So as a focus marker in German
- This paper discusses a hitherto undescribed usage of the particle so as a dedicated focus marker in contemporary German. I discuss grammatical and pragmatic characteristics of this focus marker, supporting my account with natural linguistic data and with controlled experimental evidence showing that so has a significant influence on speakers' understanding of what the focus expression in a sentence is. Against this background, I sketch a possible pragmaticalization path from referential usages of so via hedging to a semantically bleached focus marker, which, unlike particles such as auch 'also'/'too' or nur 'only', does not contribute any additional meaning.
| Author details: | Heike WieseGND |
|---|---|
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1515/LING.2011.028 |
| ISSN: | 0024-3949 |
| Title of parent work (English): | Linguistics : an interdisciplinary journal of the language sciences |
| Publisher: | De Gruyter Mouton |
| Place of publishing: | Berlin |
| Publication type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Year of first publication: | 2011 |
| Publication year: | 2011 |
| Release date: | 2017/03/26 |
| Volume: | 49 |
| Issue: | 5 |
| Number of pages: | 49 |
| First page: | 991 |
| Last Page: | 1039 |
| Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Linguistik |
| Peer review: | Referiert |
| Institution name at the time of the publication: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Linguistik / Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft |
| External remark: | Zweitveröffentlichung in der Schriftenreihe Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Philosophische Reihe ; 102 |
