discourse: discourse element
The discourse relation is used for discourse expressions and markers with grammatical properties
that distinguish them from expressions appearing in typical syntagmatic relations
(like advmod, obl, advcl, parataxis, vocative, etc.).
Most centrally this includes:
- interjections: expressive words (oh, Welcome), feedback markers (yes, uh-huh), fillers (um)
- particles that cannot be classified as adverbs, adpositions, etc. in the language.
Such particles may carry a range of pragmatic meanings, including:
- question particles (Kʼicheʼ la, Mandarin ne)
- vocative particles (Arabic ya, Coptic/Greek ō)
- list enumerators (e.g. 1., (a) marking an item in a sequence)
- emojis/emoticons with an extra-syntactic expressive function
These discourse elements are attached to the head of the most relevant nearby unit, often a clause.
While many expressions carry pragmatics, discourse is reserved as a syntactic function
for constructions signaling discourse meaning in grammatically distinctive ways.
The precise criteria for identifying such constructions must be decided on a language-specific basis,
bearing in mind that grammaticalization lies on a continuum. In English, for example, we exclude
from discourse any items from the lexical class of adverbs (actually) and
prepositional phrases (in other words); these are simply advmod and obl, respectively,
even when functioning pragmatically as discourse markers.
I am 21 , well , will be in November .
nsubj(21, I)
cop(21, am)
parataxis(21, be)
discourse(be, well)
aux(be, will)
obl(be, November)
case(November, in)
punct(21, .)
punct(well, ,-4)
punct(well, ,-6)
Iguazu is in Argentina :)
discourse(Argentina-4, :)-5)
5/NUM . Cool for 10 minutes and serve .
discourse(Cool, 5)
punct(5, .-2)
To enter the stadium , you must not have — ( a ) a weapon ; ( b ) any food ; and ( c ) any drink .
discourse(weapon, a-12)
discourse(food, b)
discourse(drink, c)
conj(weapon, food)
conj(weapon, drink)
cc(drink, and)
discourse in other languages: [axm] [bej] [bg] [bm] [cop] [cs] [el] [en] [eu] [fi] [fr] [ga] [hbo] [hy] [it] [ja] [ka] [kk] [ky] [lt] [naq] [no] [oge] [pcm] [pt] [ru] [sl] [ssp] [sv] [swl] [tr] [u] [vi] [xcl] [yue] [zh]