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Studies at the Grammar-Discourse Interface: Discourse markers and discourse-related grammatical phenomena
Edited by Alexander Haselow and Sylvie Hancil
[Studies in Language Companion Series 219] 2021
► pp. 57–76

Chapter 2
On the pragmatic development of modal particles in Navarrese-Lapurdian Basque

Hori emain ote nauzu?

| University of the Basque Country

The grammaticalisation of modal particles has mainly been focused on their source and historical development. This article deals with the ongoing pragmatic extension of the epistemic particle ote in the Navarrese-Lapurdian dialect. When used in questions, this particle has traditionally expressed that the speaker believes that none of the potential denoted responses will have the necessary strength of commitment and, therefore, no answer is expected. Based on the fact that questions containing ote are felt as less direct and that the particle minimises the interrogative force, speakers of such dialect have reinterpreted the use of ote as a resource to reduce the expectancy and directiveness of information seeking questions where the speakers hope to receive a response.

Keywords: modal particles, pragmatic extension, grammaticalisation, Basque
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Some basic notions on question formation and modal particles in Basque
  • 3.The modal particle ote : Its general contribution
  • 4.On the literature of pragmatic change regarding modal particles
    • 4.1The grammaticalization of modal particles into question particles
    • 4.2The use of modal particles to minimize the interrogative strength
  • 5.Pragmatic microvariation on Navarrese-Lapurdian
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Consulted corpora
  • References
Published online: 3 June 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.219.02mon
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