Boundaries, Topics, and the Structure of Discourse an Investigation of the Ancient Greek Particle Dé

Abstract

In this article, a discussion is offered of the Ancient Greek particle dé in terms of boundary-marking. "Boundary" is treated as the manifestation in discourse of the interaction between topicalization and discourse structure. The marking of boundaries, therefore, subsurnes such functions as topic marking and intersentantial (interparagraph) connection. Dé is described as a boundary-marker and is shown to have a function in various types and at various levels of discourse. While in the oldest Greek (Homeric epic) dé is used to mark the segmentation that results from the online "continuative" production of spoken discourse, in later, written discourse the particle is used for a variety of functions: from local, intrasentential subject topic switch ("switch-reference") to the setting of 'frames' in discourse, and from the marking of boundaries that are "content-oriented" to rhetorically highly marked segmentation.