Papers by Lin K Zaw
Payap University Research Symposium 2017, 2017
Only a very limited amount of corpus-based research has been published on the discourse markers (... more Only a very limited amount of corpus-based research has been published on the discourse markers (DMs) used in the hortatory discourse of colloquial Burmese. Using a Christian sermon that is about 38 minutes long, this paper concludes that there are 38 DMs in the selected hortatory discourse. The DM that is most commonly used is တော့ [tɔ́] ‘Contrastive Topic Marker’ which can activate the previously mentioned information or give a hint to the listeners that the information that follows will definitely contrast with the sentence that contains the DM. The pattern discussed describe 86% of instances of တော့ [tɔ́] as a DM in this paper. The synonymous ဒါပေနဲ့ [dà.pè.nɛ́], ဒါပေမဲ့ [dà.pè.mɛ́], ဒါပေနဲ့နော် [dà.pè.nɛ́.nɔ̀] and ဒါပေမဲ့နော် [dà.pè.mɛ́.nɔ̀] are ‘Contrastive Information Markers’, which can also be used to introduce a reason for previously mentioned information. The pattern discussed describes 96% of the instances of these DMs in this paper. The relative frequency of all DMs is one DM for every four sentences.
Thesis Chapters by Lin K Zaw
Little research has been produced on Participant/Topic (P/T) reference pattern analysis in colloq... more Little research has been produced on Participant/Topic (P/T) reference pattern analysis in colloquial Burmese. This study analyzes macrostructure, P/T reference patterns, correspondence between macrostructure and P/T reference patterns, and the use of Discourse Markers (DMs) that link information above the sentence level as they are found in two Christian sermons preached in colloquial Burmese.
The list of P/T reference resources found in the data includes Noun phrase, Attributive clause + 3P Pronoun, Pronoun, Demonstrative Pronoun, Zero reference and a subset of Zero reference, Zero cataphora.
For macrostructure analysis, Breeze’s message framework (as cited in Levinsohn, 2015b), and Levinsohn’s terminology and methods (2015b) are used. As for identifying the boundaries, global topic and local topics, Van Dijk’s criterion for grouping sentences and rules of information reduction (van Dijk, 1977) are used. Modified forms of Grimes’ span analysis (1972, p. 106-109) are used for analyzing the way P/Ts are mentioned first in the data and the number of times they are mentioned. For analyzing P/T reference patterns, Levinsohn’s (2015a) methods which are based on the methods proposed by Dooley and Levinsohn (2000) are adapted and used. The P/T reference strategies found in the data are sequential look-backward strategy and sequential look-forward strategy. Discourse Participants are encoded differently than general P/Ts. Although the default encoding rules account for the most occurrences of Subjects and Non-Subjects, other factors such as activation state, semantic or grammatical ambiguity, boundary, emphasis, requirement to follow grammar, whether the referents are already mentioned at the beginning of the sentence or not, preference of the speakers, and the identity of the P/Ts impact the P/T reference patterns in predictable ways.
In Sermon 1, 38 different DMs are found, while in Sermon 2, 46 different DMs are found. The rate of occurrence of DMs in Sermon 1 and Sermon 2 is found to be very similar, one DM for 4 sentences in Sermon 1 and one DM for 3.9 sentences in Sermon 2. The DMs တော့ [dɔ́], လည်း [lɛ] and ဒါပေမဲ့ [dà.pè.mɛ́] are found to be the most commonly used DMs in both Sermon 1 and Sermon 2.
The data from Sermon 1 show that DM တော့ 2 [dɔ́] is used as an anaphoric reference in most cases, and a cataphoric reference in a few cases. Although ကျတော့ [cá.dɔ́] is similar in meaning to တော့ 2 [dɔ́], it is not frequently used by the preachers. The DM လည်း 1 [lɛ] functions as a DM for anaphoric reference in all cases in both sermons except for one instance of cataphoric reference in Sermon 2. The synonymous DMs, 1. ဒါပေနဲ့ [dà.pè.nɛ́], 2. ဒါပေမဲ့ [dà.pè.mɛ́], 3. ဒါပေနဲ့နော် [dà.pè.nɛ́.nɔ̀] and 4. ဒါပေမဲ့နော် [dà.pè.mɛ́.nɔ̀], function as anaphoric references and “Contrastive Information Markers”. However, it seems like 1. ဒါပေနဲ့ [dà.pè.nɛ́], the variant of 2. ဒါပေမဲ့ [dà.pè.mɛ́], and 3. ဒါပေနဲ့နော် [dà.pè.nɛ́.nɔ̀], the variant of 4. ဒါပေမဲ့နော် [dà.pè.mɛ́.nɔ̀], from Sermon 1 could be the idiolect or dialect of the preacher of Sermon 1 because only 2. ဒါပေမဲ့ [dà.pè.mɛ́] is found in Sermon 2.
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Papers by Lin K Zaw
Thesis Chapters by Lin K Zaw
The list of P/T reference resources found in the data includes Noun phrase, Attributive clause + 3P Pronoun, Pronoun, Demonstrative Pronoun, Zero reference and a subset of Zero reference, Zero cataphora.
For macrostructure analysis, Breeze’s message framework (as cited in Levinsohn, 2015b), and Levinsohn’s terminology and methods (2015b) are used. As for identifying the boundaries, global topic and local topics, Van Dijk’s criterion for grouping sentences and rules of information reduction (van Dijk, 1977) are used. Modified forms of Grimes’ span analysis (1972, p. 106-109) are used for analyzing the way P/Ts are mentioned first in the data and the number of times they are mentioned. For analyzing P/T reference patterns, Levinsohn’s (2015a) methods which are based on the methods proposed by Dooley and Levinsohn (2000) are adapted and used. The P/T reference strategies found in the data are sequential look-backward strategy and sequential look-forward strategy. Discourse Participants are encoded differently than general P/Ts. Although the default encoding rules account for the most occurrences of Subjects and Non-Subjects, other factors such as activation state, semantic or grammatical ambiguity, boundary, emphasis, requirement to follow grammar, whether the referents are already mentioned at the beginning of the sentence or not, preference of the speakers, and the identity of the P/Ts impact the P/T reference patterns in predictable ways.
In Sermon 1, 38 different DMs are found, while in Sermon 2, 46 different DMs are found. The rate of occurrence of DMs in Sermon 1 and Sermon 2 is found to be very similar, one DM for 4 sentences in Sermon 1 and one DM for 3.9 sentences in Sermon 2. The DMs တော့ [dɔ́], လည်း [lɛ] and ဒါပေမဲ့ [dà.pè.mɛ́] are found to be the most commonly used DMs in both Sermon 1 and Sermon 2.
The data from Sermon 1 show that DM တော့ 2 [dɔ́] is used as an anaphoric reference in most cases, and a cataphoric reference in a few cases. Although ကျတော့ [cá.dɔ́] is similar in meaning to တော့ 2 [dɔ́], it is not frequently used by the preachers. The DM လည်း 1 [lɛ] functions as a DM for anaphoric reference in all cases in both sermons except for one instance of cataphoric reference in Sermon 2. The synonymous DMs, 1. ဒါပေနဲ့ [dà.pè.nɛ́], 2. ဒါပေမဲ့ [dà.pè.mɛ́], 3. ဒါပေနဲ့နော် [dà.pè.nɛ́.nɔ̀] and 4. ဒါပေမဲ့နော် [dà.pè.mɛ́.nɔ̀], function as anaphoric references and “Contrastive Information Markers”. However, it seems like 1. ဒါပေနဲ့ [dà.pè.nɛ́], the variant of 2. ဒါပေမဲ့ [dà.pè.mɛ́], and 3. ဒါပေနဲ့နော် [dà.pè.nɛ́.nɔ̀], the variant of 4. ဒါပေမဲ့နော် [dà.pè.mɛ́.nɔ̀], from Sermon 1 could be the idiolect or dialect of the preacher of Sermon 1 because only 2. ဒါပေမဲ့ [dà.pè.mɛ́] is found in Sermon 2.
The list of P/T reference resources found in the data includes Noun phrase, Attributive clause + 3P Pronoun, Pronoun, Demonstrative Pronoun, Zero reference and a subset of Zero reference, Zero cataphora.
For macrostructure analysis, Breeze’s message framework (as cited in Levinsohn, 2015b), and Levinsohn’s terminology and methods (2015b) are used. As for identifying the boundaries, global topic and local topics, Van Dijk’s criterion for grouping sentences and rules of information reduction (van Dijk, 1977) are used. Modified forms of Grimes’ span analysis (1972, p. 106-109) are used for analyzing the way P/Ts are mentioned first in the data and the number of times they are mentioned. For analyzing P/T reference patterns, Levinsohn’s (2015a) methods which are based on the methods proposed by Dooley and Levinsohn (2000) are adapted and used. The P/T reference strategies found in the data are sequential look-backward strategy and sequential look-forward strategy. Discourse Participants are encoded differently than general P/Ts. Although the default encoding rules account for the most occurrences of Subjects and Non-Subjects, other factors such as activation state, semantic or grammatical ambiguity, boundary, emphasis, requirement to follow grammar, whether the referents are already mentioned at the beginning of the sentence or not, preference of the speakers, and the identity of the P/Ts impact the P/T reference patterns in predictable ways.
In Sermon 1, 38 different DMs are found, while in Sermon 2, 46 different DMs are found. The rate of occurrence of DMs in Sermon 1 and Sermon 2 is found to be very similar, one DM for 4 sentences in Sermon 1 and one DM for 3.9 sentences in Sermon 2. The DMs တော့ [dɔ́], လည်း [lɛ] and ဒါပေမဲ့ [dà.pè.mɛ́] are found to be the most commonly used DMs in both Sermon 1 and Sermon 2.
The data from Sermon 1 show that DM တော့ 2 [dɔ́] is used as an anaphoric reference in most cases, and a cataphoric reference in a few cases. Although ကျတော့ [cá.dɔ́] is similar in meaning to တော့ 2 [dɔ́], it is not frequently used by the preachers. The DM လည်း 1 [lɛ] functions as a DM for anaphoric reference in all cases in both sermons except for one instance of cataphoric reference in Sermon 2. The synonymous DMs, 1. ဒါပေနဲ့ [dà.pè.nɛ́], 2. ဒါပေမဲ့ [dà.pè.mɛ́], 3. ဒါပေနဲ့နော် [dà.pè.nɛ́.nɔ̀] and 4. ဒါပေမဲ့နော် [dà.pè.mɛ́.nɔ̀], function as anaphoric references and “Contrastive Information Markers”. However, it seems like 1. ဒါပေနဲ့ [dà.pè.nɛ́], the variant of 2. ဒါပေမဲ့ [dà.pè.mɛ́], and 3. ဒါပေနဲ့နော် [dà.pè.nɛ́.nɔ̀], the variant of 4. ဒါပေမဲ့နော် [dà.pè.mɛ́.nɔ̀], from Sermon 1 could be the idiolect or dialect of the preacher of Sermon 1 because only 2. ဒါပေမဲ့ [dà.pè.mɛ́] is found in Sermon 2.