Imperatives, interruption in conversation, and the rise of discourse markers: a study of Italian guarda* RICHARD WALTEREIT Abstract This paper investigates the history of discourse markers, with special refer- ence to Italian guarda. This discourse marker has arisen from the imperative guarda! ‘look!’. The imperative ‘look!’ may entitle the speaker to an inter- ruption, because it conversationally implicates that she has to say something extremely important that requires the immediate attention of the conversa- tion partners. It is argued that speakers will tend to use this imperative even in situations where they do not have something important for the others to look at. They will do so simply because this imperative is so useful for floor-begging. At this point, guarda! is no longer an imperative, but a discourse marker. The variety of DM functions can be shown to be already present as side-effects of the imperative use. Furthermore it will be argued, contrary to most current work, that the genesis of discourse markers is not an instance of grammaticalization. 1. The history of discourse markers Recent years have seen a steep increase in research on discourse markers (DMs).1 Most of the work is synchronic in orientation; yet, diachronic aspects have not been neglected (Abraham 1991; Onodera 1995; Brinton 1996; Jucker 1997; Traugott 1999; Diewald 1999). Given that forms that can serve as DMs are (or were, at some earlier point in time) very often also employed in a variety of other functions, the main problem of diachronic DM research is the explanation of how forms of language (the etyma, as it were) acquire the function of a DM. In the functional- typological tradition, the diachronic rise of DM is typically seen as an instance of subjectification, whereby forms denoting ‘‘objective,’’ ideational meanings acquire more speaker-based, subjective, attitudinal meanings in the course of time (Traugott 1995, 1999). Linguistics 40–5 (2002), 987–1010 0024–3949/02/0040–0987 © Walter de Gruyter