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Discourse Particles: Syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and historical aspects
Edited by Xabier Artiagoitia, Arantzazu Elordieta and Sergio Monforte
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 276] 2022
► pp. 13–40

Chapter 1
On the adverbial origin of German modal particles

| Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

All German modal particles share important common properties. However, in a diachronic perspective, their origin has often been explained by assuming that they have grammaticalized from different types of lexemes belonging to several word classes: adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, etc. The present paper intends to dissipate some erroneous assumptions about the grammaticalization paths of modal particles and to offer a novel syntactic approach that explains their origin and development. By following and elaborating on some recent ideas, I will explore the hypothesis that modal particles have an adverbial origin and will provide corresponding evidence. In the syntactic analysis, I will claim that all modal particles originate from specific types of (strong) lower adverb(ial)s that become weak sentential adverbs under reanalysis.

Keywords: adverbial, grammaticalization, modal particle, sentence adverb
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Definition and general properties of modal particles
  • 3.Origin and grammaticalization of German modal particles
    • 3.1Donor lexemes – a short state of the art
    • 3.2Donor lexemes – hypotheses
  • 4.Which donor lexemes? Some empirical facts
    • 4.1“Real” adverbs
      • Einfach
    • 4.2Predicatives
      • Ruhig
    • 4.3Sentence adverbs
      • Eigentlich
      • Vielleicht
    • 4.4Temporal adverbs
      • Denn
    • 4.5Conjunctions
      • Aber
      • Doch
    • 4.6Degree particles
      • Nur
      • Bloß
    • 4.7Interim conclusions
  • 5.Syntactic analysis of the grammaticalization of modal particles
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 May 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.276.01con
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