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This paper proposes a new approach to the interface between linguistic form and speech acts. The basic idea is to rethink prevailing canonicity assumptions about the inventory of syntactic forms used to perform speech acts. I argue for a new concept of canonicity in that domain, which is based on the following claim: pragmatically unmarked versions of the major speech acts requests, questions, and assertions comply with the socio-pragmatic principle of 'maximize politeness'. According to this principle, speakers try to minimize the risk of failure in achieving the relevant illocutionary goals of individual speech acts, and they can minimize that risk by using unambiguous linguistic forms that express politeness. I illustrate this account for unmarked forms of requests, questions, and assertions in German because in this language, the pragmatically unmarked versions of each of those speech acts can be signaled by dedicated particle elements (bitte 'please' in requests; denn 'then' in questions; and ja 'yes' in assertions). I claim that these particles are an overt realization of a syntactic head of a functional projection that encodes socio-pragmatic meaning in the left periphery of the clause. The paper sketches a unified syntactic analysis that holds across speech acts and that can potentially be extended to further phenomena of politeness marking in natural language. • Presents a new approach to the interface between syntax and social meaning. • Introduces the socio-pragmatic principle of 'maximize politeness'. • Demonstrates that particle elements are used in unmarked versions of major speech acts. • Provides a starting point for further studies of politeness marking in language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I explore in detail the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of two understudied discourse markers of Upper Austrian German: ma indicates surprise, while geh indicates a discrepancy between speaker and addressee. In terms of their context of use, these discourse markers, which are restricted to turn-initial position are — at first sight — similar to the sentence-internal discourse particles leicht and doch. It is shown that these four markers display systematic similarities and differences, which invites the conclusion that their distribution is regulated by grammatical knowledge. An analysis in terms of Wiltschko's (2021) Interactional Spine Hypothesis is developed according to which ma and geh are interactional pro-forms (ProGroundP) which mark a reaction to the speaker's or the addressee's current epistemic state, respectively. In contrast, leicht and doch are analysed as (covertly) associating with the head of the grounding phrases thereby indicating whether or not the propositional content is in the interlocutor's ground. • Introduces new generalizations regarding some discourse markers in Austrian German. • Develops syntactic analysis that captures distribution, interpretation, and context of use of these discourse markers. • Supports the framework of the interactional spine hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the discourse particle vallë in Albanian. It provides the first in-depth description of the distribution and functional meaning of vallë. I argue that vallë is restricted to speech acts containing questions as opposed to assertions. The meaning of vallë is expressive in nature since it contributes to the non-at-issue content of the utterance and expresses speaker's attitude of wondering towards the truth of the proposition. I provide an analysis in terms of Traugott's subjectification approach, according to which vallë expresses the speaker's epistemic stance. • Albanian particle vallë expresses an attitude of wondering or feeling of uncertainty. • Albanian particle vallë is restricted to speech-acts containing questions. • Albanian particle vallë is expressive in nature since it only contributes to the non-at-issue content of the utterance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article analyzes Knowledge Confirmation Questions (KCQ) in Basque, an instance of non-canonical questions that has not been analyzed yet. KCQs display three characteristic elements, namely, (i) a declarative-type syntax, (ii) an interrogative-like intonation, and (iii) the discourse particle ba; and are interpreted as follows: "Do you know that p?". Here, I propose that the meaning contribution of KCQs derives from the interaction of these three elements. More precisely, I argue that their question-like intonation, which adds interrogative interpretation, takes scope over ba, which regulates the addressee's Doxastic State and undergoes context shift. Basque KCQs constitute an interesting case study, because they raise some interesting questions on the syntactization of discourse and the properties of discourse particles, as they seem to contradict the assumption that discourse particles do not fall under the scope of sentential operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the syntax and functions of the discourse particles no and nu in narratives and conversations recorded from speakers of Soikkola Ingrian in 2006-2013. The Ingrian particle no is probably Finnic in origin, while the particle nu was most likely borrowed from the Russian language. The goal of this research is to find out how different or similar no and nu are in contemporary Ingrian from the point of view of their syntactic positions and functions. Four structural positions are distinguished, in relation to the position of the particle in a turn and in a clause, and no striking differences are observed in the distribution of no and nu across positions. The typical functions of no and nu are analysed separately in each of the four structural positions, and the functional range is found to be similar for both particles. It is also notable that in the Russian speech of Ingrian speakers, no is sometimes used as a discourse particle, although this would not be possible in standard Russian. The research concludes that at the period under investigation the two particles were on the way to complete merger, and can be treated as phonetic variants in a synchronic description of Ingrian, despite the quantitative prevalence of no over nu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the syntax and functions of the discourse particles no and nu in narratives and conversations recorded from speakers of Soikkola Ingrian in 2006–2013. The Ingrian particle no is probably Finnic in origin, while the particle nu was most likely borrowed from the Russian language. The goal of this research is to find out how different or similar no and nu are in contemporary Ingrian from the point of view of their syntactic positions and functions. Four structural positions are distinguished, in relation to the position of the particle in a turn and in a clause, and no striking differences are observed in the distribution of no and nu across positions. The typical functions of no and nu are analysed separately in each of the four structural positions, and the functional range is found to be similar for both particles. It is also notable that in the Russian speech of Ingrian speakers, no is sometimes used as a discourse particle, although this would not be possible in standard Russian. The research concludes that at the period under investigation the two particles were on the way to complete merger, and can be treated as phonetic variants in a synchronic description of Ingrian, despite the quantitative prevalence of no over nu. Kokkuvõte. Elena Markus: Isuri diskursusepartiklite no ja nu süntaks ja funktsioonid. Artikkel uurib diskursusepartiklite no ja nu süntaksit ja funktsioone narratiivides ja isuri keele Soikkola murde kõnelejate vestluste salvestistes aastatel 2006–2013. Isuri partikkel no on ilmselt läänemeresoome päritolu, partikkel nu on aga tõenäoliselt laenatud vene keelest. Uurimuse eesmärk on välja selgitada, kui erinevad või sarnased on no ja nu tänapäeva isuri keeles süntaktiliste positsioonide ja funktsioonide poolest. Eristada võib nelja struktuurpositsiooni sõltuvalt partikli asukohast kõnevoorus ja lausungis, positsioonist lähtuvalt aga no ja nu vahel suuri erinevusi märgata ei olnud. Partiklitele tüüpilisi funktsioone analüüsiti eraldi igas struktuurpositsioonis ning selgus, et ka funktsioonide ulatus on mõlema partikli puhul sarnane. On ka märkimisväärne, et isuri keele kõnelejad kasutavad partiklit no diskursusepartiklina vahel ka vene keeles, kuigi vene keele standardis selline kasutus võimalik ei ole. Uurimusest järeldub, et vaadeldaval ajaperioodil on kaks partiklit üheks liitumas ning neid võib isuri keele sünkroonilises kirjelduses käsitleda kui foneetilisi variante, kuigi kvantitatiivselt on partikkel no eelistatum kui partikkel nu.

This study investigates the relationships between therapists' use of discourse particles and therapist empathy. Discourse particles, commonly found in non-English languages, are verbal elements that constitute metacommunication by encoding speakers' emotions and attitudes, which are typically expressed by nonverbal behaviors (e.g., intonation, tone, facial expression, nodding). We hypothesize an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between therapists' use of discourse particles and therapist empathy, given the notion that an optimal level of therapists' emotion in psychotherapy can facilitate clients' inner experiencing and self-expression. Four psychotherapy sessions each from 39 therapist–client dyads were analyzed. After each session, therapist empathy was rated by trained observers using the Therapist Empathy Scale (TES) and by clients using the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory (BLRI). Multilevel modeling shows that both the person-level negative quadratic term and positive linear term for therapists' usage of discourse particles are significant in predicting mean TES with large effect sizes. The same predictors do not yield significant results in predicting mean BLRI but they trend in similar directions of associations with medium effect sizes. Our results suggest the optimal usage of discourse particles by therapists is around 20.3% (out of all utterances). The nonsignificant results in BLRI may be attributed to the relatively small sample size of our data and the noncommunication orientation of the client-rated measure. Public Significance Statement: We show an inverted U-shaped relationship between therapists' use of discourse particles, a novel linguistic feature about metacommunication, and therapist empathy, suggesting an optimal level of therapists' emotions and attitudes in speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the discourse-interactional functions of the past tense forms of the âbeâ-verb in Udmurt (val and vylem). We focus on the analytic past tenses, in which forms of the âbeâ-verb are traditionally analysed as auxiliaries. Our main attempt is to characterise these discourse-interactional uses, and their relation to analytic past tense forms and functions. We claim that these discourse-interactional functions should rather be attributed to the past tense forms of the âbeâ-verb than to the analytic tenses themselves. In connection, the pragmaticalisation of val and vylem can be postulated. We propose that the use of val and vylem as tools of organising discourse is also linked to intersubjectivity. The results of our study show that val and vylem have a variety of discourse-interactional functions, independently of the tense of the finite verb in the analytic past tense. They are used to mark adversative, contrastive, additive, old, new and emphatic information. Similar phenomena occur in contact languages as well.

Статья посвящена анализу функций дискурсивной частицы schön в разговорной речи на материале немецкого языка. Целью статьи представляется описание функций частицы schön в диалоге. Научная новизна данного исследования состоит в разграничении дискурсивной частицы schön от прилагательного, а также в конкретном анализе их семантических свойств и функций. Результаты исследования позволяют сделать вывод, что дискурсивная частица schön обладает всегда положительной семантикой и выполняет в разговорной речи функцию положительного ответа; функцию развития последовательности темы, а также функцию оценки информации и экстралингвистического действия. В работе также представлены основные отличительные свойства дискурсивной частицы schön в немецком языке. Особую значимость обретает также этимологический анализ лексемы schön.

This study analyzes the L1-acquisition of discourse like and its pragmatic functions in American English based on the Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development component of the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES). The data show that discourse like is already present in the speech of 3- and 4-year-old children and that even very young children employ like to perform distinct pragmatic functions with specifying uses being dominant until age 8;5. The analysis also shows a notable increase in discourse like as children mature, mainly driven by an increase in attention-directing like, the dominant function of discourse like among children older than 8;5. Conditional inference trees show that the use of discourse like by children is affected by a child's age, the situation type and the frequency of discourse like in caregivers' input. Children younger than 7;10 use discourse like only rarely in formal contexts as well as in informal contexts if their caregivers do not use discourse like frequently. However, children use discourse like substantially more if they are older than 7;10 or, in informal contexts, when their caregivers use discourse like frequently. The changes in frequency and the functional shifts in the use of like around the ages of 7 to 9 is interpreted to show that peers become more important as linguistic role models when children enter school. The results thus substantiate research which suggests that the pragmatic and social meanings of discourse markers are learned alongside linguistic constraints rather than after the form has been acquired. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conditionals frequently convey that the antecedent is relevant to the consequent. Recently many authors have argued that this relevance is part of the conventional meaning of conditionals, but this approach fails to account for many examples where a conditional is used to convey irrelevance of antecedent to consequent. Both types of conditionals are best explained by a conventional meaning with no relevance requirement, and a separate process of coherence establishment among successive clauses in discourse. This account is supported by the distribution of discourse particles and is able to account for experimental studies used to support the conventionalist position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates two Italo-Romance discourse particles, which we analyze as 'cooperativity markers', conveying the conventional implicature that a future action to be accomplished by the speaker fulfills a set of maximal preferences that they share with the addressee; by means of this implicature, the speaker conveys that they intend their action to be cooperative. We show that clauses introduced by these particles share core syntactic and semantic properties with jussive expressions such as imperatives, most notably future orientation and a constraint on the person specification of the null subject. We argue that these particles occupy a functional projection which encodes preferential meanings and takes scope above Tense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Linguistica Uralica is the property of Teaduste Akadeemia Kirjastus and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The particle "lah" in the aspect of discourse is an affirmative word that has various roles in utterance. The term discourse particle is used to describe the existence of pragmatic interpretation through use in a particular context. The various interpretations of the discourse particle "lah" resulting from existing studies not only provide input related to its structure but also cause confusion regarding its use. In line with that, the need for research to compile the findings of previous studies should be implemented to synthesize the use of these discourse particles in terms of coverage of the debate, its form and function. The methodology of this study which is a Systematic Literature Review study is based on the PRISMA standard (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta Analysis). Three main databases were used namely Scopus, Dimensions and Google Scholar. This study used thematic analysis with the help of ATLAS.ti 23 software. Based on the analysis conducted, 102 interpretations of the discourse particle "lah" were coded. In addition, four main themes, namely Speaker Party, Social Identity and Genre Function can be produced to represent each interpretation. Based on this systematic literature review, the researcher was able to identify theoretical discussions related to the form and function of "lah" that could explain the role of these particles in communicative utterance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Iberoamericana de Lingüística is the property of Universitas Castellae and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Hindi and several other Indo-Aryan languages contain a discourse marker that has been described as having a wide range of functions, including topic marking, intensive, emphatic, contrastive, and assertive. In Hindi, this function is realized by the enclitic =to. Possible translational equivalents for =to include expressions like in fact, sure, you know, well, as for, at least, finally, and but. This article investigates the diverse uses of =to and argues that the full range can be uniformly accounted for only if =to is taken to be a particle that signals that the question resolved by its prejacent is weak. The analysis treats =to as a generalized downtoner that comments on the strength of the question the prejacent addresses, relative to the speaker's information state, prior discourse moves, and assumptions about the common ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue showcases empirical research on linguistic forms that can occupy multiple and diverse turn and sequence positions in a number of Asian languages and interactional contexts. Taking a conversation analytic and interactional linguistics approach, the studies in this issue identify the interactional functions and work carried out by these linguistic forms, which go beyond periphery-based arguments. The findings of the studies also illustrate the mechanisms and factors that account for the development of these forms as discourse particles and their emerging functions in various positions. • This issue examines the usage and development of diverse Asian discourse particles. • Studies show identical particles occupying multiple turn and sequence positions. • Each particle performs diverse functions in its position in real-time interaction. • The findings widen the scope of analysis beyond utterance peripheries. • Studies discuss the mechanisms and factors for the development of the particles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on Singlish, also known as Colloquial Singapore English, suggests that it is subject to ethnic variation across the three major ethnic groups in Singapore, namely Chinese, Malay, and Indian. Discourse particles, said to be one of the most distinctive features of the language, are nevertheless commonly used by bilinguals across all three ethnic groups. This study seeks to determine whether there are ethnic differences in the pitch contours of Singlish discourse particles produced by Singlish speakers. Four hundred and forty-four tokens of three Singlish particles, sia24, meh55, and what21, produced by the three groups of English-speaking bilingual speakers were drawn from the National Speech Corpus, and the pitch contours extracted and normalized. Statistical analysis of the overall pitch contours, the three acoustic parameters of mean pitch, pitch range, and pitch movement, and the variability of these parameters showed that the effect of ethnicity on the three acoustic parameters was not statistically significant and that the pitch contours of each particle were generally similar across ethnic groups. The results of this study suggest that Singlish may be acquired as a first language by Singaporean speakers, pre-empting any ethnic differences in the production of the particles that might otherwise have resulted from the speakers' differing language repertoires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has observed that the Colloquial Singapore English particle lah conveys many different, and sometimes contradictory, pragmatic effects. In this paper, I focus specifically on how lah, pronounced in a low falling tone, behaves differently with assertions and directives—although it emphasizes the truth of assertions, it weakens the authoritative force of directives. In addition, it can be used in a non-emphatic way with confirmation-seeking statements. I propose that the particle conveys the not-at-issue or side comment that the lah-marked proposition directly follows from the evidence it is based on, which is interpreted by the addressee as an attempt by the speaker to justify her utterance. The different pragmatic effects of the particle then result from how this not-at-issue comment is interpreted in relation to the speech act of the utterances they mark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the microvariation concerning the distribution and functions of certain interrogative discourse particles found in several central and southern Italian dialects. These particles show many similarities in terms of both their morphological shapes (being homophonous to the wh-phrase corresponding to English 'what') and their syntactic distribution within the sentence, in that they all occur at the beginning of polar questions. However, a careful analysis of their distribution across a pragmatically defined typology of canonical and non-canonical polar questions shows that these particles are not possible in all question types. In particular, two patterns emerge: in Pattern B, the particle is associated with a conventional implicature that both the speaker and the addressee are competent with respect to the issue addressed by the polar question, while in Pattern A, this implicature is restricted to the addressee competence. This point of microvariation is then analysed by assuming that both the pragmatic assumptions of competence and the discourse participants are encoded in the syntactic representation; the cartographic framework is adopted to characterize the compositional structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Linguistika: Buletin Ilmiah Program Magister Linguistik Universitas Udayana is the property of Program Studi Magister Linguistik Program Pascasarjana Universitas Udayana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The morpheme wal in Yucatec Maya is regarded informally as an epistemic modal, often translated with words like English 'might' or 'maybe'. In this paper, we consider the use of wal across a broader range of environments, arguing for a complex picture of wal as a discourse particle as well as its interactions with other factors. First, we show that the semantic effect of wal differs systematically depending on its intonational realization. Second, we show that both intonational variants of wal are felicitous across a wide variety of sentence types, not just declaratives. Overall, we present an analysis in which stressed and unstressed variants of wal interact with different sentence types in principled ways to produce a range of apparent effects. Beyond furthering our understanding of these various elements in Yucatec Maya, the resulting picture contributes to our growing cross-linguistic understanding of discourse particles and their interactions with intonation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The aim of the present article is to analyse the four most frequent Colloquial Indonesian discourse particles (lho, kok, sih, and dong) and to compare their occurrences in both spontaneous spoken conversations and written texts (articles from an online youth magazine). The latter method is uncommon, as most studies on Indonesian discourse particles focus exclusively on spoken data. My motivation for choosing the term “discourse particles” (instead of, for example, pragmatic particles) is explained and a new language-specific definition of the phenomenon is proposed. First, the particles’ meanings as given in various dictionaries are presented, followed by examples from spontaneous conversations. Next, examples from written texts are given, followed by an analysis of possible differences and similarities in meaning. Finally, the possible meanings of the particles are exemplified through sample sentences using semantic explication. By conclusion, I attempt to answer the question of whether the discourse particles in Colloquial Indonesian can be considered as a separate word class.

The lexical item raħ has undergone two phases of grammaticalisation, from a lexical item used as a lexical verb to a temporal-functional particle T-raħ, and further to a discourse-functional particle D-raħ. Syntactic diagnostics show that both T-raħ and D-raħ have developed properties of head status, adopting conventional Minimalist and Cartographic principles (Chomsky, 2000; Rizzi, 1997; Frascarelli & Hinterhölzl, 2007), where evidence is deduced from the fact that movement of a head is sensitive to intervention effects in the course of the derivation (Rizzi, 2006). The novelty about raħ is that, in its first phase of grammaticalised Traħ, while it has lost its φ-features input, in the sense that it doesn't spell out any agreeing suffix with the DP it marks, in its second phase of grammaticalised D-raħ, it has retained its φ-features, hence, an agreeing head. Further, this agreeing characteristic of D-raħ, with investigations of more articulated data, brings insight to the current research on discourse particles in that it goes against the widely-adopted characterization of discourse particles that postulates a non-agreeing property of discourse particles; discourse particles do not inflect for agreement. The syntactic properties shown by the grammaticalised raħ propose, on empirical groundings by movement considerations, that discourse particles externally merge in the course of the derivation, giving credence to the theory that the syntax of discourse particles has changed from Move to Merge (Hack, 2014). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes and analyses two discourse particles that are found in polar questions and in some declarative structures in central Sicilian. The analysis adopts an interface approach, relying on the cartographic framework. It is proposed that each particle conveys in all its uses one and the same conventional implicature, relating to the epistemic state of one of the discourse participants. The interaction of the two particles with left-peripheral elements, in particular topics, vocatives, fronted foci, and speaker-oriented adverbs, supports the view that the speaker, the hearer, and the commitment anchor are syntactically represented in sentence structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is the first in-depth study of the Nepali discourse particle ni. The first part summarizes how ni has been treated in previous works on Nepali and shows how Östman’s (1981) analysis of the often-used English translation equivalent of ni, ‘you know’, gives a hint about the semantics of ni. Then, deriving data mainly from Narayan Wagle’s novel Palpasa café, which includes colloquial dialogues, but also from other sources, the paper illustrates the declarative, interrogative and imperative uses of ni. The common denominator between the various uses of ni is shown to be that the speaker brings something to the forefront of the addressee’s attention. The last section compares the concept of attention to the related concepts contrastive focus and mirative.

This paper analyses the prosodic features of independent constructions introduced by a ver si using spoken data coming from two corpora of colloquial Peninsular Spanish: the Val.Es.Co. corpus (Briz Gómez 2002; Cabedo and Pons 2013) and the COLA corpus from Madrid (Jorgensen 2007). After pointing out the limitations of conceptualizing a ver si as a discourse particle, we propose a constructional approach, that posits three separate modal a ver si-constructions: verificative, optative and counter-expectative. The prosodic analysis shows acoustic differences between the three constructions, both in terms of their melodic contours and their syllabic length. These results support a constructional approach that recognizes prosody as a component of grammatical constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate whether non-native speakers of Dutch use the interpersonal discourse particle eigenlijk differently than native speakers of Dutch. Particles such as eigenlijk are considered to be very difficult to learn for non-native speakers. Eigenlijk might be even more difficult to learn than other particles, because of its complex effect on the discourse. We tested whether non-native speakers of Dutch used eigenlijk differently than native speakers of Dutch by means of an online cloze test in which native speakers (control group, N = 109) and non-native speakers (N = 73) had to choose between eigenlijk and an adverb in a variety of contexts. Results indicated that non-native speakers used eigenlijk differently than native speakers, but non-native speakers did somewhat understand that eigenlijk marks a contrast with a contextually raised expectation. Moreover, more proficient native speakers were more similar to native speakers in their use of eigenlijk than less proficient native speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we conduct a pragmatic analysis of the Dutch utterance-final particle hoor (lit. 'hear'). Apparently, hoor has contradictory uses. It ex-presses politeness (involvement, togetherness), but it can also contribute to the face-threatening force of an utterance. We argue that there is a core meaning that all uses share, which is that by adding hoor, speakers claim a proposition at issue to be part of the common ground. This core meaning will be shown to account for hoor's key characteristics. Hoor expresses involvement and is often attached to speech acts that are intrinsically polite, such as apologizing and giving compliments. Also, while hoor never occurs in interrogative sentences, it can be used with a certain type of directive speech acts, namely those that are in the interest of the hearer or are presented as having shared interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse particles constitute an important part of spoken language; they have a wide range of pragmatic functions in interactional contexts. The object of the present paper is to introduce Kurdish discourse particles, clarify their functions in different discourse contexts, and briefly sketch some aspects of their grammatical properties. I will focus on Sorani Kurdish since this dialect has a rich inventory of discourse particles that have not so far been investigated. I will show that the majority of these particles convey multiple functions and display a great degree of free syntactic distribution, a noteworthy point. In addition to expounding upon their syntactic position, I will inquire into the types of sentences in which they can occur (declarative, interrogative, and imperative). Furthermore, I will argue that individual discourse particles can appear adjacent to each other to give rise to new combinations, and in some cases the order of the components participating in the combination can be reversed and still remain as acceptable forms. Finally, I will explore the interrogative contexts in which discourse particles can occur, and also distinguish between two types of particles that can affect the interrogative utterance in different ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates three discourse particles, namely tara, ʕaːd, and Ɂah-in Hijazi Arabic (HA). It argues that they are C-related particles located in different projections in the split C-system in the sense of Rizzi (1997) and Frascarelli & Hinterhölzl (2007). Tara is a particle heading the Focus Phrase (FocP). ʕaːd is a particle heading the Contrastive Topic Phrase (C-TopP). Ɂah- is a particle that forms a constituent merged in the Shifting Topic Phrase (S-TopP). Evidence is provided based on their semantics and syntax. Semantically, both tara and ʕaːd evoke a contrastive interpretation marking an entity as contrasted focus and topic, respectively. On the other hand, Ɂah- marks an entity as a main topic that the discourse is about. Syntactically, the three particles differ in their compatibility with focussed constructions, their compatibility with S-Top marking expressions, their ability to occur in embedded clauses, and their syntactic positions relative to each other. Having analysed the three particles, the paper proposes a distinctive property between Focus (Foc) and Topic (Top) heads with respect to the edge feature. While the phonetically overt Foc0 tara seems to have no edge feature that triggers the move of the focussed element to [Spec, FocP], both C-Top0 and S-Top0 motivate the marked constituent to merge/move to the specifier position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is focused on offering the first possible classification of Livonian discourse particles based on the spontaneous speech material of recorded Livonian conversations held at the University of Tartu Archives of Estonian Dialects and Kindred Languages. Based on 17 recordings from six native Livonian speakers the main discourse particle groups were distinguished according to Tiit Hennoste's classification of discourse particles (2000). Thereafter seven particles (si'z 'then', ne'i 'so', nu and no 'well', agā 'but, perhaps, maybe', and the tonal particles ju and jo) frequently occurring in the material were analyzed more precisely to specify their different functions in spoken discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adopting the cartographic approach, this paper proposes syntactic positions for all left-periphery particles above the tense phrase (TP) in Cantonese. These include both sentence-final particles and sentence-initial particles that can be used in isolation as interjections. Based on previous syntactic proposals for the left periphery, a modification of Rizzi’s (2001) split-complementizer phrase (Split-CP) structure is proposed. A Deictic Phrase (DeicP) is added above the finite phrase (FinP) for the Cantonese “tense” particles laa3 and lei4(ge3). Then, based on a number of proposals inspired by Speas and Tenny (2003), two functional phrases are added above the force phrase (ForceP) – a higher affect phrase (AffectP) for Cantonese sentence-initial particles and a lower discourse phrase (DiscourseP) for most of the sentence-final particles. The resulting structure is tentatively proposed to account for the word order of all left-periphery particles in Cantonese, bringing the description of their syntax closer in line with a number of proposals based on left-periphery particles in other languages. This proposal includes a three-way distinction of the functions and meanings of left-periphery particles: 1) particles that lie between ForceP and TP do not refer directly to the discourse context; 2) particles that head DiscourseP do refer directly to the discourse; and 3) particles that head AffectP refer to the discourse and express human emotions.

In this paper we examine the distribution and functions of two optional particles found in polar questions in central Sicilian: chi and cusà. The import of these particles can best be understood if their distribution in various types of ‘non-canonical’ questions is analysed, based on the typology outlined in Farkas (2020). In Farkas’s account, canonical questions are characterized by the default assumptions of speaker ignorance and addressee competence about the question’s propositional content, while non-canonical questions lack at least one of these assumptions. This characterization of (non)-canonical questions in terms of speaker ignorance and addressee competence allows us to capture the distribution of the two particles, which strengthen these assumptions to conventional implicatures. In particular, we show that chi is conventionally associated with addressee competence, while cusà is conventionally associated with speaker ignorance. We frame this analysis in a version of the inquisitive semantics model, according to which sentence types are characterized by two parameters: the informativeness of the propositional content relative to the participants’ information state, and its inquisitiveness, that is, its potential to raise an issue. This perspective allows is to develop a formal explicit analysis of the particles’ meaning, which can in turn be successfully extended to capture their use beyond polar questions.

In this paper, we investigate focus markers in Catalan that can take on discourse-particle readings. We focus on two Catalan elements that have not been studied from a formal linguistics perspective so far: the focus adverb precisament 'precisely' and the focus particle també 'also'. We demonstrate that these elements feature interpretations that we identify as a type of meaning familiar from discourse particles in languages other than Catalan. After having outlined the basic distribution and interpretative effects of these particles, we analyze the semantics and pragmatics of precisament and també within a probabilistic argumentative framework, and we then conclude the paper by comparing the observations and analyses we have pointed out for Catalan to other languages that feature a discourse-particle reading of similar focus markers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse particles are among the most commented-upon features of Colloquial Singapore English (CSE). Their use has been shown to vary depending on formality, context, gender and ethnicity, although results differ from one study to another. This study uses the Corpus of Singapore English Messages (CoSEM), a large-scale corpus of texts composed by Singaporeans and sent using electronic messaging services, to investigate gender and ethnic factors as predictors of particle use. The results suggest a strong gender effect as well as several particle-specific ethnic effects. More generally, our study underlines the special nature of the grammatical class of discourse particles in CSE, which is open to new additions as the sociolinguistic and pragmatic need for them develops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on Singlish, also known as Colloquial Singapore English, suggests that it is subject to ethnic variation across the three major ethnic groups in Singapore, namely Chinese, Malay, and Indian. Discourse particles, said to be one of the most distinctive features of the language, are nevertheless commonly used by bilinguals across all three ethnic groups. This study seeks to determine whether there are ethnic differences in the pitch contours of Singlish discourse particles produced by Singlish speakers. Four hundred and forty-four tokens of three Singlish particles, sia24, meh55, and what21, produced by the three groups of English-speaking bilingual speakers were drawn from the National Speech Corpus, and the pitch contours extracted and normalized. Statistical analysis of the overall pitch contours, the three acoustic parameters of mean pitch, pitch range, and pitch movement, and the variability of these parameters showed that the effect of ethnicity on the three acoustic parameters was not statistically significant and that the pitch contours of each particle were generally similar across ethnic groups. The results of this study suggest that Singlish may be acquired as a first language by Singaporean speakers, pre-empting any ethnic differences in the production of the particles that might otherwise have resulted from the speakers’ differing language repertoires.

Previous research has observed that the Colloquial Singapore English particle lah conveys many different, and sometimes contradictory, pragmatic effects. In this paper, I focus specifically on how lah, pronounced in a low falling tone, behaves differently with assertions and directives—although it emphasizes the truth of assertions, it weakens the authoritative force of directives. In addition, it can be used in a non-emphatic way with confirmation-seeking statements. I propose that the particle conveys the not-at-issue or side comment that the lah-marked proposition directly follows from the evidence it is based on, which is interpreted by the addressee as an attempt by the speaker to justify her utterance. The different pragmatic effects of the particle then result from how this not-at-issue comment is interpreted in relation to the speech act of the utterances they mark.