"Discourse particles have often been treated as a phenomenon restricted to Germanic languages (Abraham 2020) and they still raise questions about their nature as an independent category. This book reveals that this phenomenon exists in other languages as well, and provides evidence for their nature as a separate category. The volume brings together a collection of nine papers that focus on three research topics: a) the diachronic development of discourse particles; b) their syntactic analysis; and c) the study of their semantic-pragmatics. Furthermore, it also discusses other issues less dealt with in the literature but of great interest for linguistic theory, such as the acquisition of discourse particles by children or the analysis of elements not usually considered discourse particles but whose historical path or microvariation indicates otherwise. Additionally, the book offers a cross-linguistic perspective as it discusses various languages including Basque, Catalan, German, Italian, Laz, Mandarin Chinese, Old English, Portuguese, and Spanish"--.

• Discourse Particles
• Editorial page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Table of contents
• Introduction: Discourse particles: syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and historical aspects
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Issues under discussion in current research on discourse particles
  • 3. Contributions of this book
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• Part I. Diachronic issues and the development of discourse particles
• Chapter 1. On the adverbial origin of German modal particles
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Definition and general properties of modal particles
  • 3. Origin and grammaticalization of German modal particles
    • 3.1 Donor lexemes – a short state of the art
    • 3.2 Donor lexemes – hypotheses
  • 4. Which donor lexemes? Some empirical facts
    • 4.1 “Real” adverbs
    • 4.2 Predicatives
    • 4.3 Sentence adverbs
    • 4.4 Temporal adverbs
    • 4.5 Conjunctions
    • 4.6 Degree particles
    • 4.7 Interim conclusions
  • 5. Syntactic analysis of the grammaticalization of modal particles
  • 6. Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
  • Appendix – other MPs
• Chapter 2. A particle-like use of hwæþer Wisdom’s questions in Boethius
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Data sources and evidence base
    • 2.1 The old English Boethius
    • 2.2 Range of syntactic uses
    • 2.3 More observations on unembedded hwæþer-questions
    • 2.4 The pragmatics of unembedded hwæþer-questions
  • 3. Old English hwæþer: The state of the art
    • 3.1 The standard syntactic story
    • 3.2 Synchronic problems with the standard syntactic story
    • 3.3 Diachronic problems with the standard syntactic story
  • 4. The stages and uses of hwæþer-questions
    • 4.1 Gothic
    • 4.2 Embedded sentences of type 2
    • 4.3 Reanalysis
    • 4.4 Varieties of actualization: Type 2 and type 5 examples
    • 4.5 Irregularities resolved? Hwæþer questions with partial wh-movement
    • 4.6 Type 3: Unembedded hwæþer questions
  • 5. Summary and outlook
  • References
• Chapter 3. The discourse particle es que in Spanish and in other Iberian languages
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Constructions with the sequence es que
  • 3. v+comp vs. discourse particle
  • 4. The status of es que in justificatory constructions
  • 5. The historical process of the formation of the particle es que in Spanish
    • 5.1 First Change: From a pseudo-cleft to a reduced cleft
    • 5.2 Second change: From a reduced cleft to an inferential reduced cleft
    • 5.3 Third change: From compound sentences to main clauses with the particle es-que
  • 6. Catalan and Portuguese
  • 7. Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Funding
  • References
  • Corpus
• Part II. Syntactic analyses of discourse particles
• Chapter 4. Agreeing complementizers may just be moody
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. The particles ya and şo are complementizers
    • 2.1 Evidence for the complementizer status of ya and şo
    • 2.2 Evidence for the complementizer status of ya and şo
  • 3. On the morphological distinctness of ya and şo
    • 3.1 What do the roots complementizers in laz mean?
    • 3.2 Embedded ya and şo
  • 4. Final remarks
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
• Chapter 5. Outer particles vs tag particles: A distinction in homophony
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Introduction to discourse particles
    • 2.1 Syntactic models for discourse particles: An overview
    • 2.2 General overview of Basque particles
  • 3. Appearances are deceptive
    • 3.1 Intonation
    • 3.2 Word order and syntax
    • 3.3 Pragmatics
    • 3.4 Interim summary
  • 4. Accommodating tagPs in syntax
    • 4.1 Previous accounts of the syntax of tagPs
    • 4.2 Proposal
  • 5. Conclusions
  • Funding
  • References
  • Corpus references
• Chapter 6. Anchoring primary and secondary interjections to the context
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Discourse-linked secondary interjections
    • 2.1 Emilian dialects
    • 2.2 Venetan dialects
  • 3. A hybrid class of secondary interjections
    • 3.1 Emilian dialects
    • 3.2 Venetan dialects
  • 4. Non-integrated secondary interjections and contextual anchoring
    • 4.1 Venetan dialects
    • 4.2 On contextual anchoring
  • 5. On the contextual anchoring of primary interjections
  • 6. Conclusions
  • References
• Chapter 7. Sentence-final particles in mandarin Chinese: Syntax, semantics and acquisition
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. The three-layered CP in Chinese: Overview and some in-depth case studies
    • 2.1 Low CP
    • 2.2 SFPs realizing forceP
    • 2.3 Attitude phrase
  • 3. The cartographic approach and the acquisition of SFPs
  • 4. Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
• Part III. The semantic-pragmatics of discourse particles
• Chapter 8. Meaning and use of the basque particle bide
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Morphosyntactic characteristics of bide
  • 3. Bide: Evidential and doxastic meaning
  • 4. A speech-act theoretical account of bide
  • 5. Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Funding
  • Abbreviations used
  • References
  • Corpus
• Chapter 9. Three German discourse particles as speech act modifiers
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. The discourse model
  • 3. Ja
  • 4. Etwa & nicht
    • 4.1 Nicht
    • 4.2 Etwa
  • 5. Conclusion
  • References
• Language index
• Subject index