Prof. Dr. Gunther Kaltenböck, Universität Graz

This lecture discusses the diachronic development of discourse markers (e.g. I mean, well; allora, bene) and the specific mechanisms that have been proposed to explain it. Discourse markers are an interesting case in that respect because they exhibit a number of structural characteristics that are hard to reconcile with a process of grammaticalization. It is argued that a grammaticalization account can, however, be maintained if it is combined with the concept of ‘cooptation’, as proposed by Discourse Grammar. While the focus will be on English discourse markers, the processes discussed apply equally to other languages.