| Discourse Markers are a common linguistic phenomenon in both spoken and written languages.While conveying the propositional meaning,the speaker uses discourse markers to indicate his or her position,attitude,viewpoint and emotion,and to guide and restrict the listener’s understanding of the discourse,in order to achieve the goal of smooth communication.Inferential discourse markers are one of the most important types.Inferential discourse marker is a kind of discourse marker that expresses inferential meaning,which is a viewpoint or conclusion that a communicative subject forms on the basis of his own experience and information in the course of communication,the use of inferential discourse markers indicates the subjective feelings and attitudes of the communicative subjects,which can guide the listeners to better understand the discourse and ensure the smooth communication.According to the original semantic and formal features of the inferential discourse markers,this paper classifies them into the categories of "seeing","hearing","thinking" and "speaking".Inferential discourse markers can be found at the beginning,middle and end of a sentence.Inferential discourse markers tend to appear at the beginning of a sentence,this usage mainly appeared in the 1990s,similar to"Writer’s Digest","reader" among them,belongs to inversion usage.Inferential discourse markers are short and concise,generally easy to read,and have their variants in corresponding forms.In Syntax,it has the characteristics of non-compulsion,de-categorization and non-combination with neighboring elements.The conceptual meaning of inferential discourse markers serves the procedural meaning.The pragmatic features of inferential discourse markers are textual and interpersonal functions,and the use of inferential discourse markers also restricts the context.The pragmatic functions of inferential discourse markers can be divided into interpersonal functions and discourse construction functions.Interpersonal function is represented by the function of discourse generation and discourse comprehension.The functions of discourse construction are shown as textual linking,topic marking and turn-marking.The diachronic semantic study of the members of the categories of "see","hear","think" and "speak" helps us to deepen our understanding of the consensus level of inferential discourse markers,among these four categories of inferential discourse markers,"listen" class members as a whole,the latest,"see"class members of the earliest emergence of the "visible",most of them after a long period of evolution to develop the use of table speculation.Inferential discourse markers are formed and further developed by the mechanisms of grammaticalization,metaphor,reanalysis and analogy. |
PDF Full Text Request