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This paper investigates the connection between counterfactuality and stereotypicality in direct speech representation. In Monika Fludernik’s theory of schematic language representation, quotations typify rather than reproduce, and typicality coincides with stereotypical expressivity in the form discourse particles, among other features. By distinguishing hypothetical speech proper from the more general concept of typifying direct speech, we can see that in fiction hypothetical speech is not always stereotypically expressive. In conversational storytelling, discourse markers serve the functions of source-tracking, emplotment, and expressing the quoter’s emotions and evaluation. I discuss reasons why fiction differs from conversational storytelling in this respect. Fludernik’s treatment of discourse markers or ‘typicality markers’ in direct speech representation is here complemented with Bakhtinian notions of dual expressiveness, speech genres, and the responsive quality of utterances. The arguments presented are illustrated by passages from the fiction of Carol Shields, Peter Bichsel, and Junot Díaz.

Some linguists have argued that sentence-final particles (SFPs) are only meaningful in relation to the content of the discourse. This is of course an empirical matter subject to investigation. Adopting a working hypothesis that SFPs have core meanings independent of the discourse context, this paper proposes definitions for two evidential SFPs in Cantonese with related meanings: lo1 and aa1maa3. The method for developing the SFPs’ definitions is adopted (with modifications) from Besemeres and Wierzbicka’s (2003) proposal for defining “discourse markers.” Corpus-based examples and constructed minimal-pair dialogues are used to demonstrate that the definitions succeed at accounting for all the contexts that allow one, the other, both, or neither of the SFPs to be used based on acceptability judgments from native-Cantonese speakers. In addition to furthering our understanding of the two SFPs under discussion, this paper provides empirical evidence in support of the idea that discourse particles have context-independent meanings.

1. Acknowledgements 2. Tables & Figures 3. 1. English in Singapore and Singapore English: Background and methodology (by Lim, Lisa) 4. 2. Souding Singaporean (by Lim, Lisa) 5. 3. Nouns and noun phrases (by Wee, Lionel) 6. 4. The verbal cluster (by Fong, Vivienne) 7. 5. Reduplication and discourse particles (by Wee, Lionel) 8. 6.The evolution of Singapore English: Finding the matrix (by Ansaldo, Umberto) 9. References 10. Name Index 11. Subject Index

1. Foreword 2. Introduction 3. Identical values in conflicting roles: The use of German ausgerechnet, eben, genau and gerade as focus particles 4. Focusing and background operators (by Stechow, Arnim von) 5. Schon - erst - noch: An integrated analysis (by Lobner, Sebastian) 6. On the semantics of modal particles (by Jacobs, Joachim) 7. 'Wir sind ja doch alte bekannte'. The use of German ja and doch als modal particles (by Lindner, Katrin) 8. Discourse particles in German: How does their illocutive force come about? (by Abraham, Werner) 9. German particles in modular grammar: Neurolinguistic evidence (by Bayer, Josef) 10. The treatment of function words in a new billingual German-English dictionary (by Konig, Ekkehard) 11. Index of names 12. Subject index 13. Index of particles and related lexemes