The case of Italian "mica" and Romanian "doar" in direct interrogatives and their equivalents in French

Abstract

This article aims to analyze, from a contrastive point of view, the Italian term mica and the Romanian term doar and their equivalents in French. The study consists of three parts. Firstly, we will briefly analyze the diachronic development of mica and doar. Secondly, from a synchronic angle, we will study the effect of mica and doar in direct interrogatives in contemporary Italian and Romanian. This analysis will help us understand if the two terms under investigation have the same function from a pragmatic point of view and if we can consider them discourse markers. In order to achieve that, we will analyze some direct interrogatives and discuss whether mica and doar produce the same pragmatic effect when occurring in the same context. Finally, we will consider how we could translate mica and doar into French.