MULTIFUNCTIONALITY OF THE ITALIAN DISCOURSE MARKER INSOMMA

Abstract

The paper deals with the analysis of the Italian discourse marker insomma and its various pragmatic functions. Taking into consideration the polysemy and pragmatic multifunctionality of the form insomma, our aim is to determine which pragmatic functions it performs in spoken Italian, as well as to identify in what combination of these functions it can occur. The analysis is carried out on the BADIP version of the LIP corpus, which is considered a reference point for describing the spoken variety of the modern Italian language. The results of our analysis confirm the multifunctionality of the form insomma. In fact we have identified nearly all the functions of insomma, mentioned in previous relevant works. In our paper we discovered the following functions of insomma: filler, as well as modulation, demarcation, interruption and reformulation device (signalling a repairing process, but also paraphrase, a function which has not been previously identified). Furthermore, our analysis shows that insomma not only occurs with several different functions, even within the same utterance, at the paradigmatic or syntagmatic level, but that it also appears in certain combinations of these functions. In our corpus, at the syntagmatic level insomma can at the same time be interpreted as: a filler or modulator device, a filler or demarcation device, a demarcation or interruption device, a demarcation or reformulation device. As we point out it is not always an easy task to determine insomma’s functions precisely, which leads us to the conclusion that the cotext and transcript seem insufficient for a clear interpretation of the pragmatic functions that this discourse marker performs in certain contexts.