ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview and description of sixteen of the most common French discourse markers that have been studied over the past several decades. Recent analyses of these discourse markers are described with examples for each one. The purpose of this chapter is not to prescribe how the data from the speakers in Chapters 6 and 7 should be interpreted, but rather to provide a foundation for the researcher who is coming to French discourse marker research for the first time. From the varied descriptions, it is clear that there is no one way to interpret any particular discourse marker. This chapter should also not be taken as an exhaustive list of all of the potential discourse markers used in French. Rather, it simply provides a summary of those most frequently observed.
