An analysis of Urdu discourse markers

INTRODUCTION:

Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and
desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols (Sapir 1921). We are able to exchange
knowledge, beliefs, opinions, wishes, threats, commands, thanks, promises, declarations, and
feelings only our imagination sets limits. We can laugh to express amusement, happiness, or
disrespect, we can smile to express amusement, pleasure, approval, or bitter feelings, we can
shriek to express anger, excitement, or fear, we can clench our fists to express determination,
anger or a threat, we can raise our eyebrows to express surprise or disapproval, and so on, but
our system of communication before anything else is language

Features of human language

1. Interchangeability: all members of the species can send and receive messages
2. Feedback: users of the system are aware of what they are transmitting
3. Specialization: the communicative system serves no other function but to communicate
4. Semanticity: the system conveys meaning through a set of fixed relationships among
signifiers, referents and meaning.
5. Arbitrariness: there is no natural or inherent connection between a token and its referent
6. Discreteness: the communication system consists of isolatable, repeatable units
7. Displacement: users of the system are able to refer to events remote in space and tine
8. Productivity: new messages on any topic can be produced at any time
9. Tradition, cultural transmission: certain aspects of the system must be transmitted from an
experienced user to a learner
10. Duality of patterning: meaningless units (phonemes) are combined to form arbitrary signs.
Signs can be recombined to form new larger meaningful units (s-p-o-t à tops, pots)
11. Prevarication: the system enable users to talk nonsense or to lie
12. Learnability: the user of the system can learn other variants. Humans can learn different
languages, bees are limited to their genetically specified dialect
13. Reflexiveness: the ability to use the communication system to discuss the system itself

The language can be analyzed through different tools, theories and methodology. Discourse
markers is one of the best methodology for analyzing language, Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language
spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the official national language and lingua franca of Pakistan.
Discourse markers are words or expressions that link, manage and help to organize sentences.
They connect what is written or said with something else. In this research paper Fraser’s
classifications of textual discourse markers (1999) is used, Rahayu and Cahyono (2015) also
work on Fraser’s classification of textual discourse markers(1999). The classifications which are
presented by Fraser’s (1999), are mentioned below: For conveying our clear thoughts and ideas
we use some discourse markers (also called connectors of the sentences) so that next person
understand about sentence completion or continuity of sentence.

1. Contrastive markers: The first class is contrastive discourse markers (CDMs) which signal
that the message conveyed by the discourse segments they introduce contrasts directly or
indirectly with the prior segments.

‫ بلکہ‬،‫ اس کے عالوہ‬،‫ اس کے باوجود‬،‫ بہرحال‬،‫ اس کے مقابلے میں‬،‫ جبکہ‬،‫ اس کے برعکس‬،‫ اگرچہ‬،‫ تاہم‬،‫لیکن‬

2. Elaborative markers: Elaborative discourse markers (EDMs) constitute the second subclass
of discourse markers. EDMs indicate that the information contained in the discourse
segments that host them is an elaboration on the information represented by prior
segments

،‫ یعنی‬،‫ خاص طور پر‬،‫ مزید بات‬،‫ مزید یہ کہ‬،‫ ایک اور چیز کے لئے‬،‫ اس کے عالوہ‬،‫ بھی‬،‫ سب سے پہلے‬،‫اور‬
، ‫ دوسری صورت میں‬، ‫ یا‬، ‫ اسی طرح‬، ‫ مساوی طور پر‬، ‫ اسی کے مطابق‬، ‫ یکساں طور پر‬، ‫ابتدائی طور پر‬
‫مثال کے طور پر‬
3. Inferential markers: The third subclass of discourse markers is that where the discourse
segment they introduce “provides a basis for inferring” the prior segment (Fraser, 2009,
p.9).

، ‫ اسی وجہ سے‬، ‫ اس وجہ سے‬، ‫ نتیجے کے طور پر‬، ‫ ایک منطقی انجام کے طور پر‬، ‫ اس کے نتیجے میں‬، ‫ یقینا‬، ‫لہذا‬
، ‫ کیوں کہ‬، ‫ آخر کار‬، ‫ پھر‬، ‫ ان شرائط کے تحت‬/ ‫ ان‬، ‫ اس طرح‬، ‫ لہذا‬، ‫ یہ نتیجہ اخذ کیا جاسکتا ہے کہ‬، ‫اس وجہ سے‬
‫ اس وجہ سے‬/ ‫اس وجہ سے‬