Yamawwad: A Discourse and Pragmatic Marker in Iraqi Arabic

Abstract

The lexical item yamawwad يمعود is a functional discourse unit with several different functions that are dependent upon context.  This makes its function difficult to define since it varies with context but, at the same time, it is a topic of great interest in the study of discourse, pragmatics and speech acts. To my knowledge, this marker has hitherto not been analyzed. The material used in this paper comes from dyadic conversations that were written and transcribed.  The range of contexts where yamawwad occurs were identified and then classified into sections according to the various contextual meanings and functions of this pragmatic marker.