Markedness as a discourse management device: The role of alternative adverbial clause orders

Abstract

The hypothesis is explored that a major function of marked structures, specifically marked clause orders in complex sentences containing adverbial clauses, is to signal the beginning of a new discourse unit. The hypothesis is tested against 40 oral and 32 written narrative descriptions of the same events, all collected under controlled conditions. A method is presented for defining discourse units and their boundaries which avoids the circularity of definition of discourse units and markedness. The results from the narrative data reveal that marked structures are found significantly more often than unmarked ones at discourse unit boundaries, while unmarked structures are significantly more frequent within discourse units. It is concluded that an important function of marked structures is to manage discourse flow.