Chapter 1
On the adverbial origin of German modal particles
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.
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
- 4.2Predicatives
- 4.3Sentence adverbs
- 4.4Temporal adverbs
- 4.5Conjunctions
- 4.6Degree particles
- 4.7Interim conclusions
- 5.Syntactic analysis of the grammaticalization of modal particles
- 6.Conclusions
-
Acknowledgments
-
Notes
-
References
-
Appendix
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