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8 - Modal Particles: The Enigmatic Category

from III - Adverbial Modality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2021

Werner Abraham
Werner Abraham
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
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Summary

German (and Dutch) modal particles are distinct discourse particles separate from other discourse elements on account of their specific grammatical status: they look like lexical items, but behave like grammatical morphemes and thus are true end results of grammaticalizing processes. As such their modern function still reflects semantic and syntactic properties of their etymological origins. Modal particles have the syntactic status of the about-topic category. Compared to their lexical pregrammaticalized origin, their modern semantics is highly underspecified.

Keywords

German (and Dutch) modal particles as distinct discourse particlesillocution and attitudinalitymodal particles and where they come from
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Modality in Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics , pp. 213 - 237
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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