The metapragmatics of and everything in Persian

Resumo

This article tries to investigate the metapragmatic functions of and everything in Persian within the formulaic construction and everything, but. The focus of attention will be, following Bublitz and Hübler (2007), the pragmatics of this meta-utterance when it is actually performed as a means of commenting on and interfering with current discourse. In this way, it will be argued that although this construction, like its equivalent in English, does have a fixed underlying structure according to which it functions, it allows, unlike its English equivalent, for the construction of other surface constructions fulfilling the same metapragmatic role. Here surface constructions are brought about by the use of Persian’s different synonyms for the English but. Moreover, it will also be argued that Persian does not seem to have a formal equivalent to the English and whatnot.