The study focuses on a specific use of the marker only, namely its use as an inter-clausal and inter-sentences connective marker (allowing clauses or even sentences to be joined together). The syntactic status of only in this use is discussed, in order to determine whether it is a conjunction proper or a linking adverb. Its discourse status is then questioned, by contrasting the properties of a connector with those of a discourse marker. The study also highlights the argumentative dimension of (...) only in this use. Its interpretations in context are also examined, in relation to the host configurations, and then reduced to a common denominator, namely its fundamental value. Finally, the factors leading to the different possible interpretations of only in this use are examined. (shrink)

Despite extensive literature on discourse markers, relatively little attention has been paid to the case of wait to date. The study presents the arguments for classifying certain uses of this term (those which are not integrated into the syntax of the sentence, and which have a pragmatic value) as a discourse marker, and then establishes what characterizes this use. The study also aims to determine its values in context, based on a corpus of examples from the COCA and the BNC. (...) The role of the DM and the role of the linguistic environment must however be distinguished, which in turn leads to a search for the fundamental value of wait in its pragmatic use. The latter is not totally disconnected from that of the lexical term, but it is reinvested in the field of the enunciative construction. It can thus be described in terms of suspension of the enunciative construction, a form of suspension which is particularly used in the field of discursive readjustments. (shrink)