Thanks,
Clay
--
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062
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