ABSTRACT
In Chinese, there is a class of linguistic expressions, which have been generally characterized as semantically non-truth-conditional and syntactically peripheral. Prototypical members are connectives like 所以 ‘so’ (see Zhang, 2010; Tang, 2015). In some studies, (e.g. Feng, 2010), parenthetical expressions like 不幸的是 ‘unfortunately’, and sentence-final particles like 了le are also included. A multiple array of terms have been used for them, but it seems to be narrowing down to ‘pragmatic markers’. Pragmatic markers (henceforth PMs) in English have been the subject of intense investigation, but a principled and systematic description of PMs in Chinese discourse has hitherto not been undertaken. This chapter attempts to do so.
