I segnali discorsivi in italiano e cinese: un’analisi preliminare di na e allora

Frequently used in spoken language, discourse markers have been investigated in the last decades by a number of scholars from different theoretical perspectives. Although there is no lack of research on the functions and contexts of use of discourse markers cross-linguistically, still there are only few comparative studies on discourse markers in languages typologically distant like Romance and Sino-Tibetan languages. This article aims at filling this gap, introducing a comparative view of discourse markers in Italian and in Chinese. In particular, the paper focuses on two markers that have very similar functions in Italian and Chinese, i.e. respectively allora and na. After an overview of the features of discourses markers, the article compares functions and meanings of allora and na and provides the state of the art of the literature available on the acquisition of discourse markers.