No doubt, but... on Connective Functions of Epistemic Markers

Abstract

Epistemic markers are usually treated on the basis of their primary function to express the level of certainty of a speaker about a given proposition. They are often described as items operating on higher levels than syntax. In this paper, we focus on cases in which epistemic markers actually contribute to the syntactic organization of text, either by developing a text-organizing function or a discourse connective function. Specifically, we address three patterns which appeared in the corpus data: a confrontation of modalities, a function of a topic orientation marker, and a contrastive pattern with concessive features.