Language

Abstract:

Hindi and several other Indo-Aryan languages contain a discourse marker that has been described as having a wide range of functions, including topic marking, intensive, emphatic, contrastive, and assertive. In Hindi, this function is realized by the enclitic =to. Possible translational equivalents for =to include expressions like in fact, sure, you know, well, as for, at least, finally, and but. This article investigates the diverse uses of =to and argues that the full range can be uniformly accounted for only if =to is taken to be a particle that signals that the question resolved by its prejacent is weak. The analysis treats =to as a generalized downtoner that comments on the strength of the question the prejacent addresses, relative to the speaker’s information state, prior discourse moves, and assumptions about the common ground.