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Part of
Information-Structural Perspectives on Discourse Particles
Edited by Pierre-Yves Modicom and Olivier Duplâtre
[Studies in Language Companion Series 213] 2020
► pp. 71–110

Chapter 3
Kazakh particle ğoj as an existential operator

| University of Surrey

This paper is devoted to the Kazakh particle ğoj, its syntactic distribution, pragmatic contribution and semantics. Two syntactically distinct types of ğoj are distinguished: a post-nominal copula-type ğoj and a post-predicative particle ğoj. The speaker using either particle in her utterance indicates to her hearer that (some of) the information she provides has been previously shared, or should be treated as such. In post-predicative position, ğoj is never obligatory and can follow any type of predicate – verbal or nominal – as long as it is either narrowly focused, or is a part of a wider focus phrase. Both types of ğoj contribute similar pragmatic effects of contrastivity and givenness (or pragmatic presupposition). Especially, the proposition p followed by post-predicative ğoj is assumed to belong to the Common Ground, whether it had been explicitly added there during the preceding exchange or not. Drawing on the comparison with Russian že and Tundra Yukaghir particle mə(r)=, it is shown that ğoj should be treated as an existential operator stating the existence of p inside of the Common Ground.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Kazakh language
    • 2.1Socio-economic background of the Kazakh language
    • 2.2General features of Kazakh
    • 2.3Kazakh data
  • 3.Previous research on ğoj
  • 4.Ğoj in imperative clauses
  • 5.Syntactic distribution of ğoj
    • 5.1Post-predicative ğoj
    • 5.2Post-nominal ğoj
  • 6.Pragmatic contribution of ğoj
    • 6.1Pragmatic contribution of post-predicative ğoj
    • 6.2Pragmatic contribution of the post-nominal ğoj
  • 7.Semantics of ğoj
    • 7.1Russian že
    • 7.2Tundra Yukaghir particle mə(r)=
    • 7.3Ğoj as an existential operator
  • 8.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 4 March 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.213.03chr
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