Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. Vol. 1. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 24)
Ágnes Deli: Meaning with lexical repetition
It is sense-selecting repetition in ext. [2a], too, which projects the context of interpretation for 'Germany'. The prosodic transcription is to show this sense selection: A: // /- GERmany has only been ^ nifie d // p FOR WHA T // r a HUNDred YEAR S ° r S° // B: // 0 there's GE Rmany // p and there's GE Rmany II 0 [e] // // p THERE IS a // r STILL a Spiritual germany // 0 WHICH HAS II 0 WHICH IS // r OF COURS E // [m] // 0 MAny [e] // p THOUsands of years OL D // The tone unit with the repeated occurrence of the proper noun is pronounced with falling tone, which is a mark of the shift of meaning. The falling tone implying new information adds to this implication. Semantically this word for word repetition is partial repetition. On the basis of the two conversational extracts above the following conclusions can be drawn: 1. Lexical repetition is not always complete repetition, consequently it does not always simply mean the repetition of old information as some linguistic theories might imply (sec Halliday & Hasan, 1976, Winter, 1977, 1986). 2. The meaning of repeated lexical items in discourse is context-dependent, as it is emanated from the participants' shared experience of the world. 3. Prominence on the repeated word and falling tone mark entirely or partially new information. 112
