Article

Name: Pragmatic potential of the text connector kstati (by the way)

Authors: E. V. Otkidych

Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok, Russian Federation

In the section Linguistics

Abstract: The paper investigates the pragmatic potential of the text connector kstati (by the way). The author marks the perspective of the general study of the function words and the relevance of the study of the pragmatic potential of some function units in particular. There are four core elements of the pragmatic potential of the word concerned: conjunction, optionality, subjectivity, and unexpectedness, with each element having its realization peculiarities. Thus, the conjunction has an imprint of the underlying form of the text connector kstati, and it has a strong cataphoric aspect, expressed in a very specific implementation of the predictive function. Being one of the main components of the semantics of the word considered, optionality is not synonymic to “nonnecessity” of the information being introduced. On the contrary, this information is important, but the speaker considers it as a related one. It is inseparably connected with subjectivity, which equally affects the other three components of the pragmatic potential of kstati. Due to subjectivity, an important communicative characteristic of the word under study is realized: an ability to assign the status of “actual” to any information being introduced into the text. It even can provoke a communicative conflict between producer and recipient who are differently estimating the appropriateness of the information introduced. The subjectivity accounts for the fourth component of the pragmatic potential of the text connector kstati – unexpectedness. This element turns out to be especially important in the formation of the theme-rhematic progression in a live informal dialog. Also, “the resource of unexpectedness” determines a productive combination of the connector with lexical “marks of unexpectedness” and provides specific functioning in fiction and humoristic text. The conclusion is made that every component of the pragmatic potential of the word under study has its peculiarities of realization, but all together, they form inseparable communicative and pragmatic unity, determining the syntactic peculiarities of the text connector kstati.

Keywords: syntax, pragmatics, pragmatic potential, text connector, text connector kstati (by the way)

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