Multilingual Pragmaticon: Database of Discourse Formulae

Abstract

The paper presents a multilingual database aimed to be used as a tool for typological analysis of response constructions called discourse formulae (DF), cf. English ‘No way¡ or French ‘Ça va¡ ( ‘all right’). The two primary qualities that make DF of theoretical interest for linguists are their idiomaticity and the special nature of their meanings (cf. consent, refusal, negation), determined by their dialogical function. The formal and semantic structures of these items are language-specific. Compiling a database with DF from various languages would help estimate the diversity of DF in both of these aspects, and, at the same time, establish some frequently occurring patterns. The DF in the database are accompanied with glosses and assigned with multiple tags, such as pragmatic function, additional semantics, the illocutionary type of the context, etc. As a starting point, Russian, Serbian and Slovene DF are included into the database. This data already shows substantial grammatical and lexical variability.

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