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Part of
Particles in German, English, and Beyond
Edited by Remus Gergel, Ingo Reich and Augustin Speyer
[Studies in Language Companion Series 224] 2022
► pp. 177–208

Chapter 7
Final though

| Saarland University
| Saarland University

Starting out from observations in English linguistics, the paper makes a case that final though is an English particle. An experimental study is conducted indicating that though is permissive outside of concessive contexts as well. The focus of this study is placed on corpus examples which have remained unaccounted for in previous approaches. A descriptive generalization is proposed in terms of noteworthiness and an initial modelling in terms of a split notion of Common Ground following Bar-Asher Siegal & Boneh (2016) is pursued.

Keywords: English particles, Common Ground managment, mirativity, concessivity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Discourse particles in English
  • 2.Final though
    • 2.1Previous research on final though
    • 2.2Unsolved questions
  • 3.Concessive final though
    • 3.1Experiment
      • 3.1.1Methods
      • 3.1.2Results
      • 3.1.3Discussion
      • 3.1.4Corpus findings
    • 3.2Final though as projective content
    • 3.3Final though as a trigger in corpus examples
  • 4.Descriptive generalization of the uses of final though: Balancing noteworthiness
  • 5.Common ground management (with side-effect mirativity)
  • 6.Conclusion and outlook
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 16 August 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.224.07puh
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