Pragmatic Markers, Discourse Markers and Modal Particles

This article aims to illustrate what a contrastive perspective, combined with sociolinguistic and corpus approaches, can bring to the investigation of the evolution of pragmatic functions which emerge through language contact (Ingham 2012a) and pragmatic borrowing (Andersen 2014). A recent collection of articles (Lauwers, Vanderbauwhede & Verleyen (eds) 2012) draws attention to the light which cognate forms and ‘false friends’ can shed on pragmaticalisation and semantic change. Sociolinguist