Discourse marking in Irish English: the historical background

For over 400 years, dramatists, novelists, and other writers seeking to depict Irish characters have relied in part on words and phrases taken to be indexical of Irishness when representing the conversational functions now associated with the term 'discourse marker'. In keeping with the general trend in the lexical development of Irish English, many of the terms which are commonly cited are etymologically derived from Irish and carry over similar discourse functions. These terms include introductory particles as in (1) Arra vat shall ve do full quickly and soon ('The Irishmen's Prayers', 1689) (2) 'Bud, musha, what's the harm o ' that', he said to himself (Banim 1838) (3) 'Oh, wurrah, no, ' said both, 'don't mention that ' (Carleton 1843) and vocatives as in (4) 'Well, thin, an ' I won't avich ' (Banim 1838) (5) " 'Oh! by this and by that, mother', says Jack, 'what did you waken me for?' " 'Jack a-vourneen', says the mother 'sure and you war lying grunting, and groaning... and I only nudged you for fraid you war in pain ' (Carleto