Correlation between prosody and pragmatics: A case study of the discourse marker hālā `now' in Persian

2026-07-30

AI Summary

This study investigates how the Persian discourse marker *hālā* (“now”) extends beyond its temporal adverbial function to serve multiple pragmatic roles—including textual, interactional, and modal functions—and examines the relationship between its prosodic features and pragmatic uses. Drawing on 267 instances of spontaneous conversation, the research integrates pragmatic annotation with acoustic analysis to systematically map the multifunctional distribution of *hālā* and its associated patterns of duration and intensity. The findings reveal, for the first time, a systematic pattern of multifunctionality: 70% of occurrences simultaneously fulfill two or more pragmatic functions. Moreover, textual uses tend to be phonetically shorter, while interactional uses exhibit greater intensity, indicating that duration and intensity jointly constitute reliable prosodic cues for distinguishing core pragmatic categories.

Abstract

The Persian discourse marker hālā ('now') exhibits remarkable multifunctionality, extending far beyond its temporal adverbial role to encompass a variety of pragmatic functions. This study presents a pragmatic and acoustic analysis of hālā in spoken Persian, examining 267 instances from spontaneous conversations. While temporal uses were present, they were often combined with other discourse marker functions, indicating extensive multifunctionality, with 70% of tokens serving two or more pragmatic roles. Textual functions (topic shifting, signaling relationships, boundary marking, attention guidance, topic introduction, and topic emphasis) were most frequent, followed by interactive functions (turn management, listener engagement, and feedback regulation), and modal functions (epistemic stance, emotional expression, and attitudinal marking). Prosodic analysis revealed that duration and intensity are key cues for distinguishing hālā's functions. Textual uses were significantly shorter, while temporal uses showed a tendency toward longer realizations. Interactive functions correlated with higher intensity, while modal functions showed a weaker tendency toward lower intensity. These findings indicate that duration and intensity are the main prosodic cues associated with functional differentiation in hālā, especially in textual and interactive uses.

Problem

• discourse marker
• prosody
• pragmatics
• multifunctionality
• Persian

Innovation

• prosody-pragmatics interface
• discourse marker multifunctionality
• acoustic analysis
• spoken Persian
• functional differentiation