Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 1235-1261 www.elsevier.nl/locate/pragma ELSEVIER On discourse markers : Evidence from Modem Greek* Argiris Archakis zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVU Department of Philology, University of Patras, 26110 Rio, Patra. Greece Received 30 April 1998; revised version 10 June 2000 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZY Abstract The aim of this paper is to describe and account for the function of four Modem Greek expressions, namely &la& (‘that is to say’), m ala loja (‘in other words’), Belo na po (‘I wish to say’), i malon (‘or rather’). After a brief theoretical introduction to the study of the cate- gory of Discourse Markers, two pragmatic approaches (Schiffrin’s, 1987 and Blakemore’s, 1987) are evaluated through their application to the analysis of the four expressions. An alter- native approach is then developed which elaborates mainly on Scbiffrin’s (1987) model and employs the tests for substitutability proposed by Knott and Sanders (1998), thus describing the relevant facts accurately. It is further argued that only if the dynamics of grammaticaliza- tion is taken into account, is it possible to arrive at a principled explanation of the differences and similarities between the four markers. 0 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Planes of discourse; Contextual effects; Tests for substitutability; Reflexive talk; (Degree of) Grammaticalization. 1. Introduction This paper focuses on the linguistic category of Discourse Markers (henceforth DMs). Levinson (1983: 87-88) has suggested that DMs form a cross-linguistically attested category and has stressed the need to consider their analysis in * I am indebted to Prof. Theodossia Pavlidou, the supervisor of my Ph.D. dissertation, on which this article is based, for her invaluable advice, comments and support. I would like also to thank two anony- mous reviewers for their suggestions for improvements, Arhondo Terzi and Alexandra Georga Kopoulou for reading and commenting on a previous version of this paper as well as Tasos Tsagalidis for his com- ments regarding the English and the structure of the text. 037%2166/00/$ - see front matter 0 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: SO378-2166(00)00054-O