From the online LINGUIST List (Vol-14-3498. Dec 18 2003)
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From: Raphael Salkie <r.m.salkie@bton.ac.uk>
Subject: The discourse marker YET in English
I am looking for published studies of the discourse marker YET in
English. Also, any studies on the word STILL, which, like YET, seems
to have a basic temporal meaning which underlies its use as a
discourse marker.
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For 'yet', I've found a reference to a lecture at:
http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/9/9-944.html
Diane Blakemore, 'Procedural meaning: 'nevertheless', 'yet' and 'but'
(again)'. (But being in Bolton you would know that. :-)).
Truth-conditionally, 'yet' can be pretty vacuous:
(1) It's raining.
(2) Yet, it's raining.
cannot vary in Davidsonian truth-conditions. 'Still' looks pretty much just
as vacuous (truth-conditionally speaking):
(3) It's raining
(4) Still, it's raining.
cannot vary in truth-conditions, either. Incidentally, I found a rather
interesting and bold (anti-Gricean) claim at
www.hyperdic.net/dic/s/still.shtml
"the word "still" has 17 different
senses".
-- no more, no less. So much for Grice's modified Occam's razor ("do not
multiply senses beyond necessity").
Good luck in your research, and keep us posted. Cheers,
JL
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