Page 26 - Dalle origini ai giorni nostri: convergenze e divergenze tra lingue slave

Paola Bocale

ne znaju merely as an epistemic stance marker would miss the other ma-
jor pragmatic and interactional functions that the construction performs
in discourse.
Results confirm the findings of other studies on similar constructions
in other languages (Lindström and Karlsson 2016; Maschler 2017) by
showing that the functioning of the construction is sensitive to the syn-
tactic category of its object complement. When followed by zero object
complement, ja ne znaju performs the widest possible range of functions,
from disclaiming epistemic access to more pragmatic uses as an epistemic
hedge and a marker of reformulation, topic-shift and enumeration. More
epistemic functions are featured when the construction occurs followed
by a question word or a NP, whereas the pragmatic functions seem to in-
crease in instances lacking an object complement.
Literal uses are more frequently found turn-initially, at the beginning
of a response to a question, or as stand-alone turns. Conversely, in turn-fi-
nal position in responses to questions, ja ne znaju can act as a turn-exit
device in a moment when such exit is not motivated by conditional rele-
vance. The construction can thus perform more specific text-structuring
functions as a device employed to manage textual progression. In many
contexts ja ne znaju is also used to modify the force of an utterance or of
a speech act, that is it functions pragmatically as a hedge that lowers the
speakers’ commitment to what they say in their turns.
The investigation suggests that ja ne znaju has undergone a process of
pragmaticalization as a fixed expression used for interactional purposes
such as elaborating the turn or organizing the transition between turns.
The construction shows loss of epistemic value, semantic bleaching and
pragmatic strengthening, which are all typical features of pragmaticali-
zation (Norde and Beijering 2014). The pragmaticalization process does
not involve a total loss of referential meaning, but a co-optation for in-
teractional purposes. This confirms research on similar constructions in
other languages where the pragmaticalization process has not resulted
in the disappearance of the epistemic value, nor of the clausal use of the
construction (Pekarek Doehler 2016).

References
Aijmer, K. 1984. ‘“Sort of” and “Kind of” in English Conversation.’ Studia
Linguistica. A Journal of General Linguistics 38 (2): 118–28.
Beach, W. A., and T. R. Metzger. 1997. ‘Claiming Insufficient Knowledge.’
Human Communication Research 23 (4): 562–588.

24