ABSTRACT
ThisisastudyofseveralcommonitemsinEnglish
know,butthelargerconcernofthisstudyistheentire
setofitemsofwhichthesearemembers,andsomeatten-
cludingImean,now,oh,heyandaha.Thetermdiscourse
particleswillbeusedthroughoutthestudytorefer
tothewordsandexpressionsunderdiscussion.Theterm
isintendedasaneutrallabelfortheseitemsthat
marilydiscoursephenomena.Thegeneralprogramofthe
studyistoexaminethediscoursefunctionsofparticles
atlengthandthenproposeaframeworkinwhichtheir
usesindividuallymakesenseandinwhichrevealingcom-
parisonscanbemadebetweenthem.Acorrectunderstand-
ingofdiscourseparticles,itwillbeclaimed,requires
awideningoftheusualpurviewofconversationstudies.
