Final Particles 9783110375572, 9783110353808

This volume brings together sixteen in-depth studies of final particles in various languages of the world, offering a ri

187 71 2MB

English Pages 439 [440] Year 2015

Report DMCA / Copyright

DOWNLOAD PDF FILE

Table of contents :
Table of contents
I. Introduction
1. Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective
II Discourse Analysis & Conversation Analysis
2. Sentence-final adverbials: Recurrent types and usage
3. Taking an interactional perspective on final particles: the case of Finnish mutta (‘but’)
4. Final particles in spoken German
III. Grammaticalization
5. Some observations on the evolution of final particles
6. The evolution of Japanese toka in utterance-final position
7. Two Types of Conditionals and Two Different Grammaticalization Paths
8. The emergence of utterance-final particles in Korean
9. Grammaticalization of final but: from conjunction to final particle
IV. Cognitive Approaches
10. Dutch particles in the right periphery
11. A relevance-theoretic perspective on the Norwegian utterance-final particles da and altså compared to their English counterpart then
12. The Northern Russian utterance-final particle dak as an informationstructuring device
13. A study of three particles in Khmer: t?v, m??k, coh Denis Paillard
V. Generative Approaches
14. Particles and Parameters in Wh-Questions
15. On sentential particles: A crosslinguistic study
16. Circumstantial PPs and the middle field in Japanese
17. Word order and the syntax of question particles
Subject index
Author index
Recommend Papers

Final Particles
 9783110375572, 9783110353808

  • 0 0 0
  • Like this paper and download? You can publish your own PDF file online for free in a few minutes! Sign Up
File loading please wait...
Citation preview

Sylvie Hancil, Alexander Haselow, Margje Post (Eds.) Final Particles

Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs

Editor Volker Gast Editorial Board Walter Bisang Jan Terje Faarlund Hans Henrich Hock Natalia Levshina Heiko Narrog Matthias Schlesewsky Amir Zeldes Niina Ning Zhang Editor responsible for this volume Volker Gast

Volume 284

Final Particles

Edited by Sylvie Hancil Alexander Haselow Margje Post

ISBN 978-3-11-035380-8 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-037557-2 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-039418-4 ISSN 1861-4302 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. 6 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: RoyalStandard, Hong Kong Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Table of contents I

Introduction

1

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

II

Discourse Analysis & Conversation Analysis

2

Pedro Ureña Gómez-Moreno Sentence-final adverbials: Recurrent types and usage

3

Alexander Haselow Final particles in spoken German

III

Grammaticalization

5

Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck and Tania Kuteva Some observations on the evolution of final particles

6

Yuki Taylor The evolution of Japanese toka in utterance-final position

8

9

39

Aino Koivisto Taking an interactional perspective on final particles: The case of Finnish 55 mutta (‘but’)

4

7

3

77

111

141

Rumiko Shinzato Two types of conditionals and two different grammaticalization 157 paths Sung-Ock Sohn The emergence of utterance-final particles in Korean

181

Sylvie Hancil The grammaticalization of final but: From conjunction to final 197 particle

vi IV

Table of contents

Cognitive Approaches

Ton van der Wouden and Ad Foolen 10 Dutch particles in the right periphery

11

221

Thorstein Fretheim A relevance-theoretic perspective on the Norwegian utterance-final particles da and altså compared to their English counterpart then

Margje Post 12 The North Russian utterance-final particle dak as an information285 structuring device Denis Paillard 13 A study of three particles in Khmer: tɨv, mɔɔk, coh

V

305

Generative Approaches

Gabriela Soare 14 Particles and Parameters in Wh-Questions

333

Francesca Del Gobbo, Nicola Munaro and Cecilia Poletto 359 15 On sentential particles: A cross-linguistic study Kaori Takamine 16 Circumstantial PPs and the middle field in Japanese Laura R. Bailey 17 Word order and the syntax of question particles

Subject index Author index

427 432

387

407

249

I Introduction

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

1 Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective 1 Introduction Spoken language has been the primary focus of research in discourse analysis and conversation analysis for some decades, but grammatical analysis is still largely based on written structures and has only recently come to include data from natural speech. As a result of this written-language bias (Linell 2005) that has long dominated linguistic research, many structural features that are characteristic of spontaneous spoken language as well as the form and function of many indexical elements that are frequently used in speech are still in need of investigation. This book focuses on one particular kind of such indexical elements, namely final particles. In the current volume we have brought together sixteen studies on final particles in different languages of the world to take stock of some of the recent advances in the study of these elements and to contribute to broadening and deepening our understanding of their function and syntactic status, their coming-into-existence (often considered an instance of grammaticalization), and the factors that condition their use. This collection of articles is, to our knowledge, the first cross-linguistic overview of final particles, and we hope it will not only provide interesting insights into current research on this topic, but also set the scene for more diverse research in this area. Most of the contributions were presented at the International Conference on Final Particles, held on 27–28 May 2010 in Rouen. We did not privilege one theoretical perspective over another since no one approach could exhaustively represent the full range of functions of final particles and their categorical status. While some authors rely on discourse- and conversation-analytic methods to explore the function of final particles, others are interested in grammaticalization, in cognitive aspects, or they assume a universal grammar and work within a generative framework. Commonalities emerge in the use of corpus data and the search for explanations of the grammatical and pragmatic role of the final position in a sentence or an utterance. In this introduction, we will first sketch some general ideas about final particles and the relevance of the study of final particles for linguistic theory Sylvie Hancil, University of Rouen; Margje Post, University of Bergen; Alexander Haselow, University of Rostock

4

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

(Section 2) before providing a typological overview of different types of final particles (Section 3). In Section 4, we will briefly present the different contributions to this volume.

2 Final particles as a research topic All contributions to this volume are based on the following observation: in many languages of the world, sentences or, from a discourse perspective, utterances often end in elements that have little or no lexical or conceptual, but predominantly procedural meaning in terms of Blakemore (1987) in that they provide an interpretive cue to the hearer as to how to understand the sentence or utterance they accompany. Some examples are given in (1). (1) a. English:

I wouldn’t care actually/anyway/but/even/so/then/though.

b. Dutch:

Die avond moest ’t gebeuren dus/immers/maar/misschien. ‘That evening it had to happen thus/after all/but/perhaps.’

c. Northern Russian:

Ona davno ne robotat. Bol’na dak. she:NOM ;SG long NEG work:PRS ;3SG ill:NOM ;F;SG PRT ‘She hasn’t been working for a long time. (Because) she is ill.’ (Gecova 1999)

d. Cantonese: Neih sik keuih maa.3/me.5 (Chan 2002: 59) you know him/her PRT ‘Do you know her PRT (neutral question)/ PRT (surprise, dismay)?’ e. Venetian Italian

Dove valo, ti? (Del Gobbo, Munaro, and Poletto, this vol.) Where goes.he PRT ‘Where on earth is he going?’

The elements highlighted in bold in (1), which occur predominantly in spoken discourse, are what we and many other linguists analyzing these items call final particles (FPs). More specific terms are sentence-final and utterance-final particles. The term sentence-final particle is widely used for Asian languages and in studies written in a generative framework. Some contributors to this volume prefer the term utterance-final particle, since the units involved need not have the form of a complete sentence and the particles themselves usually have no constituent status. We have chosen to use the neutral term final particles and leave it to the authors to decide which term fits their data best.

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

5

Final particles are often classified in a more general way as a sub-class of what has been called, among others, discourse markers (Schiffrin 1987; 2001; Fraser 1999), pragmatic markers (Andersen and Fretheim 2000, Norrick 2009), pragmatic particles (Foolen [1996] 2003; Fried and Östman 2005), discourse particles (Fischer 2006), modal particles (Aijmer 2013; Izutsu and Izutsu 2013), or interactional particles (Morita 2012); in French a common term is particules énonciatives (e.g. Fernandez-Vest 1994); in German, Abtönungspartikeln (Weydt 1969; 1989) is an established term. The problem concerning the categorical relationship between these different types of particles has been discussed by several authors in a recently published edited volume by Degand, Pietrandrea and Cornillie (2013). We avoid this terminological confusion here, claiming that the elements under investigation are distinct enough to deserve a descriptive label of their own, as shown in Section 3. FPs are usually monomorphemic units that are prosodically integrated into a host unit and cannot occur in isolation, they are unaccented, have no propositional content and do not effect the truth conditions of the unit they accompany. The meaning of FPs is relatively elusive, due to the fact that they often change their function depending on the illocutionary type of the utterance to which they are attached and on the sequential context in which this utterance is situated. However, what all FPs have in common is that they convey different types of metapragmatic information (e.g. emotive, epistemic) and information on the rhetorical relation to a prior discourse unit, situating an utterance in a specific communicative context. FPs thus serve an utterance-integrative function in ongoing discourse. While FPs are quite common and relatively well-documented in East and Southeast Asian languages, the phenomenon has not been investigated in detail for European languages, in which the use of final particles appears to be increasing. At least some FPs have been part of everyday speech in some of these languages for centuries, but others appeared recently. Lenker (2010), for instance, states for English that the retrospective ground-changing function of adverbials with temporal sources (then, after all, still) used in the right periphery of a clause was not widely used until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when a new typology of connectives arose. According to Lenker, most adverbials of this type that appear in final position developed quite late: final though, for example, which has been in use in English since the nineteenth century (though sparingly), came to be used frequently only in the second half of the twentieth century (Lenker 2010: 201), and is largely restricted to spoken, interactional language. Lenker links the development in English to what she considers a typological change in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which consists in a growing preference for adverbial connectives over coordinating conjunctions (Lenker 2010: 9). Traugott (forthc.) shows that the types of pragmatic markers in final position have been incremental from Old English. The clause-final position has come to

6

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

be occupied by an increasingly larger set of elements over the history of English, some of which developed later than others, the “youngest” type being retrospective contrastive markers (then, though, actually, after all). The use of final particles is thus probably the result of ongoing syntactic changes that are interwoven with changes in discourse organization. This shift, which may well be ongoing in other European languages as well, has not been widely recognized and is therefore worth studying. While most research on FPs has been done for East Asian languages (e.g. Luke 1990; Okamoto 1995; Sohn 1996; Onodera 2000; Strauss 2005; Wu 2004; Li 2006; Lee 2007; Kita and Ide 2007; Sybesma and Li 2007; Haugh 2008; Yap, Wang, and Lam 2010; Davis 2011; Saigo 2011; Rhee 2012, and the references therein), little of this is known to researchers of European languages. Unifying the studies on FPs allows for a cross-fertilization of Asian and European linguistics and for truly integrative approaches to the study of the syntax of spoken language: hypotheses formulated for the development and the function of FPs in different languages can be tested against each other, and descriptions of the function of FPs in one language often find their proper place if judged against other languages, especially when they are genetically unrelated. Most of the contributions to this volume suggest that the factors underlying the development and the use of FPs are similar in typologically distinct languages since FPs are not necessarily licensed by syntactic rules, but motivated by discourse needs and interactive forces (e.g. intersubjective understanding, turn-taking) that hold for all speakers irrespective of the underlying language. On these grounds, a typological perspective seems justified. The study of FPs has a lot to offer for linguistic description and studies on discourse structure. There are at least six domains in which the study of final particles sheds new light on linguistic theory: (i) Theories of Grammar: FPs are elements of spoken grammar and thus relevant for theories of the structure of spoken language. Since their word class affiliation is indeterminate, they represent a challenge for linguistic categorization. (ii) Syntactic Theory: The syntactic status of FPs is far from clear. The role of the final position (or “right periphery”, or “post-field”) in the construction of a sentence or a structural unit of any type (an “utterance” or “unit of talk”) needs to be rethought in order to encompass FPs. (iii) Cognitive Linguistics: Final particles are prototypical procedural markers, indicating how the linguistic unit they are attached to is to be understood by the addressee. They can index the cognitive status of a message (e.g. surprise/unexpectedness, plausibility) and provide different cues on how to process the message they accompany.

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

7

(iv) Discourse Analysis and Conversation Analysis: FPs are used to structure jointly produced discourse. They have a cohesive function that needs to be explored and related to the conditions of interactive discourse production. FPs structure conversational turns in that they mark transition-relevant places and thus play a role in the turn-taking system that regulates interpersonal communication. (v) Discourse-Pragmatic Variation: Both the initial and the final position are preferred places for the indication of information that is relevant for the processing of a message. More attention needs to be paid to the question if, and in what way, the initial and the final position differ in their communicative function. (vi) Grammaticalization: FPs are based on a variety of source lexemes which, over time, developed heterosemes in final position, where they acquired metapragmatic functions and lost much of the original semantic content. Similarities in the development of particular types of FPs in different languages (e.g. FPs based on conjunctions) suggest typologically consistent, recurrent diachronic pathways. Each of these aspects will figure in the different contributions of this volume, some focusing more on syntactic theory (especially the contributions by Bailey, Soare, Takamine and by Del Gobbo, Munaro, and Poletto, which are based on generative approaches), others more on theories of grammar and grammaticalization (e.g. Heine, Kaltenböck and Kuteva’s article), and many of them include data and discussions that are relevant for hypotheses and theories in several domains (e.g. Hancil on final but, Ureña Gómez-Moreno on final adverbials in English). A challenge for linguistic description is how to define the class of “final particles” in opposition to other elements that may potentially be used in final position (e.g. adverbs or tags), and how to integrate the great collection of items that have been identified as “final particles” in different typologically and genetically unrelated languages into a single category. The discussions of FPs include various types of linguistic items (e.g. adverb-like or conjunction-like elements, or question particles, see Soare, this vol.; Bailey, this vol.) with various kinds of functions (e.g. connective, expressive, modifying, see f.i. Nikolaeva 1985; 2000; Dedaić and Misković-Luković 2010: 2). A further problem is that FPs are usually described as language-specific items (e.g. sentence-final particles in Japanese, utterance-final particles in Dutch etc.) and thus defined according to the formal criteria and form-function mappings of the respective language. The difficulty thus lies in mapping a supposedly cross-linguistically relevant category to a number of language-specific categories. Moreover, even the most essential formal criterion for an FP, namely the type of unit to which it is final, has not been de-

8

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

fined in a uniform way: some authors use the term “clause-final”, others speak of “sentence-final”, “utterance-final”, “turn-final” or “prosodic-unit-final” particles. We will argue that, in spite of the typological diversity of languages that have FPs, it is possible to identify some basic category-constitutive core features that characterize FPs as an independent linguistic category. A preliminary attempt for such an integrated description is made in Section 3.

3 Final particles: A typological overview FPs occur predominantly in unplanned, interactive speech (conversation) and rarely in written language, and many of them tend to be used in informal contexts. Their syntactic status is, in contrast to core-grammatical elements, not entirely clear, above all in terms of constituent status and degree of integration into the syntactic structure of the host unit, and they do not easily fit into a particular linguistic category. For instance, in English linguistics the elements discussed as FPs (e.g. then, though, anyway, but) by e.g. Mulder and Thompson (2008), Haselow (2012a; 2013) or Hancil (this vol.) can be found under different labels in the literature, e.g. as conjuncts (Quirk et al. 1985: 634–647), linking adverbials (Biber et al. 1999: 889–892), connective adjuncts (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 779), adverbial connectors (Lenker 2010), or discourse markers (Fraser 1999), i.e. they are labeled either according to word class affiliation, their syntactic function, their pragmatic function, or a combination of different aspects (e.g. “adverbial connector”). A further problem that complicates a uniform description of FPs is that they are studied from a broad range of theoretical approaches, e.g. (i) under a broad conception of grammar, i.e. one that encompasses structural relations beyond the sentence level (e.g. text organization and speaker-hearer interaction), such as “macrogrammar” (Haselow 2013) or “thetical grammar” (Kaltenböck, Heine, and Kuteva 2011; this vol.), (ii) under a generative framework, which focuses on the syntactic status of FPs, functional hierarchies, and on how the final position is generated in sentence/clause structure (movement operations), partly based on cartographic studies of clause structure (e.g. Bailey, this vol.; Takamine, this vol.), (iii) from a grammaticalization perspective (e.g. Barth-Weingarten and Couper-Kuhlen 2002; Mulder and Thompson 2008; Hancil 2014; this vol.), (iv) based on discourse-analytic approaches, which seek to identify the discourse-structuring and cohesive function of FPs (Foolen 2003), or (v) on cognitive approaches, which focus, for instance, on the cognitive status of the units they link (e.g. asymmetric relations between two information units, see Post, this vol., Paillard, this vol.), or on their function

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

9

for the management of common ground (Haselow 2012a). Another problem for linguistic categorization is that most FPs have heterosemes in other word classes, leading to categorical overlap, particularly in ongoing grammaticalization, which often makes it difficult to draw a clear-cut boundary between FPs and their lexical sources, e.g. adverbs or conjunctions. Some attempts have been made to define FPs. One of the most widely used definitions is that by Mulder and Thompson (2008: 183; also Thompson and Suzuki 2011: 668): [A] final particle is a discourse marker that occurs at the end of an interactional unit, whether a turn, a turn unit, or a prosodic unit, and indexes certain pragmatic stances [. . .]

The authors have good reasons to label this definition a “working characterization” as it poses a number of questions, for example, if and why final particles are discourse markers, if this classification means that they are not grammatical, and what exactly is meant by “certain pragmatic stances”. Generally, it is far from clear which factors licence their occurrence, and whether their function is merely to add expressive information to an utterance, thus conveying the speaker’s attitude or affective meanings, or whether they also have discourseorganizing, probably grammatical (structuring) functions that justify a categorization of FPs as grammatical elements. This section discusses different types of elements that have been analyzed as “final particles” in different languages of the world and seeks to identify some defining core features of FPs, thus preparing the ground for the different studies in this volume. The term “particle” suggests that the classification is based on a formal criterion, namely the fact that the elements under investigation are non-inflecting and usually monomorphemic. As the discussion below will show, this is indeed a feature that is common to most of the elements that have been labelled “final particles” in different studies. The question is if this formal similarity is reflected in a functional equivalence of FPs in different languages of the world. Based on the lexical source of FPs, which determine particle-specific subfunctions, we can distinguish four major subtypes of FPs: conjunction-like, conjunct/connector-like, adverb-like, and focus particle-like FPs. Other lexical sources are, of course, possible, e.g. quotative markers such as Korean -ko (Sohn, this vol.), motion verbs as in Khmer (Paillard, this vol.), or question particles (e.g. Bailey, this vol.), but they seem to be less preferred from a typological perspective. Each of the four subtypes of FPs will be briefly discussed below. A fifth category includes FPs in Asian languages such as Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese, which differ somewhat in their function from FPs in European languages.

10

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

3.1 Final particles of the conjunction type Over the past decade several studies have analyzed the use of conjunction-type words as possible utterance- or turn-completion points, especially for English (Mulder and Thompson 2008), Finnish (Koivisto 2012) and Japanese (Izutsu and Izutsu 2014). Most of these studies notice the ambiguity of pre-pausal conjunctions as a turn-holding/-continuing and a turn-yielding device: sometimes speakers resume their talk after a pause, wheras in other cases they consider a turn as complete and thus allow for speaker transition (Jefferson 1983). This ambiguity is reflected in the different degrees of prosodic integration of final conjunctions into the previous unit; the degree of integration can vary both between languages and between various dialects of a single language. Mulder and Thompson (2008) speak of a continuum along which the conversational function of English but changes from a prosodic-unit initial, turn-continuing conjunction or connective to a prosodic-unit final discourse marker that signals turn-completion and fulfills a turn-yielding function. The authors claim that this continuum emerges from an ongoing grammaticalization process of but into an FP.1 In similar vein, other authors have demonstrated that spates of talk ending in a conjunction are not incidental, let alone erroneous, but that they have systematic functions in interaction. Final conjunctions often do not indicate the speaker’s intention to continue but rather form recognizable points of turn completion. In other words, they are not best characterized as ‘conjunctions’ but rather as ‘final particles’ that guide the interpretation of the unit they accompany. Some examples of conjunctions used as FPs in different languages are given in (2). (2)

a.

English but (Mulder and Thompson 2008; Thompson and Suzuki 2011; Hancil, this vol.; Heine, Kaltenböck and Kuteva, this vol.), so (Haselow 2013: 393–397)

b.

Finnish mutta ‘but’ and ja ‘and’ (Koivisto 2012; this vol.)

c

Japanese demo ‘but’ (Izutsu and Izutsu 2014), shi ‘and’ (McGloin and Konishi 2010), kara ‘because’ (Thompson and Suzuki 2011)

d.

Korean -(ta)nikka ‘because’ (Rhee 2012)

e.

Dutch maar ‘but’, en ‘and’, of ‘or’ (van der Wouden and Foolen 2011; this vol.)

f.

Northern Russian da ‘and’ (Post 2005; this vol.)

1 This view has recently been challenged by Hofmockel (2014). Her data on Scottish final but do not attest ambiguous uses of but as a conjunction and as an indicator of a hanging implication. Rather, in utterance-final position but is used as an FP, either marking emphasis or pointing to information in the pragmatic pretext; see also Hancil, this vol.

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

11

All of the studies referred to in (2) show that participants often orient to the units of talk that end in conjunctions as turn-yielding, the evidence for this being either a speaker change occurring after the conjunction or a noticeable absence of turn continuation after the conjunction-like element. While in some cases a final conjunction with intermediate pitch serves as a mental resting point allowing the speaker to plan what s/he wants to say next, in many cases it points to a proposition that has either been mentioned before and is thus not repeated again, or to information that is obvious, known to the hearer and that can therefore remain implicit. Three types of conjunctions have repeatedly been reported to function as FPs in different languages: adversative, causal and additive conjunctions. Adversative conjunctions (e.g. English but, Dutch maar, Finnish mutta, Japanese demo) point to information that is dissonant to the propositional content of the utterance it accompanies and often carry an unstated contrasting implication (“hanging implication”, Mulder and Thompson 2008), so that an utterance ending with such a conjunction is linked to a concession that is left implicit. In some cases, such as final but in Australian or Scottish English, the final conjunction has progressed to becoming an FP with no hanging implication, i.e. the semantically contrastive material is supplied in the unit with the final conjunction itself (Thompson and Suzuki 2011: 672). Causal conjunctions (e.g. English so, Japanese kara) index a proposition that relates to a consequence or outcome of the event mentioned in an utterance that is evident (so), or they mark the utterance they accompany itself as the reason for or the cause of something (kara). Additive conjunctions (e.g. English and, Finnish ja, Dutch en, Northern Russian da) tend to mark the propositional content of an utterance as potentially expandible and thus signal possible continuation, as e.g. in the case of the construction of lists, which are marked as not exhaustive and expandible by further nameable items that need not be mentioned (Koivisto 2012: 1258), or in descriptions, where and signals that more details could be provided. In some cases, units with a final conjunction are uttered with finality-indicating prosody, in others they end with mid-level pitch and “holding silence”, and are thus more indeterminate as to their completion. In any case, final conjunctions are analyzed as FPs when they do not establish a propositional relation between two units on the sentential or textual level, but rather link the utterance they accompany to an implied proposition, or when they modify an utterance in terms of illocutionary force (Rhee 2012).

3.2 Final particles of the conjunct/adverbial connector type Another source of FPs are conjuncts, such as English then in conditional if. . . then. . . constructions (Haselow 2012b), its Norwegian counterparts da and så,

12

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

and Russian dak, which probably developed from the (linking) adverb tak, and forms which are often ambiguous in their function as a conjunct/linking adverb (Biber et al. 1999)/adverbial connector (Lenker 2010) and a postposed subordinator, such as English though or French quand même. Some examples are provided in (3). (3)

a.

English then (Haselow 2011, 2012b; Fretheim, this vol.), though (Lenker 2010: 210–212)

b.

Norwegian da and så (see Fretheim 2000; this vol.)

c.

Northern Russian dak (see Post, this vol.)

d.

French quand même ‘nevertheless’ (Waltereit 2004), alors ‘thus, then’ (Degand and Fagard 2011)

e.

Spanish pues ‘so’ (Páez-Urdaneta 1982)

Each of the elements in (3) can be described in terms of a cline from a syntactic to a textual or discourse-internal linking element. French alors, for instance, has causal and conditional meanings of the type “p alors q” when it is used as a marker of structural relations within a syntactic unit. As an FP, it links two subsequent discourse units, marking a subjective conclusion derived by the speaker, i.e. it establishes consequential or resultative relations with an argumentative meaning (Degand and Fagard 2011). The particles in (3) tend to renegotiate the illocutionary type of the utterance they accompany, e.g. from an assertion to an inferred conclusion whose validity needs to be confirmed (then, alors), or from an assertion to an implied concession (though, quand même, pues). Note that some of the lexemes included here are originally temporal or deictic adverbs (Russian dak, from deictic tak ‘so; in that way’ and its Norwegian counterpart så; Norwegian temporal da ‘so; then’).

3.3 Final particles of the adverbial type Adverbs are another common source of FPs. The semiotic difference between an adverb and an FP is based on the presence (adverb) or absence (FP) of propositional content, differences in meaning (conceptual vs. relational), and scope (narrow scope over contituents or a clause with adverbs and expanded scope over two adjacent discourse units with FPs). In contrast to adverbs, FPs lack positional flexibility and are not integrated into the syntactic structure of the unit they accompany, i.e. they are not immediate constituents. Examples are provided in (4).

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

(4)

a.

English actually, anyway (Haselow 2012a: 194–199, 2013: 404–408)

b.

German jetzt ‘now’ (Haselow, this vol.)

c.

French déjà ‘already’ (Hansen 2008: 213)

13

Most adverbs used as FPs are time or place adverbs or adverbs of manner/ respect (e.g. anyway). The meaning of the FPs often reflects the underlying propositional meaning of the adverbs in abstracted form in the sense that speakers refer to the temporal or segmental (or, metaphorically speaking, “local”) structure of ongoing discourse when using these adverbs as FPs (now/then – pointing at a moment in time in emerging discourse, here – pointing at a place in discourse).

3.4 Final particles of the focus particle type Focus particles, e.g. English only or even, are elements that interact with the focus of a sentence and single out a constituent that bears the main stress. Their scope is usually over a specific part of a sentence or a clause, which is highlighted against the background of the information given in the rest of the sentence. Moreover, focus particles provide information about a set of alternatives contrasting with the focus (König and Gast 2012: 299). Some focus particles exclude paradigmatic alternatives (e.g. only), others indicate addition of alternative values (e.g. also), some with implied scalarity (e.g. even). Examples for focus-particle-like FPs are provided in (5). (5)

a.

English even (Kim and Jahnke 2011; Haselow 2012a: 199–201)

b.

Dutch alleen ‘only’, zelfs ‘even’ (van der Wouden and Foolen, this vol.)

c.

Cantonese je ‘only, merely’ (Chan 2002: 60)

Most of the FPs of this group are based on scalar focus particles, which evoke a contextually derived scale of the likelihood of occurrence of an individual item in a specific context. As FPs they are used to mark the idea expressed in an utterance as noteworthy and an unplanned contribution to ongoing talk, e.g. as an afterthought or an idea deriving from the post-factum realization of a fact in on-line speech production (Kim and Jahnke 2011: 53).

3.5 Final particles in Asian languages: Main differences to Indo-European languages East and Southeast Asian languages have a complex system of particles, which constitute one of the “hallmarks of natural conversation” in these languages

14

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

(Luke [1990: 11] for Cantonese). FPs occur in abundance in many Asian languages, but there are great differences between these languages in the size of the inventory of FPs and the frequency of their use in speech. Final particles are also found in languages with a mixed Asian-European background, such as Singapore English (Gupta 1992; Low and Deterding 2003; Ler and Lay 2006; Hiramoto 2012) and Chinese Pidgin Russian (Shapiro 2012). The differences in frequency and position between Asian and European final particles could be related to typological differences. Haselow (2012a) claims that the occurrence of final particles does not seem to correlate with the basic syntactic configuration of a language (English is SVO, German is V-2 and V-final, Japanese and Korean are V-final, Chinese languages basically SVO), and that it therefore seems unlikely that typological differences play a major role (Haselow 2012a: 182–183). However, some typological differences – and word order is not the most important of them – might influence, among others, the frequency of FPs in Asian languages, where they fulfill pragmatic functions for which other means are used in the European languages. The Mainland Southeast Asian languages, such as Khmer (Paillard, this vol.), Thai, Vietnamese, or Burmese are found to be typologically close and they share a number of features with neighbouring languages, including the languages of China (Comrie 2007; Dryer and Haspelmath 2011). First, Mainland Southeast Asian languages and the Sinitic languages typically have a complex tone system with different contrastive level tones (e.g. rising tone, falling tone, risingfalling tone), i.e. every syllable has a tone; changing the tone of a syllable may change the meaning it represents. Syllables and utterances in general are thus restricted in terms of pitch variation and intonation contour, which means that most of these languages need to resort to other ways of expressing functions taken over by intonation in non-tone languages, such as English. FPs have important communicative functions in tone languages, many of which are similar to those fulfilled by intonation in languages like English, such as changing illocutionary force or expressing the speaker’s attitude. Secondly, these languages are characterized by limited morphology (Dryer and Haspelmath 2011). The absence of rich morphology might promote the use of short words like particles in general, which serve analytic ways of encoding particular types of categorical information in isolating languages. Note, however, that some highly inflective languages have abundant particle usage as well, e.g. Russian (Vasilyeva 1972; Rathmayr 1985), a language that even has a rich intonation system. In any case, it seems that at least some typological factors promote the use of final particles. It is therefore not surprising that in a recent dissertation, Cantonese sentence-final particles are compared to intonation patterns in English (Wakefield 2011).

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

15

FPs are also common in Japanese and Korean. Japanese is, typologically speaking, not very close to the Southeast Asian languages but it has in common with these languages that intonation can be used to a much lesser extent for the expression of (meta-)pragmatic meanings than in a language like English. Japanese is claimed to be a postpositional language with SOV word order, and has an agglutinative structure (Onodera 2004). Korean is also an agglutinative SOV-language. Both languages have final particles developed from connectives, which already take final position (usually being suffixed to the verb), i.e. their change into FPs was not based on syntactic movement to the final position, but on local reinterpretation (Okamoto 1995; McGloin and Konishi 2010; Sohn 1996; Rhee 2012). In this sense, the study of Japanese and Korean FPs is particularly intriguing for the studies on the relation between grammaticalization and syntactic structure (see the contributions by Shinzato, Sohn and Taylor). Major questions for the linguistic description of FPs in Asian languages are the functional diversity of individual particles, and the complex interplay of clause-type, pitch and particle meaning. The various functions a particle may have in different contexts make it difficult to state if FPs have a core function. If core functions can be identified, they usually require rather long-winded descriptions, as shown for Cantonese [aa3] in the quote below: for Leung (2008: 81), the core function of this FP is to make a sentence sound “more neutral, less direct, and less straightforward”: When [aa3] is attached to a sentence, its function is to make the original sentence sound more moderate, no matter what kind of attitude the sentence originally carries. For example, if the original sentence is a question, the particle attached brings a sense of doubt. This implies that the speaker knows something about the question he asks and has an expectation on the answer, but he is just doubtful and asking for confirmation. In this respect, the speaker does not seem to be too direct and abrupt and the atmosphere is more neutral. Besides, it also appears that the speaker is not so confident if the other side is willing to co-operate and therefore it leaves room for possible rejection. (Leung 2008: 81)

The problem with such descriptions is that it is difficult to see which meanings are semanticized in a single FP, and which meanings are contextual effects deriving from the utterance produced in a particular sequential context in a conversation. In other words, it is not entirely clear how much of a speaker’s attitude is indeed semantically encoded in a particle or conveyed by other means, e.g. by a specific prosody (cf. Fretheim, this vol.), and how much of it is merely pragmatics, i.e. contextually derived. In general, in many Asian languages FPs express (meta-)pragmatic meanings, either changing illocutionary force (e.g. from an assertion to an information seeking request), indicating an implicature or speaker-expectation (e.g. seeking

16

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

agreement), modifying the tone of an utterance (e.g. softening questions, as with Cantonese [aa3], or expressing emphasis, as with Korean -tanikka [Rhee 2012]), indicating epistemic modality (Strauss 2005), or affective stance (e.g. doubt, hesitation, impatience). Often, a single FP can fulfill several functions. In most general terms, the function of FPs in Asian languages seems to be to embed a proposition in a particular communicative context and to indicate the speaker’s knowledge state or stance. These functions are not uncommon with FPs in European languages. However, as existing studies – including the analyses of FPs in European languages presented in this volume – show, indexical functions, i.e. those by which an utterance is related to a preceding or implied proposition, seems to play a more important role for the use of FPs in these languages.

3.6 General properties of final particles The diversity in the types of FPs discussed above shows that the label “final particle” refers to a great collection of items, but in spite of the various forms and distinct languages in which they occur they have much in common. In almost all languages with FPs these elements display heterosemy, i.e. they fulfill a different function when they are used in some other position than the final one. This synchronic complexity reflects the diachronic development of FPs from other, usually lexical word classes, e.g. English final then from time adverb > initial conjunct > FP (Haselow 2012b), final but from conjunction > FP (Mulder and Thompson 2008, 2011) or French alors from time adverb > conjunct > FP (Degand and Fagard 2011). Formally, FPs are typically non-inflecting, monomorphemic units that are prosodically integrated into a host unit, receiving low-key intonation, lacking constituent status, and are positionally fixed to the end of that unit. They have no conceptual meaning, cannot be questioned or focused and cannot be used as an utterance of their own, but require a host unit. Functionally, FPs fulfill different tasks related to discourse structure, speaker attitude, illocutionary force, and turn-taking. Their meaning is basically procedural in the sense of Blakemore (1987): they are abstract, schematic expressions that indicate how an utterance is to be understood by the addressee, i.e. they provide an interpretive cue to the hearer, and serve the integration of an utterance in the local discourse context. Structurally, the use of FPs is not licensed by syntactic rules, but determined by the context as they relate an utterance to a variety of aspects of the communicative context, such as the speaker’s stance, the illocutionary goal of the speaker, and discourse cohesion. Thus, they do not participate in the organization of sentence structure, but are loosely connected with a syntactic unit. However,

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

17

there is gradience with respect to syntactic incorporation/non-incorporation in the host unit since in some languages they seem to interact more closely with syntactic structure (e.g. in Cantonese, where they may change the clause type, or in Korean, where some FPs are combinations of clause-type markers and connectors, cf. Rhee 2012) than in others. In any case, in the peripheral position FPs have wide scope, ranging over the unit to which they are attached and another (expressed or implied) unit to which the one they accompany is linked. The development and the functions of FPs are often discussed in connection with subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Subjectivity refers to the indication of speaker attitude and viewpoint, intersubjectivity to the speaker’s relation and attention to the addressee (Traugott 2010). FPs always entail subjectivity since they are speaker cues to the organization of spoken discourse and the interpretation of an utterance. However, a distinction needs to be made between the ambient subjectivity and intersubjectivity that is inherent in language use anyway (Benveniste 1971), owing to the fact that in talk-in-interaction speakers design their utterances for a particular addressee and provide cues to what they mean in a given context, and semanticized (inter)subjective meanings (Traugott 2012: 20–21), i.e. (inter)subjective meanings that are part of the semantics of a lexeme (here an FP) and not deriving from the contextual environment in which a lexeme is used. Most intersubjective meanings are not semanticized meanings, but mere contextual effects (e.g. deriving from the speaker’s illocutionary goal) rather than indicative of (inter)subjectivity coded in the meaning of FPs. For instance, the indication of impatience with some information-seeking requests with English then (Haselow 2011: 3611), or that of social proximity with actually (Aijmer 1986: 128), are by no means semanticized meaning components of these FPs. Moreover, it appears that each FP is associated with different degrees of subjectivity or intersubjectivity: an FP such as English even typically expresses that the utterance it accompanies is the deferred realization of a fact by the speaker and thus carries a highly subjective meaning (Kim and Jahnke 2011), whereas final question particles in Cantonese, for instance, cue the speaker’s attention to the addressee. Since the latter are turn-yielding and modify the way in which a questions is asked – depending on the relation to the addressee – they are more intersubjective than particles which merely express speaker attitude. In any case, it can be assumed that next to their core meaning, FPs have various pragmatic submeanings. These submeanings are contextual effects that occur in particular uses, e.g. with particular speech acts, illocutionary goals or in particular conversational sequences. The extent to which FPs indicate subjectivity and intersubjectivity is not explicitly addressed in the different contributions to this volume and thus remains open for further research. However, it surfaces in various forms throughout this

18

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

volume in the sense that FPs are used to frame what speakers say, indicating the speaker’s perspective (English but, Hancil, this vol., Korean -ko, Sohn, this vol.) or epistemicity/commitment to a proposition (Norwegian altså, Fretheim, this vol.), thus expressing subjectivity. Some FPs are also intersubjective as they indicate the speaker’s attention to the addressee, e.g. soliciting the addressee’s response and guiding his/her attention (Korean -nuntey, Sohn, this vol.) or expressing alignment with the addressee’s assumptions (German ja, Haselow, this vol.). Note that the prosody of both the utterance in which a particle occurs and of the particle itself is important to determining the particle’s function and implied (inter)subjective meanings (Thompson and Suzuki 2011: 680; Dehé and Kovalova 2006 on final what). Intonation can fulfill discourse and pragmatic functions similar to those of FPs, and such functions can also be expressed by a combination of prosody and particle use (Kirsner and Van Heuven 1996 on Dutch; Fretheim 2010; this vol., on Norwegian; Pittayaporn 2010 on Bangkok Thai).

4 Structure of the present volume As mentioned above, this volume understands itself as a contribution to the task of disentangling FPs in a variety of languages in the world and thus to pave the way for cross-linguistic categorization principles. The different articles in this volume contribute different aspects to a comprehensive, cross-linguistically valid definition of “final particles” as a distinct linguistic category. This does not imply that we intend to develop a cross-linguistic characterization at all costs, thus risking to gloss over important language-specific aspects. Rather, we hope that this volume will help readers see the commonalities between the different types of final particles analyzed in the sixteen studies. The volume falls into four parts, each comprising articles that represent a specific theoretical framework: Discourse and Conversation Analysis (Part I), Grammaticalization Theory (Part II), cognitive approaches (Part III), and generative approaches (Part IV). The studies in Part II all have their main focus on the historical development of final particles. The remaining papers take a synchronic perspective. Table 1 is intended to provide an overview of the different combinations of language and theoretical approach in each contribution to this volume. For practical reasons, discourse analysis and conversation analysis have been merged into a single category, based on their similarity with respect to methodological and analytic principles.

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

19

The various perspectives taken in the study of final particles offer a more comprehensive picture of FPs and help develop a clearer idea of what the study of FPs has to offer to research in syntactic structure and discourse organization. The findings resulting from the different approaches complement and enrich each other in many interesting ways, providing missing links for each other. Table 1: Overview of the chapters of this volume and languages and approaches covered I Discourse Analysis & Conversation Analysis IndoEuropean

II Grammaticalization

English English (Ureña Gómez- (Hancil) Moreno) German (Haselow)

III Cognitive approaches

IV Generative approaches

Norwegian, English (Fretheim) Dutch (van der Wouden & Foolen) Northern Russian (Post)

Finno-Ugric Finnish (Koivisto) East Asian

Japanese (Shinzato)

Japanese (Takamine)

Japanese (Taylor) Japanese, Korean (Sohn) Southeast Asian Crosslinguistic/ Typological perspective

Khmer (Paillard) English, German (Heine, Kaltenböck & Kuteva)

Northern Italian, Mandarin Chinese (Del Gobbo, Munaro & Poletto) Typology of polar question particles (Bailey) Typological parameters in WH-questions (Soare)

20

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

What most of the studies on FPs have in common is their empirical orientation: since FPs occur predominantly in spontaneous interactive speech, their analysis requires data from natural talk-in-interaction. It was probably only due to this methodological procedure – using transcripts of natural conversation – that FPs were brought on the research agenda of European linguists since FPs are rarely the subject of description in standard grammars and, if so, they are not described in a uniform way. This confirms Sacks’ (1984: 22) observation that “many things that actually occur are debarred from use as a basis for theorizing about conversation” and, in our case, for theorizing about grammar and cognitive aspects of speech production in interactive contexts. The different articles in this volume show that FPs lend themselves to testing and formulating new hypotheses that challenge existing assumptions on syntactic structure, grammaticalization, and the cognitive organization of speech.

Part I: Discourse Analysis and Conversation Analysis The paper by Pedro Ureña Gómez-Moreno is, even though it does not explicitly deal with final particles, highly relevant for the present volume since he, like other contributors to this volume such as van der Wouden and Foolen, Haselow, and Fretheim, explicitly discusses the communicative function of the (sentence-) final position and its pragmatic role in discourse, based on an analysis of certainty and uncertainty epistemic disjuncts in different syntactic positions. Adverbials are usually described as highly movable units, and their positional preferences within the sentence are particularly complex to describe. Position, however, matters as it plays a crucial role in interpreting the meaning of adverbials and reflects different cognitive motivations (Diessel 2005; Swan and Breivik 2011). Within the adverbial class, disjuncts have been argued to enjoy greater flexibility as regards their occurrence in the peripheries of the sentence than other types of adverbs. However, the pragmatic differences between initial and final position have not always been sufficiently explained. Drawing on the analysis of a sample of the Corpus of Contemporary American English, Ureña Gómez-Moreno examines diverse cases in spoken English in which adverbials with clausal scope take final position. The analysis of certainty and uncertainty epistemic disjuncts shows that placing these items in final position is a rhetorical device to enrich the discursive force of arguments by conveying relevant speakeroriented information just before a topic shift or the closing of a conversational turn. The final position is used for “last minute” evaluations of an utterance just produced, as it were, and for conveying pragmatic nuances. Moreover, the

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

21

final position is argued to play an important role for building up cohesion, being used for elements that tie together two subsequent turns. Aino Koivisto’s paper deals with the ways in which final conjunctions can be used as turn-final or utterance-final particles with interactive functions. The discussion is based on the functions of Finnish mutta, which is equivalent to English but, in naturally occurring face-to-face and telephone conversations. Koivisto addresses a number of theoretical questions concerning the analysis of final conjunctions as final particles that have remained open since Mulder and Thompson’s (2008) seminal work on final but in Australian English, such as the conditions under which a final conjunction forms a recognizable turn-ending, and the interactional functions it serves. Taking a Conversation Analytic approach, the author analyzes the local, sequentially arranged interactional contexts where utterances with final mutta occur in order to find out whether these represent recognizable actions in recurrent, identifiable social contexts. The results of Koivisto’s study are highly relevant for typological research for two reasons. First, the fact that final conjunctions occur not only in East Asian, Southeast Asian and Indo-European languages, but also in languages of the Finno-Ugric family – all of which exhibit different syntactic configurations – suggests that the phenomenon is not related to the typological parameters of a language, but most likely conditioned by cognitive processes in interactive speech production. Secondly, Koivisto proposes a (probably cross-linguistic) diachronic pathway that provides further evidence for the emergence and conventionalization of bipartite sequential patterns out of a reduction or “collapse” of more extended ones: the claim is that the two-part pattern [claim + concession + mutta] identified for interactive sequences involving units with final mutta in Finnish is a reduced form of an original three-part concessive pattern [claim + concession + return to the original claim] where the mutta-prefaced return is compressed into mutta. Alexander Haselow provides a corpus-based analysis of final particles in spoken German. The author argues that final particles should be treated as an independent category as they are characterized by a number of distinctive, category-constitutive features that set them apart from other elements that may potentially occur in final position, and discusses how they differ from other types of particles in German, basically discourse particles and modal particles. The paper also addresses questions of more general theoretical interest, above all the question of whether final particles are discourse markers, or a subgroup of discourse markers, and how the term “final” is to be defined. Haselow sees the basic function of final particles in providing information on how a discourse unit is to be integrated into “a developing mental model of the discourse” in terms of Hansen (2006: 25), i.e. as structuring dialogic interaction in a broader

22

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

sense, encompassing propositional, but also non-propositional, metacommunicative aspects of discourse. The latter aspects include the information status of a message and the rhetorical relation between an implied or explicitly encoded preceding message and the content of the unit that ends in a final particle.

Part II: Grammaticalization Theory Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck and Tania Kuteva argue that the emergence of sentence-final particles like English but or German final oder ‘or’ is not the result of a gradual process of grammaticalization, but an instantaneous one, thus challenging Mulder and Thompson’s assumption that English final but underwent a gradual change from conjunction to final particle with several intermediate stages (e.g. Mulder and Thompson’s [2008] “Janus but”). The use of elements such as but and oder in final position is argued to derive from a process labeled cooptation, whereby a chunk of grammar, such as a clause, a phrase, an adverb, or a conjunction, is taken out of sentence grammar and pressed into service as a so-called thetical unit. In Thetical Grammar, a thetical is an autonomous information unit that is syntactically and prosodically independent of its host, i.e. of the utterance to which it is attached. In a second step, after being used as a thetical in a concrete context, this unit may undergo grammaticalization. What is particularly intriguing about the idea of thetical grammar and cooptation is that grammaticalization does not necessarily start with small-scale, “sneaky” changes that extend from one environment to another based on similarity relations between different environments (De Smet 2012: 608), but is arguably initiated by an abrupt transfer of a linguistic element or unit from sentence grammar to the plane of discourse grammar, and thus by a change from a syntactic constituent to a discourse-organizing element, which may occur in any speech event. Heine, Kaltenböck and Kuteva show that, as theticals, but and or function as final particles, thus constituting the right utterance boundary. Once the left boundary separating the final particle from its preceding host is eliminated via grammaticalization, the final particle may turn into an integrated appendage of its preceding host unit. Yuki Taylor examines the grammaticalization of Japanese toka, focusing on the decategorization of this element from an exemplifying and quotative marker to a pragmatic particle that softens an utterance. The data are based on 19 segments of spontaneous informal dialogues. In its original function as a marker of exemplification, toka is used with concrete examples, which serve to make the propositional meaning of an utterance clearer. It also occurs with propositional units that are to be understood as approximations, in the sense of ‘or

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

23

so’. As a quotative marker, toka signals that a quote is not representing the exact reproduction of what somebody else (or the speaker him/herself) said, but a rough reformulation. Taylor argues that in final position the original meanings of toka are bleached: utterance-final toka merely has a hedging effect, making an utterance less assertive, less challenging and thus serving the management of interpersonal relations. Utterance-final toka has undergone decategorization from an exemplifying particle to a final particle with exclusively metapragmatic (softening) function, and scope expansion from narrow scope over a specific element (an example or a quote) to broader scope over the entire utterance it accompanies. The third paper resting upon a grammaticalization framework is also dedicated to final particles in Japanese. Rumiko Shinzato’s analysis of two types of ba-conditionals and their developmental paths shows that while “regular” conditionals have not fully grammaticalized as sentence-final particles, quotative conditionals have. To account for this divergence, the analysis is based on a consideration of four factors: (1) the internal morphological make-up of the conditionals, (2) the protasis-apodosis relationship, (3) the inclusion of a verb of saying in the constructions, and (4) the implication of counter-expectation. While both regular and quotative conditionals could be understood as conditionals even in the absence of an apodosis, it is only with quotative conditionals that the apodosis is no longer felt to be truncated and required as an implicit interpretive cue. The markers of quotative conditionals underwent decategorization from marking the unit they are attached to as a direct quote of what someone has said to addressee-oriented, emotive markers of subjectivity. However, the picture is complicated by the existence of two different subtypes of quotative conditionals, namely those involving phonologically contracted markers and those involving uncontracted markers of conditionality, of which only the contracted ones were grammaticalized into FPs. Shinzato argues that the development of FPs from quotative conditionals is a case of subjectification in the sense of Langacker (1990) and a case of (inter)subjectification as defined by Traugott (2003). Sung-Ock Sohn observes a development similar to that of ba-conditionals in Japanese for quotative and contrastive connectives in Korean, a language that is structurally similar to Japanese. Sohn reports that it is quite common for clause connectives to develop into utterance-final particles in Japanese and Korean, but very little is known about the factors that condition the grammaticalization into final particles. Sohn explores the semantic and pragmatic factors responsible for the develoment of the quotative particle -ko into an utterancefinal particle in Korean. The analysis of spontaneous conversation shows that

24

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

the utterance-final quotative is used in recurrent discourse contexts, namely in those contexts where a speaker anticipates challenges or dispreferred responses (e.g. disagreement, rejection, lack of uptake, unexpected answer) from the addressee(s). In such contexts, -ko is used to emphasize the speaker’s stance. The development of -ko into an utterance-final particle is in many ways similar to that of the contrastive connective -nuntey ‘but’ into a final particle in Korean: both the quotative and the contrastive connective are, in utterance-final position, employed as a discourse strategy to display a speaker’s personal stance in an implicit or explicit way, and enhance intersubjectivity (here in the sense of mutual understanding). The findings suggest that frequent, recurrent discourse functions (e.g. account-giving, clarification, elaboration) associated with particular elements that preferrably occur in final position are crucial for their development into utterance-final particles. Sylvie Hancil provides a synchronic analysis of the occurrence of sentencefinal ‘but’ in the spoken parts of the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Newcastle Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English (NECTE). Sentence-final adverbials in English are traditionally associated with VP-oriented adjuncts, especially manner, time and space adverbials, whereas the presence of clause-oriented adverbials is said to be rare and even problematic in such a position. But the examination of recent spoken English corpora has shown that they are attested in various dialects of English, such as American English, Australian English, Southern British English and Geordie English, to name a few. The paper studies the grammaticalization process of sentence-final but in the light of the five principles of grammaticalization proposed in Hopper (1991): divergence, layering, specialization, persistence and decategorization. This is complemented by the examination of the semantic development of but, using the four pragmaticsemantic regularities illustrated in Traugott and Dasher (2002): truth-conditional > non-truth-conditional; content > procedural; scope within proposition > scope over proposition > scope over discourse; non-subjective > subjective > intersubjective. In particular, Hancil shows that the various meanings associated with the sentence-final discourse marker but have an interactional function in the BNC, showing the implicit participation of the interlocutor, whereas in the NECTE corpus they have an interactive function, explicitly involving the participation of the interlocutor. Moreover, Hancil argues that sentence-final but is an instance of pragmaticization in Southern English whereas it is one of grammaticalization in Newcastle English. Sociolinguistic criteria (sex, age, socioeconomic class, region) are considered in order to identify the distribution of the marker in Britain.

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

25

Part III: Cognitive approaches Ton van der Wouden and Ad Foolen’s paper provides a survey of different types of FPs in Dutch and their semantico-pragmatic meanings. It is an exploratory article in which the authors discuss a number of relevant questions about final particles in general, and assess the value of the various theoretical frameworks that are applied in the study of final particles. The authors note that even though the study of Dutch particles has a long tradition in Dutch linguistics, particle behavior in the right periphery has not been part of it. After a brief introduction into the syntax of the Dutch clause and a definition of the right periphery, van der Wouden and Foolen present an overview of different types of sentence-final particles, based on a corpus of spoken Dutch, and compare them to particles in other positions and to particles in other languages. The authors argue that within the right periphery various particle positions should be distinguished. The paper briefly addresses the phenomenon of particle doubling, i.e. cases in which two instances of the same particle occupy two different positions in the clause, one being in the right periphery, and offers some thoughts on the the grammaticalization and the function of final particles. Thorstein Fretheim’s contribution is a contrastive study of the Norwegian final particles altså and da and English final then, on the one hand, and a detailed analysis of the subtle differences of the pragmatic functions of altså and da, on the other hand. Using a relevance-theoretic framework, Fretheim shows that altså and da share the general, invariant procedural meaning of inquiring if the proposition expressed in the unit they accompany is mutually manifest. However, both particles interact with other procedural cues, thereby acquiring different pragmatic implications. Fretheim provides a systematic account of the complex relationship between particle meaning, sentence type and intonation (including both the intonation pattern of the unit they are attached to and the terminal boundary tone applied to the particle), showing the various ways in which a single final particle may evoke different constraints on the hearer’s inferential process. While any utterance-final token of the English final particle then indicates that the proposition of the preceding host sentence represents the speaker’s own view, to be confirmed by the hearer, Fretheim argues that there are conventions of usage in spoken Norwegian which allow speakers to use da, and to a lesser degree altså, to signal that they distance themselves from the host sentence proposition. Spoken English offers no comparable guidance of a prosodic sort, which may be the reason why a final particle then, unlike its cognate Norwegian counterpart da, does not permit the hearer to infer that the proposition expressed is incompatible with the speaker’s own propositional attitude. Then indicates that the speaker seeks confirmation of the proposition

26

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

expressed; Norwegian da and altså after a declarative are used not only in requests for confirmation but also in acts of reminding the hearer of the truth of the host sentence proposition. Both Margje Post and Denis Paillard show that the utterance-final markers under consideration are the result of an asymmetric relation between two information units, although they use different theories – Relevance Theory and the Theory of Enunciative Operations respectively, and data from unrelated languages – Post uses data from Northern Russian, Paillard from Khmer. Margje Post reports that unlike other varieties of Russian, Northern Russian dialects have utterance-final pragmatic particles, most notably da and dak. These particles are originally connectives that are also used utterance-initially and in sentence-internal position, but it is in their function as an utterance-final enclitic particle that they have been drawing the attention of linguists for a long time. Possibly, the connective dak developed into a post-positive particle from the adverb and conjunction tak (‘like that’, ‘then’, ‘so’) through ellipsis of the second clause, under influence from neighbouring Finno-Ugric languages with clause-final connectives. Using Relevance Theory, Northern Russian dak can be described as a procedural marker, signalling how the information implied in the expression it is attached to relates to other accessible information. In a way similar to Paillard’s description of three particles in Khmer, Post claims that Northern Russian dak signals an asymmetric relation between two information units, say, x and y, in which y is based on x. Examples of x and y are cause and consequence, condition and event or a dialect word and its explanation. The units x and y should not be understood as linguistic expressions, but as mental units. The unit y is often left implicit, and x can be implicit as well, which explains the various positions of dak in the utterance, including the utteranceinitial and utterance-final positions. The particle is always prosodically cliticized to the linguistic representation of x or y, either to the right of the linguistic representation of x or – less often – to the left of y. The main difference between utterance-final dak and utterance-initial and -internal dak is that with utterancefinal dak, the information called y here needs to be retrieved entirely from the context. Denis Paillard’s contribution deals with three particles in Khmer, or rather with the uses of the verbs tɨv ‘go’, mɔɔk ‘come’ and coh ‘go down’ as particles. Concerning the semantic value of these lexemes, Paillard’s assumption is that, when used as discourse particles, the literal meaning of motion is abstracted. Paillard’s analysis rests on a common semantic property shared by the three verbs: an entity a corresponds to two distinct positions, ri and rj, which are reference points that can be either temporal, spatial or subjective. The reference points are ordered in the sense that rj follows ri and is therefore dependent on ri .

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

27

In the case of tɨv and mɔɔk, one of the two positions is salient: ri in the case of tɨv and rj in the case of mɔɔk. With coh, the two positions ri and rj are successively salient. The difference between the uses of these items as verbs and as particles lies in the status of a: it is an argument in verbal uses, whereas in discourse uses a is interpreted as the sequence under the scope of the particle. Moreover, when the verbs are used as particles, the positions ri and rj are associated with the speaker and the addressee.

Part IV: Generative approaches Four articles deal with final particles in a generative framework. Laura Bailey examines the syntactic nature of final polar question particles and argues that some of these should not be analyzed as question particles. Francesca Del Gobbo, Nicola Munaro and Cecilia Poletto argue for deriving sentence-final particles from IP movement. Gabriela Soare uses the Antisymmetry Hypothesis to put forward the role of final particles in a typology of wh-question formation. Kaori Takamine argues that in Japanese the syntactic status of PP modifiers can be reconstructed from the universal hierarchy of functional projections of PPs. Laura Bailey discusses the syntax of polar question particles, that is, those particles that combine with a declarative sentence to form an interrogative that can be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. These particles are interesting because their syntax is controversial and little studied, which is one of the reasons why the the term ‘particle’ is often seen as more or less a wastepaper bin for unclassified ‘little words’. Bailey shows that there are differences between final question particles and those that are initial or in some other position. This asymmetry is argued to be related to a principle that is suggested to be universally valid: the Final-Over-Final Constraint (FOFC), which forbids a head-final phrase to immediately dominate a head-initial phrase (Holmberg 2000). This constraint rules out final question particles in VO languages, and yet they are attested in many of such languages. Bailey offers an analysis that allows FOFC to be retained, proposing that final question particles in VO languages are instances of disjunction. A further hypothesis that is discussed is that these final particles in fact may not be true heads, since they are very often optional. The final question particles in VO languages are argued not to be question particles, but rather markers of emphasis, doubt or of some other pragmatic value. Gabriela Soare investigates the role of final and non-final particles in a typology of wh-question formations, providing a survey of ten languages that exhibit distinct strategies for forming wh-questions. The discussion is based on

28

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

the Antisymmetry Hypothesis articulated in Kayne (1994, 2005), and on cartographic studies of clause structure. The typology proposed by Soare takes over Hagstrom’s (1998) and Miyagawa’s (2001) proposal of the (abstract) morphological split between the Q-feature and the wh-feature, but deploys them in the framework mentioned. The Force head is assumed to universally have a Q-feature, which is associated with the clausal category (clause typing) with which it agrees. Whether it is overtly realized as a Q-particle or covert is a parametric issue. The Focus head contains a wh-feature which can be overt, realized as a wh-particle, or covert. Though traditional systems use a single feature to express both clause typing and the (criterial) properties of question operators, there are conceptual and empirical reasons that lead to the postulation of two distinct features. One of the parameters reads as follows: ‘MOVE if Q on Force or Wh on Focus is associated with an EPP’. The other regards the overt/covert morphological realization of Q/wh. These combinatorial possibilities account for the existence of wh-movement in languages like Vata and Tlingit (which overtly realize one feature), on the one hand, and in French and Romanian (no overt realization), on the other. It also accounts for its absence in Japanese, Sinhala, Chinese, Tumbuka and French, in which an in-situ strategy is used. Francesca Del Gobbo, Nicola Munaro and Cecilia Poletto investigate the common properties of discourse particles, here called sentential particles (SPs), in some Italo-Romance varieties and Chinese. They show that in Romance, SPs can occur sentence-initially, sentence-internally or sentence-finally, and that the sentence-final position can be derived from the sentence-initial one through movement of a clausal subconstituent into a specifier located higher than the SP. It is argued that sentence-initial and sentence-final particles belong to the same class, because (a) they are all sensitive to the main versus embedded character of the clause (which is not the case for sentence-internal particles), (b) they have analogous pragmatic imports in the two positions, and (c) they are diachronically related. The analysis of Romance sentence-final particles proposed by the authors can be applied to Mandarin Chinese sentence-final particles as well, as these display the same syntactic properties: they are also sensitive to the main versus embedded character of the clause, they can occur in different sentence types and also to the right of a (Topic) left peripheral constituent. Moreover, some pragmatic values of Chinese particles have a direct counterpart in Romance; in both cases particles are not real “sentence typers”, but rather express an attitude of the speaker with respect to the proposition. The derivation of final SPs through IP movement can also shed light on the more general question of whether Chinese is to be considered an SOV or an SVO language.

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

29

Kaori Takamine discusses the syntactic status of modifier PPs which, in contrast to adverbs, have been little discussed in the recent literature of adverbial syntax. The first goal of this paper is to argue, based on quantifier scope tests, that Japanese PP modifiers are base-generated in a rigid order, confirming Schweikert’s (2005) universal hierarchy of modifier PPs in which each PP is base-generated in a unique position. The modifier PP hierarchy is then mapped onto clause structure in Japanese. The second goal of this paper is to argue, on the basis of compositionality scope facts, that modifer PPs in Japanese are located in the relatively large area between the Modal and Aspect domain. Takamine’s contribution closes a gap in the discussion on hierarchies of functional projection since modifier PPs are often not properly integrated in such hierarchization models. Cinque (1999), for instance, who advances a rigid hierarchy of functional projections hosting each adverb, excludes modifier PPs from his adverbial hierarchy due to their free surface order. Takamine, however, shows that the base order of modifier PPs is rigid if we take that modifier PPs are generated in a lower Aspect domain (Asp1) and that some PPs, such as Temporal and Locative PPs, can undergo scope movement to a higher Aspect domain (Asp2).

5 Conclusion The aim of this chapter was to help linguists develop a clearer idea of what final particles are and what their study has to offer to the study of syntax, discourse structure, grammaticalization and cognition. The most important added value the study of FPs gives us is the reliance on data of spoken language, which is the domain in which FPs predominantly occur. FPs allow us to learn more about cognitive processes in on-line speech production, the organization of discourse in interpersonal communication, syntactic organization, as well as about language change, such as grammaticalization, which often starts in spoken language where speakers need to resolve communicative problems within a concrete communicative situation, thereby reshaping language. The cross-linguistic perspective taken in this book helps us see what is unusual, unexpected about final particles in individual languages, and in what way typologically distinct languages developed the same types of final particles with the same or at least similar functions. This perspective helps us find plausible motivations why FPs are used at all. The present volume was compiled in the firm belief that FPs have a good chance becoming acknowledged as a linguistic category of its own rather than being a wastepaper bin for meaningless, unclassified little words.

30

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

However, we need to be modest. A truly integrative approach needs to be worked out much more fully in order to understand what makes the final position of a sentence or an utterance attractive for particular kinds of lexemes, and in what way the final position is cognitively relevant in (on-line) speech production. The chapters in this volume represent no more than single pieces of a larger puzzle, and yet they contribute, each in its own way, to a more thorough understanding of the subject.

References Aijmer, Karin. 1986. Why is actually so popular in spoken English? In Gunnel Tottie & Ingegerd Bäcklund (eds.), English in speech and writing: A symposium, 119–127. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell. Aijmer, Karin. 2013. Analyzing modal adverbs as modal particles and discourse markers. In Liesbeth Degand, Paola Pietrandrea & Bert Cornillie (eds.), Discourse markers and modal particles. Categorization and description, 89–106. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Andersen, Gisle & Thorstein Fretheim (eds.). 2000. Pragmatic markers and propositional attitude. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar & Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen. 2002. On the development of final ‘though’: A case of grammaticalization? In Ilse Wischer & Gabriele Diewald (eds.), New reflections on grammaticalization, 345–361. Amsterdam & Phildelphia: John Benjamins. Benveniste, Émile. 1971 [1958]. Subjectivity in language. In Problems in general linguistics, trans. by Mary Elizabeth Meek, 223–230, Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press. (First published in 1958 as “De la subjectivité dans le langage.” In Émile Benveniste, Problèmes de linguistique générale, 258–266. Paris: Gallimard.) Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad & Edward Finegan. 1999. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow: Longman. Blakemore, Diane. 1987. Semantic constraints on relevance. Oxford: Blackwell. Chan, Marjorie. 2002. Chinese: Gender-related use of sentence-final particles in Cantonese. In Marlis Hellinger & Hadumod Bussmann (eds.), Gender across languages: The linguistic representation of women and men. Volume 2, 57–72. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads: A cross-linguistic perspective. New York: Oxford University Press. Comrie, Bernard. 2007. Areal Typology of Mainland Southeast Asia: What we learn from the WALS Maps. MANUSYA: Journal of Humanities 13. 18–47. http://www.manusya.journals. chula.ac.th/files/essay/Comrie_18-47.pdf. (9 October 2012) Davis, Christopher. 2011. Constraining interpretation: Sentence final particles in Japanese. Amherst: University of Massachusetts dissertation. De Smet, Hendrik. 2012. The course of actualization. Language 88. 601–633. Dedaić, Mirjana N. & Mirjana Misković-Luković. 2010. South slavic discourse particles. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

31

Degand, Liesbeth & Benjamin Fagard. 2011. ‘Alors’ between discourse and grammar: The role of syntactic position. Functions of Language 18(1). 29–56. Degand, Liesbeth, Paola Pietrandrea & Bert Cornillie (eds.). 2013. Discourse markers and modal particles. Categorization and description. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Dehé, Nicole & Yordanka Kovalova. 2006. The syntax, pragmatics and prosody of parenthetical what. English Language and Linguistics 10(2). 289–320. Dryer, Matthew S. & Martin Haspelmath (eds.). 2011. The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library. http://wals.info/ (30 November 2014). Diessel, Holger. 2005. Competing motivations for the ordering of main and adverbial clauses. Linguistics 43. 449–470. Diewald, Gabriele. 2006. Discourse particles and modal particles as grammatical elements. In Kerstin Fischer (ed.), Approaches to discourse particles, 403–425. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Diewald, Gabriele. 2013. ‘Same same but different’ – Modal particles, discourse markers and the art (and purpose) of categorization. In Liesbeth Degand, Paola Pietrandrea & Bert Cornillie (eds.), Discourse markers and modal particles. Categorization and description, 19–46. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Fernandez-Vest, Jocelyne M. M. 1994. Les particules énonciatives dans la construction du discours. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Fischer, Kerstin. 2006. Towards an understanding of the spectrum of approaches to discourse particles: introduction to the volume. In Kerstin Fischer (ed.), Approaches to discourse particles, 1–20. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Foolen, Ad. 2003 [1996]. Pragmatic particles. In Jan-Ola Östman, Jef Verschueren, Jan Blommaert & Chris Bulcaen (eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics online. www.benjamins.com/online/hop/ (30 November 2014) Fraser, Bruce. 1999. What are discourse markers? Journal of Pragmatics 31(7). 931–952. Fretheim, Thorstein. 2000. Constraining explicit and implicit content by means of a Norwegian scalar particle. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 23. 115–162. Fretheim, Thorstein. 2010. The metarepresentational use of main clause phenomena in embedded clauses. Linguistics 48(2). 301–324. Fried, Mirjam & Jan-Ola Östman. 2005. Construction Grammar and spoken language: The case of pragmatic particles. Journal of Pragmatics 37. 1752–1778. Gecova, O. G. (ed.). 1999. Arxangel’skij oblastnoj slovar’. Vol. 10. Moscow: Nauka. Gupta, Anthea Fraser. 1992. The pragmatic particles of Singapore Colloquial English. Journal of Pragmatics 18. 31– 57. Hagstrom, Paul. 1998. Decomposing Questions. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT PhD dissertation. Hancil, Sylvie. 2014. The final particle but in British English: An instance of cooptation and grammaticalization at work. In Sylvie Hancil & Ekkehard König (eds.), Grammaticalization Theory and Data, 209–228. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Hansen, Maj-Britt Mosegaard. 2006. A dynamic polysemy approach to the lexical semantics of discourse markers (with an exemplary analysis of French toujours). In Kerstin Fischer (ed.), Approaches to discourse particles, 21–41. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Hansen, Maj-Britt Mosegaard. 2008. Particles at the semantics/pragmatics interface: synchronic and diachronic issues: A study with special reference to the French phasal adverbs. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Haselow, Alexander. 2011. Discourse marker and modal particle: The functions of utterancefinal ‘then’ in spoken English. Journal of Pragmatics 43(14). 3603–3623.

32

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

Haselow, Alexander. 2012a. Subjectivity, intersubjectivity and the negotiation of common ground in spoken discourse: Final particles in English. Language & Communication 32(3). 182–204. Haselow, Alexander. 2012b. Discourse organization and the rise of final then in the history of English. In Irén Hegedüs & Alexandra Fodor (eds.), English Historical Linguistics 2010: Selected papers from the sixteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL-16), Pécs, 153–175. Amsterdam & Phildelphia: John Benjamins. Haselow, Alexander. 2013. Arguing for a wide conception of grammar: The case of final particles in spoken discourse. Folia Linguistica 47(2). 375–424. Haugh, Michael. 2008. Utterance-final conjunctive particles and implicature in Japanese conversation. Pragmatics 18(3). 425–451. Hiramoto, Mie. 2012. Pragmatics of the sentence-final uses of can in Colloquial Singapore English. Journal of Pragmatics 44(6–7). 890–906. Hofmockel, Carolin. 2014. “It wasnae me but!” – Functions and emergence of Scottish right peripheral but. Paper presented at Discourse-Pragmatic Variation & Change 2, Newcastle upon Tyne, 8 April 2014. Holmberg, Anders. 2000. Deriving OV order in Finnish. In Peter Svenonius (ed.), The derivation of VO and OV, 123–152. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Hopper, Paul J. 1991. On some principles of grammaticalization. In Elizabeth Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization. Volume I: Theoretical and methodological issues, 17–35. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Huddleston, Rodney & Geoffrey Pullum. 2002. Language description: The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Izutsu, Mitsuko N. & Katsunobu Izutsu. 2013. From discourse markers to modal/final particles. What the position reveals about the continuum. In Liesbeth Degand, Paola Pietrandrea & Bert Cornillie (eds.), Discourse markers and modal particles. Categorization and description, 217–235. Amsterdam & Phildelphia: John Benjamins. Izutsu, Mitsuko N. & Katsunobu Izutsu. 2014. Truncation and backshift: Two pathways to sentence-final coordinating conjunctions. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 15(1). 62–92. Jefferson, Gail. 1983. On a Failed Hypothesis: ‘Conjunctionals’ as Overlap-vulnerable. Tilburg Papers in Language and Literature, 28. Tilburg: Tilburg University. Kaltenböck, Gunther, Bernd Heine & Tania Kuteva, 2011. On thetical grammar. Studies in Language 35(4). 852–897. Kayne, Richard. 1994. The Antisymmetry of syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Kayne, Richard. 2005. Antisymmetry and Japanese. In Richard Kayne (ed.), Movement and Silence, 215–240. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kim, Min-Joo & Nathan Jahnke. 2011. The meaning of utterance-final even. Journal of English Linguistics 39. 36–64. Kirsner, Robert & Vincent van Heuven. 1996. Boundary tones and the semantics of the Dutch final particles hè, hoor, zeg, and joh. In Crit Cremers & Marcel den Dikken (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 1996, 133–146. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Kita, Sotaro & Sachiko Ide. 2007. Nodding, aizuchi, and final particles in Japanese conversation: How conversation reflects the ideology of communication and social relationships. Journal of Pragmatics 30. 1242–1254. Koivisto, Aino. 2012. Discourse patterns for turn-final conjunctions. Journal of Pragmatics 44 (10). 1254–1272.

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

33

König, Ekkehard & Volker Gast. 2012. Understanding English–German contrasts. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. Kwok, Helen. 1984. Sentence particles in Cantonese. Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies. Langacker, Ronald. 1990. Subjectification. Cognitive Linguistics 1(1). 5–38. Law, Anne. 2002. Cantonese sentence-final particles and the CP domain. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 14. 375–398. Ler, Soon & Vivien Lay. 2006. A relevance-theoretic approach to discourse particles in Singapore English. In Kerstin Fischer (ed.), Approaches to discourse particles, 149–166. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Lee, Duck-Young. 2007. Involvement and the Japanese interactive particles ne and yo. Journal of Pragmatics 39. 363–388. Lenker, Ursula. 2010. Argument and rhetoric: Adverbial connectors in the history of English. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter Mouton. Leung, Wai-Mun. 2008. Promising approaches for the analysis of sentence-final particles in Cantonese: The case of [aa3]. Asian Social Science 4(5). 74–82. Li, Boya. 2006. Chinese final particles and the syntax of the periphery. Leiden: University of Leiden doctoral dissertation. http://www.lotpublications.nl/publish/articles/001873/bookpart.pdf (20 May 2014) Linell, Per. 2005. The Written Language Bias in Linguistics: Its Nature, Origins, and Transformations. London: Routledge. Low, Ee Ling & David Deterding. 2003. A corpus-based description of particles in spoken Singapore English. In David Deterding, Ee Ling Low & Adam Brown (eds.), English in Singapore: Research on Grammar. Singapore & New York: McGraw-Hill Education (Asia). http://www.ubd.edu.bn/academic/faculty/FASS/staff/docs/DD/ESROG-Low-Deterding.pdf (13 November 2014) Luke, Kang-kwong. 1990. Utterance particles in Cantonese conversation. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. McGloin, Naomi & Yumiko Konishi. 2010. From connective particle to sentence-final particle: A usage-based analysis of shi ‘and’ in Japanese. Language Sciences 32. 507–588. Miyagawa, Shigeru. 2001. EPP, scrambling, and wh-in-situ. In Michael Kenstowicz (ed.), Ken Hale: A life in language, 293–338. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Morita, Emi. 2012. Deriving the socio-pragmatic meanings of the Japanese interactional particle ne. Journal of Pragmatics 44(3). 298–318. Mulder, Jean & Sandra A. Thompson. 2008. The grammaticization of but as a final particle in English conversation. In Ritva Laury (ed.), Crosslinguistic studies of clause combining: The multifunctionality of conjunctions, 179–204. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Nikolaeva, T.M. 1985. Funkcii častic v vyskazyvanii: na materiale slavjanskix jazykov. Moscow: Nauka. Nikolaeva, T.M. 2000. Ot zvuka k tekstu. Moscow: Jazyki russkoj kul’tury. Norrick, Neal R. 2009. Pragmatic markers: Introduction. Journal of Pragmatics 41, 863–865. Okamoto, Shigeko. 1995. Pragmaticization of meaning in some sentence-final particles in Japanese. In Masayoshi Shibatani & Sandra A. Thompson (eds.), Essays on Semantics and Pragmatics, 219–246. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Onodera, Noriko. 2000. Development of demo type connectives and na elements. Two extremes of Japanese discourse markers. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 1(1). 27–55. Onodera, Noriko. 2004. Japanese discourse markers: Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

34

Sylvie Hancil, Margje Post and Alexander Haselow

Páez-Urdaneta, Iraset. 1982. Conversational pues in Spanish: A process of degrammaticalization? In Anders Ahlqvist (ed.), Papers from the 5th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, 332–340. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Pittayaporn, Pittayawat. 2010. Final particles meet boundary tones: the case of Bangkok Thai. Poster presentation, SEALS 20 (The 20th Anniversary Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society), Zürich, June 10–11, 2010. http://www.sealsxx.uzh.ch/ (9 October 2012) Post, Margje. 2005. The Northern Russian pragmatic particle dak in the dialect of Varzuga (Kola Peninsula): an information structuring device in informal spontaneous speech. Doctoral dissertation, University of Tromsø. http://hdl.handle.net/10037/246 (3 March 2014). Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech & Jan Svartvik. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman. Rathmayr, Renate. 1985. Die russischen Partikeln als Pragmalexeme. München: Otto Sagner. Rhee, Seongha. 2012. Context-induced reinterpretation and (inter)subjectification: the case of grammaticalization of sentence-final particles. Language Sciences 34. 284–300. Sacks, Harvey. 1984. Notes on methodology. John M. Atkinson & John Heritage (eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis, 21–27. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Saigo, Hideki. 2011. The Japanese sentence-final particles in talk-in-interaction. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Schiffrin, Deborah. 1987. Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schiffrin, Deborah. 2001. Discourse markers: Language, meaning and context. In Deborah Tannen & Heidi E. Hamilton (eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, 54–75. Oxford: Blackwell. Schweikert, Walter. 2005. The order of prepositional phrases in the structure of the clause. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Selting, Margret. 1995. Prosodie im Gespräch. Aspekte einer interaktionalen Phonologie der Konversation. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Shapiro, Roman. 2012. Chinese Pidgin Russian. In Umberto Ansaldo (ed.), Pidgins and creoles in Asia, 1–58. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Sohn, Sung-Ock. 1996. On the development of sentence-final particles in Korean. In Noriko Akatsuka, Shoichi Iwasaki & Susan Strauss (eds.), Japanese/Korean linguistics 5, 219– 234. Stanford: CSLI. Strauss, Susan. 2005. Cognitive realization markers in Korean: A discourse-pragmatic study of the sentence-ending particles –kwun, –ney and –tela. Language Sciences 27(4). 437–480. Swan, Toril & Leiv Breivik. 2011. English sentence adverbials in a discourse and cognitive perspective. English Studies 92(6). 679–692. Sybesma, Rint & Boya Li. 2007. The dissection and structural mapping of Cantonese sentence final particles. Lingua 117(10). 1739–1783. Thompson, Sandra A. & Ryoko Suzuki. 2011. The grammaticalization of final particles. In Heiko Narrog & Bernd Heine (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Grammaticalization, 668–682. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 2003. From subjectification to intersubjectification. In Raymond Hickey (ed.), Motives for language change, 124–139. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.

Introduction: Final particles from a typological perspective

35

Traugott, Elizabeth C. 2010. (Inter)Subjectivity and (inter)subjectification: A reassessment. In Kristin Davidse, Lieven Vandelotte & Hubert Cuyckens (eds.), Subjectification, Intersubjectification and Grammaticalization, 29–71. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Traugott, Elizabeth C. 2012. Intersubjectification and clause periphery. In Liselotte Brems, Lobke Ghesquière & Freek Van de Velde (eds.), Intersections of Intersubjectivity. Special issue of English Text Construction 5(1). 7–28. Traugott, Elizabeth. forthc. On the rise of types of clause final pragmatic markers in English. To appear in: Journal of Historical Pragmatics. Traugott, Elizabeth C. & Richard B. Dasher. 2002. Regularity in semantic change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vasilyeva, A.N. 1972. Particles in colloquial Russian. Moscow: Progress. Wakefield, John. 2011. The English equivalents of Cantonese sentence-final particles. Dissertation, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies. (20 May 2014) Waltereit, Richard. 2004. Metonymischer Bedeutungswandel und pragmatische Strategien: Zur Geschichte von frz. quand même. Metaphorik (6). 117–133. Weydt, Harald. 1969. Abtönungspartikeln: Die deutschen Modalwörter und ihre französischen Entsprechungen. Bad Homburg v.d.H.: Gehlen. Weydt, Harald (ed.). 1989. Sprechen mit Partikeln. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. Wouden, Ton van der & Ad Foolen. 2011. Pragmatische partikels in de rechterperiferie [Pragmatic particles in the right periphery]. Nederlandse Taalkunde 16. 307–322. Wu, Ruey-Jiuan Regina. 2004. Stance in talk: A conversation analysis of Mandarin final particles. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Yap, Foong Ha, Jiao Wang & Charles Tsz-kwan Lam. 2010. Clausal integration and the emergence of mitigative and adhortative sentence-final particles in Chinese. Taiwan Journal of Linguistics 8(2). 63–86.

II Discourse Analysis & Conversation Analysis

Pedro Ureña Gómez-Moreno

2 Sentence-final adverbials: Recurrent types and usage Most available studies on adverbs agree on characterising these as highly movable units whose positional potential within the sentence is particularly complex to describe. The importance of the study of position lies in the crucial role that it plays in interpreting the meaning and defining the function of words in general and of adverbials in particular. Within the adverbial class, disjuncts have been argued to enjoy greater flexibility to appear in the periphery of the sentence, either left or rightmost. However, both absolute initial and final positions are implicitly dealt with in most part of the literature as interchangeable and no further discussion is normally raised as to their pragmatic differences. Drawing on the analysis of a sample of the Corpus of Contemporary American English, this paper examines diverse cases in spoken English in which adverbials with the clausal scope take final position. Two major semantic types were analysed, namely certainty and uncertainty epistemic disjuncts. The main claim is that the final position appears as a salient device through which speakers can enrich the discursive force of their arguments by introducing relevant speaker-oriented information before a shift in topic or the closing of a conversational turn. A second claim is that the final position has the function of building up a reinforced and cohesive discourse, thus conveying pragmatic nuances not so fully available in other slots in the sentence.* Key words: adverbials, disjuncts, modality, position, corpus

1 Introduction This chapter focuses on the analysis and interpretation of adverbials taking up sentence-final position in spoken American English, more specifically on * This contribution is based on research currently carried out within the framework of the project entitled “Development of a subontology in a multilingual context (English, Spanish and Italian): Using FunGramKB in the field of international cooperation in criminal matters: terrorism and organised crime” funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, code no. FFI2010-15983. Additionally, I am truly indebted to my colleagues Encarnación Hidalgo and Leanne Bartley for their valuable reviews on earlier versions of this paper. The usual disclaimers apply. Pedro Ureña Gómez-Moreno, University of Granada

40

Pedro Ureña Gómez-Moreno

disjuncts realised by single adverb phrases, as shown in examples (1) and (2) below1: (1)

I’m sorry to hear that, naturally.

(2)

He would have killed me and her right there, probably.

The study of adverbs as regards their position has been recurrently touched upon in the literature by scholars from different persuasions (e.g. Baltin 2007; Austin, Engelberg, and Rauh 2004; Ernst 2002; Kim 2000; Jacobson 1980). In this introduction I will summarise the main points raised both by reference grammars and specialised research, focusing, in so doing, on end-positioning in particular. It should be first noted that in this paper I will follow the morphosyntactic distinction commonly established between “adverb”, defined as an element functioning at phrase level, and “adverbial”, referring to a phrasal element functioning at sentence level (Hasselgård 2010). A further note on terminology: I will retain the denomination “disjuncts”, originally posed by Greenbaum (1969) and later endorsed by Quirk et al. (1985), to refer to wide-scope adverbials or sentence modifiers of the type of naturally and probably in (1) and (2) above. Terminology and notational conventions for characterising adverbial positions in the sentence vary from one author to another. The grammar of Quirk et al. (1985: 490) offers one of the earliest and most fine-grained classifications of adverbial placement by distinguishing three basic positions, namely “initial”, “medial” and “end”, as well as four variants of the latter two (“initial medial”, “medial medial”, “end medial” and “initial end”). The examples that they use to illustrate these are well-known2: (3)

By then the book must have been placed on the shelf.

(I)

The book by then must have been placed on the shelf.

(iM)

The book must by then have been placed on the shelf.

(M)

The book must have by then been placed on the shelf.

(mM)

The book must have been by then placed on the shelf.

(eM)

The book must have been placed by then on the shelf.

(iE)

The book must have been placed on the shelf by then. (Quirk et al. 1985: 490)

(E)

1 The examples in this paper belong to The Corpus of Contemporary American English. See the “data and method” section. Examples appear without any changes on the original. Nevertheless, suspension dots “[. . .]” are used in some cases to indicate that part of the example has been truncated to shorten its length and facilitate readability. 2 I stands for “initial”, M (or m) for “middle or medial”, and E for “end”.

Sentence-final adverbials

41

These authors define “end” as the part in the sentence following all obligatory elements. They make a generalisation that most semantic types of adverbials can appear in this position, with the exception of modality, and that disjuncts can appear almost anywhere in the sentence, although they most normally do so initially. Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 575) maintain the configuration posed in (3), while introducing a shift in terminology. They postulate three positions that they call “front”, “central” and “end”. According to these authors, “end” is reserved for elements after the verb, and some or all of its dependents. In the same vein, finally, Biber et al. (1999: 772) coincide with the division between the three basic aforementioned positions and, in describing the positional potential of adverbials, their focus is on the frequency analysis of the most recurrent type of adverbials in each of them. They conclude that initial is the most common position for linking adverbials (e.g. nevertheless), mid position is where adverbials expressing stance normally appear (e.g. of course) and final position is mainly the place for circumstance adverbials (e.g. for a week). Additionally, they note that final position is, in comparative terms, less commonly favoured in the case of linking and stance adverbials, although they refer examples that override this tendency, such as the comment clause in (4) and the linking word in (5) below: (4)

Most of the others didn’t, I guess.

(Biber et al. 1999: 873)

(5)

Well you didn’t miss much anyway.

(Biber et al. 1999: 892)

In what follows, I will adhere to the classification among three major positions in the sentence, with the further specification, nevertheless, that this does not only apply to cases where the adverbial is integrated in the structure of the sentence, but also includes cases where the adverbial is either prosodically or orthographically detached from it. I will base this analysis on the assumption that elements peripheral to the contents of the proposition still form a core part of the message and, as a result, depend syntactically and pragmatically on it. Parallel to the study of the distribution potential of adverbials, another related area of adverbial analysis has revolved around the factors either conditioning or affecting each position that these units can occupy. Research centred specifically on adverbials has rightly pointed out that there are three main factors governing end positioning. Firstly, adverbials’ overall most frequent place at the end of the sentence relates to the fact that this is the common place for circumstantials, which are in turn the commonest type of adverbials (e.g. Biber et al. 1999: 772; Breivik and Swan 1994: 12). In this regard, it has been noted that this tendency to take up final position responds to the iconic principle

42

Pedro Ureña Gómez-Moreno

by virtue of which the speaker uses language structure to depict the normal evolvement of events in a given context (Ji 2010)3. According to this principle, adverbials frequently appear in end position because they follow verbs, which are the units that adverbs normally modify. Secondly, language tends to relegate complex elements to end position, where they are normally processed more easily. This adaptation process of grammar to effective communication has been standardly called the “end-weight principle” (e.g. Costa 2004; Bache and Davidsen-Nielsen 1997; Quirk et al. 1985: 323). Thirdly, in non-marked language, end position is additionally reserved for elements, such as adjuncts, representing new or relevant information, and normally receiving prosodic prominence. By contrast, disjuncts are more likely to appear initially developing a thematic function, with the sentence they are attached to making up the comment (Buysschaert 1990: 45; see also Nevalainen 1987). This chapter explores which discourse factors contribute to the appearance of disjuncts in final position. I will show that, regardless of the aforementioned fair degree of movability of these units, speakers use the final position to convey specific personal attitudes, which are not so markedly supported in other positions. Furthermore, I will argue that not only do attested grammatical variables of the type mentioned above constrain the placement of these adverbs but also that pragmatics represents a decisive factor in the selection of final position.

2 Data and method This chapter relies on the study of a sample dataset drawn from the spoken component of the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). This reference corpus contains 410 million words, out of which 85 million belong to the spoken mode, mainly broadcasted and conversational language, while the rest corresponds to the written mode in some of its most representative genres, such as academic writing, in-press journalistic language and fictional literature. In order to collect a pertinent sample of sentence-final adverbials, I followed a heuristic method. Using the interface to COCA and relying on the morphological tags in the corpus, I ran a random query to include any -ly adverb preceded by a weak pause (a comma) and followed by a strong pause (a full stop). This rule of thumb allowed not only to restrict the results to end-sentence adverbials, but also to minimise the possibilities of retrieving instances of pure-manner adverbs,

3 The concept “speaker” will be used here to include any type of addresser who directs his/her message to a “listener” or “interlocutor”, either in the written or the spoken language.

Sentence-final adverbials

43

which normally appear in final position. The resulting sample consisted of a list of 100 adverbs amounting to more than 10,000 examples. For the purpose of this study, this sample was further restricted to include, specifically, two of the most outstanding semantic groups of final adverbials, which were found to be made up by disjuncts showing certainty and disjuncts of uncertainty. Therefore, the final sample for the analysis contained 22 final disjuncts totalling 200 examples (100 out of each of the two semantic groups). Table 1 contains a summary of the units analysed: Table 1: Elements appearing in final position in the COCA Certainty

Occurrence

Uncertainty

Occurrence

Absolutely Exactly Obviously Definitely Certainly Clearly Totally Naturally Completely Surely Evidently Easily Effectively

2,201 (25.26) 1,127 (12.94) 593 (6.81) 520 (5.97) 289 (3.32) 71 (0.81) 43 (0.49) 31 (0.36) 21 (0.24) 16 (0.18) 14 (0.16) 14 (0.16) 4 (0.05)

Probably Apparently Hopefully Possibly Initially Potentially Supposedly Luckily Presumably

178 (2.04) 148 (1.70) 60 (0.69) 37 (0.42) 17 (0.20) 17 (0.20) 17 (0.20) 13 (0.15) 12 (0.14)

Note: The number in parentheses indicates figures per million words

3 Final disjuncts across modes and genres This section presents an overview of the type of disjuncts found in end position in the sample and an account of their frequencies. Previous work has argued that final disjuncts mostly take place in spoken language (e.g. Biber et al. 1999). The overall distribution of -ly final disjuncts in the COCA confirms this tendency, with a majority of cases belonging to this language mode, and the remainder of the uses clustering around the fiction, academic, magazine and newspaper written genres, respectively. Table 2 below shows the distribution as it appears in the corpus:

44

Pedro Ureña Gómez-Moreno

Table 2: Occurrences of final disjuncts in the COCA -ly items in sentence end position

Spoken Fiction Academic Magazine Newspaper

Freq

Freq pmw.

Total section

10,602 (45.3%) 6,618 (28.3%) 2,477 (10.6%) 2,018 (8.6%) 1,704 (7.2%)

121.70 80.98 29.87 23.15 20.40

~87 m. ~82 m. ~83 m. ~87 m. ~83 m.

Note: “pmw.” stands for “per million words” and “m” stands for “million”

The normalised counts in each of the sections allow to conclude that the frequency of final disjuncts in the spoken genre is more than twice the amount of the same units in the fiction genre, the written section that sums the greater percentage of these units. This quantitative profile proves useful to show that the usage of these units must be explained mostly against the background of spoken and conversational discourse strategies.

4 Pragmatic and conversational effects In broad terms, final position gains special importance when compared to initial and medial, insofar as only the former allows the speaker to include last-minute information to discourse, usually short sentences or phrases containing either content-related assessments or personal comments as to the style and/or the truth of the proposition. The readings of sentence-end adverbs are not necessarily univocal, however, with some adverbs conveying multifarious nuances of meaning depending on the context. This section delves into a more qualitative and interpretative analysis of modal disjuncts by trying to answer the question of why these appear rightmost in the utterance and what their associated pragmatic effects are.

4.1 Certainty One of the main discursive functions of certainty disjuncts appearing at end position consists in seeking agreement with the interlocutor by establishing informative and emotional involvement with him/her. The sample corpus studied contains five markedly agreeing words among the first ten most frequent words,

Sentence-final adverbials

45

namely absolutely, exactly, obviously, definitely and certainly, and another additional eight agreeing words among the 100 most frequent final disjuncts in the whole COCA (e.g. clearly, totally, naturally, surely). In what concerns their semantic content, all these units coincide in the connotation of certainty they introduce in the utterance; however, they conceptualise such meaning rather differently. Firstly, some express that the information in the proposition is an exact portrait of the world (exactly, naturally); secondly, others stress that what has been mentioned in previous discourse involves some sort of gradient or scale of completion (absolutely, totally); thirdly, others invoke an end-point within a sequence (definitely); and, finally, some other disjuncts make an explicit claim that a given information does not need any clarification (obviously, clearly) or is not refutable (surely, certainly). A major function of modal disjuncts in all four cases above is to contribute to reassuring information the speaker or the hearer have uttered in previous co-text. Under this view, final position appears as a reinforcing element placing the strongest certainty and agreement in the final part of the speaker’s turn. Examples (6) and (7) are a case in point: (6)

SPEAKER A: Well, I guess what I’m wondering is are you optimistic [. . .] SPEAKER B: We are optimistic, absolutely.

(7)

SPEAKER A: I am quite different from my father in the sense that, you know, my sensibilities are completely different than his. However, in my family, we were fairly close, but he was always out, basically, most of the time, and I rebel against that. SPEAKER B: You rebelled against that, clearly. In fact, we’re delighted you’re here today. It got you out of the house.

In these examples above, “speaker b” employs final position to produce a highly emphatic utterance that complies with the contents of speaker b’s message, ratifying it utterly. As part of that conformity reaction, in both examples, “speaker b” reproduces part of the previous interlocutor’s message literally, creating a lexical chain between “are you optimistic” and “we are optimistic”, in (6), and between “rebel against that” and “you rebelled against that”, in (7). The same discursive strategy of mimicking part of the interlocutor’s speech is consistently found with exactly. This expresses that what the speaker is saying coincides literally with part of a previous speech, as in (8) and (9) below: (8)

SPEAKER A: Like the 24 bombers that have been sent to Guam. SPEAKER B: Like the 24 bombers sent to Guam, exactly.

46

(9)

Pedro Ureña Gómez-Moreno

SPEAKER A: Do you know something? Those are the people that are filled with hate, anyway, in my opinion. SPEAKER B: Or have a gimmick. SPEAKER A: Or have a gimmick, exactly.

The ultimate effect of disjuncts expressing certainty upon the ongoing conversation, however, may not be to support part or all of the hearer’s statement(s) solely. Rather on the contrary, the speaker may also allocate it finally in order to increase the convincing force of his/her own discourse, thus trying to attract the hearer into agreeing with the truth of the message, rather than agreeing upon any prior stated facts. Also in this use, final position has a decisive role of emphasising the agreement. For example, in (10) below, which is an excerpt of an interview, the interviewee does not use the disjunct obviously to concur with the contents of a previous message; instead, s/he uses it to seek self-assurance as well as to force agreement with the hearer: (10)

SPEAKER A: Did you have a sense of how the Obamas are viewed just in general by people in Haiti? I understand that that was not their most pressing concern at the time that you were covering the aftermath of the earthquake, but just overall? SPEAKER B: Oh, I mean, people are just absolutely thrilled to have an African-American as president of the United States, you know, obviously. And Haiti looks to the U.S. very much. You know, this is the outside world that Haitians look to the most.

The introduction of obviously here does not pursue the kind of agreement seen with final disjuncts in (6) to (9). In this case, the interviewee’s underlying intention is that both the interviewer and the audience should abide by the truth of his/her opinion about people’s thrill regarding the presidency. This is most noticeable considering that the interviewer’s is a direct question concerning the people in Haiti and not mainly American citizens. In terms of Brown and Levinson (1987), examples from (6) to (9) appeal to the positive face of the listener, while (10) does not so much aim at agreeing as to persuading. The importance of final position here, therefore, lies in serving as a conditioning factor to what the speaker may add in the following turn shift.

4.2 Uncertainty The major attested function of disjuncts is to make explicit the speaker’s beliefs and opinion concerning the truth of a certain state of affairs. This general

Sentence-final adverbials

47

expression of stance is crucial in that it allows the speaker to attest or otherwise to downplay the contents of his/her own arguments or the interlocutor’s. The placement of disjuncts in end position is the proper place for that type of function, since only when the speaker has put his/her arguments forward can s/he have a perspective on how the message uttered differs from the one originally intended, and evaluate whether it may have either a positive or a negative impact on the hearer. Final position is specific in that it allows the speaker to repair missing data adding a last chunk of information before the actual turn shift occurs, or before there is a move within his/her own discourse. One such addition consists in showing that what was just claimed should be considered as a rough statement which the speaker may concede to clarify or rephrase in the light of further input or correction on the part of the hearer. The speaker can thus opt to follow two possible strategies to prepare the subsequent hearer’s response. Firstly, s/he may use adverbs whose semantic tenor is closer to reassurance, as seen with certainty adverbs in the section above, in which case s/he emphasises not only the content of the message, but, more importantly, the attitude towards how s/he perceives it. Secondly, s/he can use disjuncts which indicate doubt and approximation so as not to convey an authoritative attitude but to diminish certainty instead. In (11) and (12) below, for instance, the disjuncts probably and possibly have a bearing on the certainty of the event so depicted but, above all, on how the speaker signals how his/her arguments should be interpreted: (11)

SPEAKER A: What do you think accounts for this evolution in talkativeness on the high court? SPEAKER B: I’m − I think it’s just a matter of personalities, probably. You know, some − some Justices enjoy questioning, others don’t.

(12)

SPEAKER A: [. . .] and they need medication? They need psychiatric care? SPEAKER B: [. . .] they need medication, possibly. They certainly need psycho − psychological evaluation.

The main difference between the use of adverbs of uncertainty in final position in contrast to initial and medial position lies in the fact that the former has a boosting effect on mitigating the previous turn and predisposes the addressee to better evaluate the force of the speaker’s speech. The importance of final position is to act as marker of temporal dimension of discourse, and to indicate that the certainty and factuality of events should be considered as highly tentative.

48

Pedro Ureña Gómez-Moreno

One remarkable case of uncertainty along these lines is the adverb usually. In its core sense, usually expresses recurrent habit or event taking place repeatedly within a defined period of time, as in (13) below: (13)

I usually call myself Zacatecano because my parents are from the state of Zacatecas.

By contrast, the occurrences of this word in the corpus show that, when it appears closing the sentence, its core meaning is extended to express that the speaker is not sure about the truth of his/her assertion and that the hearer should interpret information with some caution, as in (14) and (15) below: (14)

So they’re roving bands of between five and seven young people, usually.

(15)

SPEAKER A: From what you can tell, do they feel the same about you? SPEAKER B: Well, usually, because I tend to be also very – you can see, you know, I wear my emotions on my sleeve. You can tell exactly how I’m feeling, usually.

In these two instances, the habitual reading of usually is somehow bleached in favour of a more attitudinal meaning. In (14), the disjunct takes backwards scope to imprint the whole preceding sentence with a connotation of doubt, which originates from the hesitation as to the exact number of young people invoked. In (15), by the same token, the speaker is showing an improvised and, at times, dubious description of some facets of his/her personality, for which s/he uses usually to suggest that the certainty or habitualness of “you can tell exactly how I’m feeling” should be taken as an imprecise evaluation of and about him/herself. In both examples, nonetheless, the differentiation between the core manner reading and the evaluative reading cannot be taken in absolute terms but only the context can properly help identify the meaning and the grammatical function operating in each case. A similar, albeit less opaque, case of meaning extension is found with the adverb easily. In its most frequent use as a manner adjunct, easily expresses that certain action has been carried out with minimum physical or intellectual effort. Common instances of this use include sentences like (16) below: (16)

They understand that this isn’t just something that can be easily dealt with.

Sentence-final adverbials

49

When it appears in absolute final position, however, this adverb undergoes a change from this original manner reading to a more epistemic sense, such that it indicates that the speaker is making a rough estimation about the contents of the message, specially when that involves a calculation or a quantitative judgement, as in (17) and (18) below (see Nykiel 2010 for an historical overview on this use): (17)

I have probably sent out over a thousand resumes since July, easily.

(18)

SPEAKER A: How many e-mails might you get in one day? SPEAKER B: A hundred, easily.

In these examples, easily collocates with numerical expressions to mark a more or less remote possibility that the quantity alluded comes near to one known or hypothesised. The speaker uses the disjunct to establish that it is appropriate to assume that his/her approximate recount is only accurate and possible under the conditions contained in the rest of the proposition or under the perspective of his/her personal knowledge. Again, easily can be considered to have taken on a new meaning from the domain of manner to epistemic modality. The process by which a unit such as usually or easily loses some of its circumstantial meaning and becomes a discourse marker has been referred to in the literature as “pragmaticalization” (see Norde 2009 for a recent account and discussion). From the examples just referred to, position should be considered a contributing factor to this pragmaticalisation. In the case of easily, the relationship between position and pragmaticalisation seems to be further supported by the fact that in this use as a modal disjunct, this adverb allows initial position only marginally. In fact, in a search for cases of initial easily in COCA, only eight cases were found, among which one isolated case clearly qualifies as a disjunct, below shown in (19): (19)

You can see the influence of feminism on this new radicalization. Easily, half the leaders and participants are female, and it’s not just among the youth.

4.3 Cohesion It is commonly agreed that initial elements appearing in the leftmost periphery of the sentence can function as logical and cohesive elements to previous parts of discourse. Recently, for example, Virtanen (2004) and Verstraete (2004) have contended that the initial slot in a sentence acts as a fundamental constructive

50

Pedro Ureña Gómez-Moreno

element in tying part of the preceding text to subsequent evolvement of the utterance, while, at the same time, elements at that position are short and given information. The subcorpus of final disjuncts for this study points out that final position can also fulfil clear cohesive functions. Below, I will refer mainly to two, conclusion marking and connective backwards reference. Final disjuncts can act as effective pointers of conversational turns, thus conferring the message with a sense of concluding remark and contributing to a more effective organisation of the speaker-hearer interaction. Alternatively, both the prosody and the focal end position of these disjuncts contribute effectively to mark, in more or less emphatic degree, that a specific speaker’s exposition has concluded. Disjuncts in final position have, therefore, the twofold job of contributing to the organisation of discourse as well as enacting the cohesive development of a conversation. Take (20) below by way of example: (20)

SPEAKER A: Many people feel and think that when you go to a rehabilitation center for addictions or other things that the people in there turn you into a linguine spine liberal and that’s not true. SPEAKER B: That is not true, evidently.

In this example, there are several factors that conflate felicitously to convey a sense of cohesive whole. For one thing, the semantics of the adverb evidently denotes a high degree of certainty in what concerns the facts just exposed. “Speaker b” has focused his/her interest on agreeing on what s/he feels is relevant in the interlocutor’s claim. In addition, the end position of the adverb forces the disjunct reading, which entails a more marked emphatic prosody. Final disjuncts contribute not only to inserting the speaker’s personal observations but they also help enhance textual dynamism, by stating that the message has been uttered completely and that the speaker has reached a final point in his/her argumentation. In words of Aijmer (2009: 117) regarding the unit of course, the final disjunct is used as a device for closing off a topic and shifting to a new one. The adverbs that most clearly show conclusion are those showing certainty. In this case the speaker is putting an end to his/her argumentative posture, in turn acting as a turn-trigger or a floor for the speaker to open a new turn, as in (21) below: (21)

SPEAKER A: I did try to speak out to her after the “American Music Awards”. You know, I knew that was like the breaking point where she was just getting really bad. SPEAKER B: Like a public breakdown, clearly. SPEAKER A: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to me, it was like a severe cry for help, you know.

Sentence-final adverbials

51

The second main cohesive function identified in the sample for this study is backwards reference. As discussed in Bache and Davidsen-Nielsen (1997: 143), disjuncts can enter discourse in order to introduce an afterthought, that is, a somewhat detached piece of information that speakers append to previous contents. To illustrate this point, these authors propose examples (22) and (23) below: (22)

I wasn’t worrying, for Christ’s sake. (Bache and Davidsen-Nielsen 1997: 143)

(23)

She fell for the old trick, obviously. (Bache and Davidsen-Nielsen 1997: 143)

This additional material appended to the main clause can be conveniently introduced by means of a final disjunct, as in (23), which establishes how the afterthought should be interpreted. The importance of final disjuncts in suiting afterthoughts into spontaneous speech is that these allow to introduce a longdistance connection to one or several ideas that are present in the interlocutor’s turn. The resulting effect is a more coherent discourse than its alternative without the disjunct. In (24) below, for example, the adverb absolutely has the important function of allowing the interviewee to make a backwards reference to a previous question: (24)

SPEAKER A: Are you confident the stories in this book will stand the test of time? SPEAKER B: Oh, I’m so anxious for reporters to get out there and start talking to these people. And, you know, there’s a lot of news in this book, really. I want the – I want – I’ve named all these people. I’ve told everybody where they live, go find them, ask their stories. Let’s work it and see what this president was about. I’m willing to stand the scrutiny of my peers, absolutely.

Here, the interviewer prompts the guest to reveal further details, both to him/her and the audience, about the importance of the books written by the latter. In his/her turn, the interviewee starts with a rather oblique answer that does not directly address the specific question that s/he has been addressed but, instead, s/he makes a rather lengthy exposition, only after which, s/he turns back to the primary question which s/he answers with a full expression of certainty supported with absolutely. The presence of this final disjunct, which in this context most properly appears following the last sentence, has an intrinsic crossreferential and cohesive power in that it ties together both turns. The result is a more complete message. Another case in point is (25) below:

52 (25)

Pedro Ureña Gómez-Moreno

SPEAKER A: So your advice to him now is to get back on board and support Clinton 100 percent? SPEAKER B: My- my advice- my advice to any Democrat is to- is to embrace change, to- to- to talk about the things that the President is doing, to talk about his pro-investment policies, to talk about the wide variety of political reform and other changes that he’s making, absolutely.

The cross-reference and the liaison emerging from conjoining repetition plus a disjunct in final position should, under the appropriate contexts, have a parallel effect as the connective role of conjuncts. One last effective way of achieving cohesion by means of final disjuncts is to echo the lexico-grammatical in the previous turn, which establish ideological parallels among the participants intervening in a conversation. In the above section dealing with modal disjuncts of certainty, for example, the mimicking has appeared as an implicit strategy for extra-agreement. Yet, in some other cases, the parallelism takes place in a more subtle way, that is, the speaker does not repeat literally part of the message but uses a final disjunct as a necessary element to include his/her own version of a certain state of affairs. That is the case of the following example, in which the adverb effectively marks the preceding stretch as a summary sentence that agrees on the hearer’s view about a given states of affairs, while in turn emerges as a personal version of facts: (26)

SPEAKER A: [. . .] Many have struggled onto ships that will take them home. Sixty-seven thousand are still here, relying on the mercy of a poverty-stricken nation. SPEAKER B: The scene is one of complete chaos, effectively. There are some 12,000 people crammed into a space that is intended for 3,000.

5 Conclusions This paper has presented corpus evidence regarding the usage of English adverbs in sentence-final position. As I have tried to show, in order to fully account for adverbial movability and the selection of one position over the others, it is not only necessary to consider grammatical or semantic issues, but also to take discourse adequacy into account. One of the main points raised has been that, while final position cannot be assigned exclusive discoursal functions, it can

Sentence-final adverbials

53

still be considered to make an important contribution to boosting the meaning of speaker-oriented disjuncts otherwise not so markedly expressed from the initial or medial slots in the sentence. End-position proves to be a particularly useful pragmatic device that the speaker uses to reinforce his/her arguments about a certain state of affairs and to explicitly reassure his/her attitude in what concerns ongoing features of discourse. Final position is specific in that it is the only one that can add linguistic material before a turn shift or a move in the topic under discussion. Specifically, final position helps the speaker convey an utter sense of certainty and agreement with respect to the interlocutor’s intervention, or, otherwise, persuade him/her to agree on a particular aspect. In addition to agreement, a second type of adverbs that are foregrounded in final position include disjuncts of uncertainty, which find in end position the proper place for a last-minute evaluation of previously uttered discourse and do repairs if needed. Finally, final position favours (or is favoured by) specific contextual situations serving to attain cohesion and enhance coherence. On this view, the speaker uses final disjuncts not only to highlight the contents or the truth or the style of his/her own message but, more importantly, to establish a conversational trigger for the interlocutor’s reaction message.

References Aijmer, Karin. 2009. Does English have modal particles? In Antoinette Renouf & Andrew Kehoe (eds.), Corpus linguistics: Refinements and reassessments, 111−130. Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi. Austin, Jennifer R., Stefan Engelberg & Gisa Rauh. 2004. Adverbials: The interplay between meaning, context, and syntactic structure. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Bache, Carl & Niels Davidsen-Nielsen. 1997. Mastering English: An advanced grammar for nonnative and native speakers. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Baltin, Mark R. 2007. The position of adverbials. In Simin Karimi, Vida Samiian & Wendy K. Wilkins (eds.), Phrasal and clausal architecture: Syntactic derivation and interpretation, 21−39. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad & Edward Finegan. 1999. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow: Pearson Education. Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Breivik, Leiv E. & Toril Swan. 1994. Initial adverbials and word order in English with special reference to the Early Modern English period. In Dieter Kastovsky (ed.), Studies in Early Modern English, 11−43. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Buysschaert, Joost. 1990. The position of English adverbials. In Dietrich Nehls (ed.), Grammatical studies in the English language (Studies in Descriptive Linguistics 19), 37−51. Heidelberg: Julius Gross.

54

Pedro Ureña Gómez-Moreno

Costa, João. 2004. A multifactorial approach to adverb placement: Assumptions, facts, and problems. Lingua: International Review of General Linguistics, 114(6). 711−753. Davies, Mark. 2004. BYU-BNC: The Corpus of Contemporary American English. Available online at http://www.americancorpus.org/. Ernst, Thomas B. 2002. The syntax of adjuncts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greenbaum, Sidney. 1969. Studies in English adverbial usage. London: Longman. Hasselgård, Hilde. 2010. Adjunct adverbials in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huddleston, Rodney D. & Geoffrey K. Pullum. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jacobson, Sven. 1980. Contextual influences on adverb placement in English. Studia Linguistica: Revue de Linguistique Generale et Comparee/Journal of General and Comparative Linguistics 34. 135−140. Ji, Shaojun. 2010. The iconicity assumption and the functional distribution of English temporal adverbial clauses: A textual perspective. Journal of Pragmatics 42. 3163–3171. Kim, Rhanghyeyun. 2000. A minimalist account of the distribution of adverbs. Studies in Generative Grammar 10(2). 453−504. Nevalainen, Terttu. 1987. The rhythm hypothesis of adverb placement: A case study of “only”. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen: Bulletin de la Société Néophilologique/Bulletin of the Modern Language Society 88(4). 365−377. Norde, Muriel. 2009. Degrammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nykiel, Jerzy. 2010. The interplay of modal verbs and adverbs: A history of mæg eaþe. In Ursula Lenker, Judith Huber & Robert Mailhammer (eds.), English historical linguistics 2008: Selected papers from the fifteenth international conference on English historical linguistics, 143–164. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech & Jan Svartvik. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman. Virtanen, Tuija. 2004. Point of departure: Cognitive aspects of sentence-initial adverbials. In Tuija Virtanen (ed.), Approaches to cognition through text and discourse, 79−97. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Verstraete, Jean-Christophe. 2004. Initial and final position for adverbial clauses in English: the constructional basis of the discursive and syntactic differences. Linguistics 42(4). 819−853.

Aino Koivisto

3 Taking an interactional perspective on final particles: the case of Finnish mutta (‘but’) This paper takes a Conversation Analytic and Interactional Linguistic perspective on final particles. More specifically, the interest lies in the ways in which conjunctions can be used as turn-final particles in conversation, serving interactional functions. The paper will focus on the conjunction mutta, which is the Finnish equivalent to the English but. The data come from naturally occurring telephone and face-to-face conversations. The paper builds on the claims presented in Mulder & Thompson (2008) and develops its ideas further by exploring the use of final but in yet another language and by offering more interactional evidence for the recognizability of this phenomenon in terms of the contexts of occurrence and the conversational actions that turns ending in mutta accomplish. Key words: Conversation Analysis, Interactional Linguistics, turn-final conjunction, concession, discourse pattern

1 Introduction Conjunctions in conversation do not always function as linking elements between grammatical units. They can also occur at the end of an utterance or a turn – or even as a unit of their own (see, e.g. Jefferson 1983; Lindström 1999; Raymond 2004; Mulder & Thompson 2008; Drake 2013). At least two questions arise: How is it possible for the recipients to recognize conjunctions as possible turn-endings? What are the interactional functions of turn-final conjunctions? This article addresses these questions by exploring the use of the Finnish conjunction mutta (‘but’) in turn-final position, drawing from Conversation Analysis (CA) and Interactional Linguistics (IL) as a method and theoretical background. As in English, in Finnish several conjunctions can be used in turn-final position. While Finnish is typologically a completely different kind of language, it is interesting that conjunctions occurring in turn-final position in Finnish are more or less the equivalents of the ones that are used in English (see Jefferson 1983). Aino Koivisto, Finnish Centre of Excellence in Intersubjectivity in Interaction, University of Helsinki

56

Aino Koivisto

These include ja (‘and’), mutta (‘but’), että (‘so’), vai (‘or’) and ni (‘so’) (see Koivisto 2011; Koivisto, Laury & Seppänen 2011; Koivisto 2012; Koivisto 2014). A word on terminology is in order here. In this article, the term “final conjunction” is used in order to avoid too hasty a decision on whether Finnish mutta is indeed grammaticalized1 as a final particle (see Mulder & Thompson 2008; Thompson & Suzuki 2012) or whether it has just gained turn-final use without losing its “connective flavor” (see Mulder & Thompson 2008: 197). By “turnfinal”, I refer not only to units in talk that are followed by turn-transition but also to units that can be analyzed as possibly complete interactional contributions in their contexts even if no turn-transition occurs (see, e.g. Ford & Thompson 1996: 166–167).2 In previous research, several aspects presumably crucial for the “finality” of these types of words have been discussed. Attention has been paid to turntaking (whether the turn transfers to the interlocutor after the final conjunction) (Jefferson 1983; Mulder & Thompson 2008; Drake 2013), to phonetic features of final conjunctions (Local and Kelly, 1986; Ogden, 2001, 2004; Local and Walker, 2005; Walker, 2012) and also to accompanying gestures (Walker 2012). For example, with respect to Finnish, Richard Ogden (2004: 47–51) has observed that final conjunctions may carry phonetic features such as creaky voice, whisper and exhalation that are typical of Finnish turn-endings in general. The interactional contexts where turns ending in a conjunction occur and the social actions they accomplish are yet another aspect, although it has attracted less interest among the scholars (however, see Lindström 1999 on Swedish eller ‘or’; Raymond 2004 on English so; Koivisto, Laury & Seppänen 2011 and Koivisto 2012 on Finnish particles; Drake 2013 on English or). According to Thompson & Suzuki (2012), sequential and interactional factors should be taken into account when considering the grammaticalization of final particles. In my view, this entails both the sequential progression after the final conjunction/particle (whether the turn transfers to the interlocutor or not) and the ongoing conversational activity that the turn participates in (i.e. what happens before the final conjunction). This article will address both of these perspectives in order to be able to determine both the conditions under which the conjunction mutta forms a 1 The term grammaticalization is used synchronically here, that is, it is seen as “a syntactic, discourse pragmatic phenomenon, to be studied from the point of view of fluid patterns of language use” (Hopper & Traugott 2003: 2; see also Mulder & Thompson 2008: 198). 2 The more precise term would be TCU-final, since turn constructional units (TCUs) (Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson 1974: 702–704) are units that “can constitute possibly complete turns; on their possible completion, transition to a next speaker becomes relevant (although not necessarily accomplished)” (Schegloff 1996: 55, emphasis in the original). However, in this article, I will use the term turn-final for the sake of simplicity.

Taking an interactional perspective on final particles

57

recognizable turn-ending and the interactional functions that it serves. First, I will explore the role of participant orientation, which constitutes central evidence for analytic claims within Conversation Analytic research (see, e.g. Local & Walker 2005: 121–122; Heritage 1984: 242–244; Heritage & Atkinson 1984: 8–11; Levinson 1983: 319–326). Second, I will analyze the local, sequentially arranged interactional contexts where these turns occur – another key element of CA (see Schegloff 2007). My claim is that studying the interactional functions of the final conjunctions in their actual contexts of use will tell something essential about their recognizability as possible turn-endings and thereby the extent of their conventionalization (or grammaticalization) as final particles. The aim is then to find out whether these utterances that end in mutta fulfill recognizable actions in recurrent, identifiable social contexts. The role of the phonetic features of final mutta falls beyond the scope of this article.

2 Data The data for the study consist of approximately 13 hours of everyday conversation, both audiotaped telephone conversations and videotaped face-to-face conversations, yielding a total of 73 cases of utterance-final mutta. The data come from two sources, 1) the data archive housed at the Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies, University of Helsinki, and 2) the data archive housed at the Institute for the Languages of Finland. The first mainly consists of interactions between friends and family members, whereas the latter includes service encounters in low-key settings (such as convenience stores and hair salons). A key to the CA transcription conventions and the morphological glossing symbols are provided in the Appendix.

3 Participant orientation to final mutta In this section I will analyze participant orientation as potential evidence for the completeness and interactional recognizability of turn-final mutta. The observations discussed in this section apply to other turn-final conjunctions in Finnish, as well (see Koivisto 2011). The question to be asked is whether the participants in a conversation themselves orient to the units ending in mutta as complete. This entails recipient reactions – or the lack of them – and also the subsequent turns by the producer of the final conjunction. The clearest cases of turn-final conjunctions are obviously those that are followed by a cessation of talk by the

58

Aino Koivisto

current speaker and a full turn by the recipient. Consider the following fragment (1). In lines 4–5 speaker V produces a turn that ends in mutta. Immediately upon the completion of the conjunction, the recipient S takes a turn (line 6). While the phonetic features are not the focus of this article, it may be noted that the final mutta has phonetic features indicating completeness, that is, whispery voice quality on the second syllable, which is typical of Finnish turn-endings (cf. Ogden 2004). (1) [Mutta51 Sg096 B06] ((S and V are talking about driving conditions)) 01 V: .mt siel on aika hyvä keli nyt. ‘the conditions are pretty good now.’ 02

(0.4)

03 S:

o:ikei hyvä just [>tollalailla< °et se on°,] ‘really good just like that it is’

04 V:->

05

[ehkä p:ikkusen liukas ] ku °>toi onniinku< lämmenny toi ilma mut°ta°;= little PRT get.warmer-PST DEM weather but the weather has got a bit warmer but’

06 S: => =nii: no ei se oo ku kuus, (.) ei siälä oo enää sitäkää pakkas°ta°. ‘right: well it’s only six (.) it’s less than that below zero’ What about cases where the same speaker continues after a pause? Should we interpret these cases as incomplete because of the lack of recipient reaction? That is, does a pause indicate that the recipient is waiting for a continuation that is on its way? I wish to argue that it is not that simple. First of all, ending a turn in a conjunction can be a strategic way of creating an ambiguous turn ending, which results in an implicit negotiation between the speakers about the status of the turn as complete or still to be continued (Jefferson 1983). This fact can be nicely witnessed through cases where the current speaker and the recipient start a turn simultaneously after the final conjunction and a pause. The following extract is taken from a conversation between the hairdresser and her client, from the end part of it. At this point, the participants are evaluating the haircut together. In lines 7–9 the hairdresser asks the client’s opinion about the length of the hair in the back of his head.

Taking an interactional perspective on final particles

59

(2) [Hairdresser’s, Kotus T1208] 07 H:

[H GRABS A MIRROR .hh nyt [takk#aa näytä-n siu-le e#t [tarvii-ko now from.behind show-1SG 2SG-ALL PRT need-Q ‘I will now show you from behind that do you still want

08 C:

[ joo. ‘yeah.’

09 H:

täältä vielä ot↑TA-A; DEM.ADV still take-INF me to cut from here’

10

(1.0) H HOLDS UP THE MIRROR, C OBSERVES THE HAIRCUT

11 C:

n:o e:i-pä sieltä hirvveesti >et°tä° tuo-n niska-m mie >tietysti vielä< s#iis[ti#-m mu]tta, DEM-GEN neck-GEN 1SG of.course still make.tidy-1SG but ‘that neck I will of course still trim but,’ 14 C: 15

[nii. ] yeah. (1.0) H HOLDS UP THE MIRROR

16 C:=> [eihä sielta varsinaista.] ‘nothing particular there.’ 17 H:=> [°pittuus° ruppee ] olemma[a aika. ‘the length is starting to be quite.’ 18 C:

[nii. sii↑nä se ↓rupee. ‘yeah. that starts to be (enough)’

In line 13 the hairdresser produces a turn with a turn-final mutta. It is followed by a pause in line 15, that is, neither of the participants takes a turn immediately. The silence breaks off when the hairdresser and the client start to speak simultaneously (lines 16 and 17). Interestingly, the client produces a response that fits to its sequential position, that is, he evaluates the haircut thereby providing another response to the hairdresser’s initial inquiry. The hairdresser, on the other hand, produces a syntactically fitting continuation to her mutta-final (part of her) turn, a contrasting point. I would like to argue that by doing so she is not necessarily completing an incomplete turn but she may be extending it beyond a point of first possible completion. One of the central features of final

60

Aino Koivisto

conjunctions in regulating turn-taking is that they often allow or even invite a response by the recipient but they are also easily expandable in case of no (immediate) uptake (see also Jefferson, 1983: 6–7; Schiffrin, 1987: 218; Ogden, 2004: 50–51). According to this interpretation, the pause in line 15 is not an “intra-turn pause” (Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson 1974: 715) but a place for an implicit negotiation about who is going to talk next. In a similar vein, it should be noted that the existence or non-existence of a recipient response cannot always be considered as reliable evidence for the completeness of a turn. Instead, we should pay attention to the responses that the prior turn makes relevant – whether they are forthcoming or not. As Schegloff (1995: 194) says, “it is not just a hearer’s uptake and actions that can enter into the shaping of a speaker’s talk; it can be the absence of them that does so”. In extract (2) we should then analyze the mutta-final turn in its sequential context and determine the appropriate response according to our analysis. First of all, we may note that the hairdresser’s inquiry in lines 7–9 (‘do you still want me to cut from here’) makes relevant a response that would allow her to bring the hair cutting to a close. However, the client’s response in line 11 is not a straightforward one. The formulation used (‘well not much’) may even convey that the client is not yet entirely satisfied with the length. After a pause (line 12) the hairdresser produces the mutta-final turn. Through this turn she backs down from the implication of the prior inquiry by conceding that the hair-cut is not completely ready yet: she still plans to trim the neck. By making this concession she elicits a more straightforward response from the client. The implication to be responded to is something like ‘apart from the neck do you think the length of the hair is short enough’. The hairdresser’s bodily behavior is also noteworthy: she continues holding the mirror up so that the client is able to see the back of his head. Thereby she treats the client’s evaluation as still unfinished. In light of this analysis, we can then decide that in line 15 the recipient’s response is noticeably missing. Accordingly, the hairdresser’s next turn (lines 17–18) is not projected, anticipated continuation of the mutta-turn but rather a solution to the lack of uptake. However, sometimes the very nature of the same speaker’s continuation may serve as retrospective evidence of the completeness of a turn (see also Koivisto 2014). That is, sometimes the speaker resumes her talk after the conjunction and a pause but does it so that the continuation does not fit syntactically as a continuation but rather starts something new. Mulder & Thompson (2008: 183–185) consider this feature to be a step towards becoming a final particle (they call this stage a “Janus 2 but”). The next example (3) is from the same conversation as the previous one. Here, the hairdresser and the client are not talking about the hair-cutting; they are trying to trace potential mutual acquaintances. In line 1 the hairdresser asks whether the client is originally from the village where the recording takes place.

Taking an interactional perspective on final particles

61

(3) [Mutta1 T1208 Kotus, kampaamo] 01 K: ootko iha kurolalaisia. ‘are you from here Kurola.’ 02 A:

no o↑len kurolalaine et°tä°; ‘well I am from Kurola so;’

03

(0.3)

04 K:

oot_sie minkä #ikä#ne. K LOOKS AT A ‘how old are you.’

05

(.)

06 A:

kaks↑kytneljä oon että; ‘I’m twenty-four so;’

07 K:

.hh £joo no kum mie£ (0.2) >kuul-i-n se-n siu-n< nime-n PRT PRT PRT 1SG hear-PST-1SG DEM-GEN 2SG-GEN name-GEN ‘right well when I (0.2) heard your name

08

Vänskä Tomi [ni se kuul]ost-i niin tutu-lt 2name 1nameM PRT DEM sound-PST PRT familiar-ABL Vänskä Tomi it sounded so familiar

09 A: 10 K:

[nii. yes.

]

>(et) myö ol-laav varmaan< samma-a aika-a #o#l-tu [ko:ulu-s]sa. PRT 2PL be-PASS probably same-ILL time-ILL be-PPPC school-INE that I guess we went to school at the same time’

11 A:

[nii. ] ‘yes.’

13 A:

niin.=saattaa olla. ‘yes. that might be.’

14

(.)

15 K: -> eri (.) #luok-i-lla varmaam# °mutta°;h LOOKS AT C THROUGH THE different class-PL-ADE probably but MIRROR , COMBS THE HAIR ‘probably in different classes but;’ 16 A:

nii:. ‘yes.’

17

(2.8) H TURNS HER GAZE BACK TO C’s HAIR

18 K: => >ni sie kävit< tuossa Kurola‘so you went to Kurola-’

62

Aino Koivisto

In this extract the mutta-final turn (line 15) is followed by the recipient’s response particle nii (line 16).3 In most cases, a particle response to turns that end in a conjunction can be considered as an insufficient reaction. In this extract the hairdresser’s idea about the possibility that she went to school together with the client would enable a more elaborate response by the client. That is, he could express whether he remembers the hairdresser from school. Instead of doing that, he only produces the particle nii that agrees with the hairdresser’s assumption on a general level (see Sorjonen 2001). This means that the primary speakership remains with the hairdresser, who continues after the response particle and a pause. However, the continuation (line 18) is not designed as a continuation as it was in Example (2). Instead, it starts a new syntactic unit that does not contrast with the speaker’s prior utterance but starts a new social action, a new question. Post-pausal (and post-particle) continuations like this serve as retrospective evidence for the completeness of the turn. That is, the speaker him/herself treats his/her prior turn as being completed by starting something new. In this section I have discussed the role of participant orientation in judging whether utterance-final conjunctions can indeed be regarded as recognizable turn-endings. From the analyst’s perspective, recipient reactions to turn-final conjunctions can be considered as retrospective evidence for the completeness of the turn. That is, if the turn transfers smoothly to the co-participant, the turn can unproblematically be seen as complete. However, I also demonstrated that lack of recipient reaction (pause following the conjunction) and the existence of same-speaker continuation do not necessarily count as reliable evidence for incompleteness. The sequential position of the conjunction-final turn and the next actions that the turn makes relevant have to be taken into account in the analysis. That is, the pauses following a final conjunction are different in how strongly or weakly they project a continuation by the same speaker or make possible or even invite a response by the recipient. Nevertheless, sometimes the very continuation by the same speaker can serve as retrospective evidence for the completeness of the turn. This is the case when the speaker initiates a new syntactic structure and a new social action (see also Mulder & Thompson 2008: 185).

3 Particle nii is a common response particle in Finnish. It can be used as a “continuer”, as a confirmation to specific kinds of yes/no questions, and as a claim of affiliation (see Sorjonen 2001). It can occur both as a free standing particle and in the beginning of a turn.

Taking an interactional perspective on final particles

63

4 Sequential positions and the interactional functions of the turn-final mutta 4.1 The central features of the Finnish (turn-final) mutta In terms of its semantics, Finnish mutta seems directly comparable to English but. That is, it is a conjunction that marks a contrast between two clauses or two states of affairs (see, e.g. Sorjonen 1989). This contrast is often ‘pragmatic’ in nature, that is, the source of contrast lies in the speaker’s expectations of the normal course of events (see, e.g. Schiffrin 1987: 185–186). Furthermore, the functional studies that go beyond the context of a sentence have shown that turn-initial but can mark a return to some previous talk. That is, by prefacing a turn with but the speaker can indicate that s/he is now making a return to the main line of talk after some intervening talk such as a side sequence or a competing topical line (see Schiffrin 1987: 164–177; Mazeland & Huiskes 2001 on Dutch maar ‘but’). This kind of contrast set up by but can thus be characterized as textual in nature. As will be shown, the return meaning is also present in the turn-final use. In turn-final position, mutta seems to behave similarly to English but in its intermediate stage of grammaticalization. That is, turn-final mutta ends an intonation unit and a (potentially complete) turn, leaving the contrastive material implicit (see Mulder & Thompson 2008: 183–191). However, in contrast to the continuum presented in Mulder & Thompson 2008, I do not wish to draw a strong line between cases where the same speaker continues after a pause with material that starts something new (Janus 2 but), and cases where another participant takes a turn after final mutta (Final but 1). As argued in the previous section, this is because I do not see recipient reactions as watertight evidence for treating the prior turn as complete or incomplete, and accordingly, the status of final mutta as a conjunction or as a final particle. In this section I approach the behavior of final mutta from the perspective of the various interactional contexts that it occurs in and the social actions that it accomplishes. I will show that there are recurrent and conventionalized contexts of use for Finnish turn-final mutta. That is, they all occur in turns that are concessive in nature. I will also show that in a turn-final position, Finnish mutta not only leaves the contrastive material implicit (Mulder & Thompson 2008), but also implies a return to some earlier claim by the same speaker.

64

Aino Koivisto

4.2 Turn-final mutta as a part of concessive discourse patterns Turn-final mutta does not occur just anywhere. Let us go back to Example 1. (1) [Mutta51 Sg096 B06] ((S and V are talking about driving conditions)) 01 V: .mt siel on aika hyvä keli nyt. ‘the conditions are pretty good now.’ 02

(0.4)

03 S:

o:ikei hyvä just [>tollalailla< °et se on°,] ‘really good just like that it is’

04 V:->

05

[ehkä p:ikkusen liukas ] ku °>toi onniinku< lämmenny toi ilma mut°ta°;= little PRT get.warmer-PST DEM weather but the weather has got a bit warmer but’

06 S: => =nii: no ei se oo ku kuus, (.) ei siälä oo enää sitäkää pakkas°ta°. ‘right: well it’s only six (.) it’s less than that below zero’ In line 1, speaker V makes a claim concerning the weather conditions. In overlap with the recipient’s agreeing response (line 3), V backs down from his original claim by making a qualification: there are elements in the conditions (slippery roads) that make them less good (lines 4–5). This basic pattern applies to most of the cases in my collection: final mutta occurs at the end of a qualifying or a concessive turn in which the speaker partly retracts his/her earlier claim, assessment, or some other activity. This pattern is based on a rather well-documented concessive pattern consisting of three parts, (1) an initial (overstated/vulnerable) claim, (2) a concession and (3) a reformulation of the initial claim (Antaki & Wetherell, 1999; Couper-Kuhlen & Thompson, 2005). The concession-part and the reformulation are typically linked by ‘but’ or by another contrastive marker (Antaki & Wetherell, 1999: 14; Couper-Kuhlen & Thompson, 2005: 260). The pattern with final mutta can be seen as a reduced, two-part version of this type of three-part pattern. It can be schematized as follows: A: CLAIM , ASSESSMENT OR SOME OTHER RELATED ACTION (PAUSE OR B’s REACTION ) A: CONCESSION ( THE SPEAKER PARTLY RETRACTS HIS ORIGINAL CLAIM ) + mutta

Taking an interactional perspective on final particles

65

The reformulation, that is, the return to the original claim, is not stated explicitly but only implied by final mutta, which is prosodically integrated with the part that expresses the concession. The predictability of the third part (the reformulation) allows its omission. By ending the turn with mutta the speaker implies that the original claim still holds despite the concession/qualification. Consider another example of this practice, taken from a telephone conversation between two elderly women. The sequence starts when T thanks E for some flowers E has sent to her. (4)

[Telephone conversation, Sg143 A09] 01 T: ja kiitos ihanista kukista ne ovat niin.h (0.4) ‘and thank you for the lovely flowers they were so.’ 02

niin niin.h loistok#kaat#. ‘so so. glamorous.’

03 E:

pysyko ne. hh ‘did they stay fresh.’

04 T:

no py↑:[↓sy. aivan ihanasti.] ‘well they did. just wonderfully.’

05 E:->

[ joo.

06

paitsi floksi ny vähän vari#se-e# except name.of.a.flower now little shed-3SG except that phlox sheds (its petals) a little but.’

07

(.)

08 E:

.HH[HHH

09 T:

[nii:m mutta kuitenki ne oli niil nuppusia. ‘yeah but anyway they were so buddy.’

10 E:

nii. [hyvä. hh ki↑va. ‘yeah. good. hh nice.’

#n- n-# noi- n]oi taitaa PRT DEM.PL seem.3SG ‘yeah. I guess they last quite well

aika quite

hyvin well

kestää last-INF mut. but

In this extract the original claim does not initiate a new sequence. Instead, it occurs as a third position response in a sequence in which E has first asked about the condition of the flowers she has sent to T. In line 5, E responds to T’s praise (line 4) by stating that the flowers supposedly last quite well. In this case, the qualification to this claim is presented in the same turn and in the same prosodic unit. This concessive part of the turn is prefaced with paitsi (‘except’),

66

Aino Koivisto

which marks it as an exception to what has just been said (line 6). E concedes that one type of flower in the bunch does not tend to last that well. Again, turnfinal mutta (in this case, a one-syllable variant mut) ends the concession and implies that the original claim still holds in general terms. The linguistic features of the two examples presented here contribute to the minor status of the qualification. First of all, in both cases the speaker uses an adverb vähän (‘a little’) to make the qualification weaker. Furthermore, the qualifications are restricted to only one aspect of the matter being evaluated, such as slippery roads (Example 1) or one type of flower in a bunch of flowers (Example 4). That is, both the return-implicative turn-final mutta and the linguistic features that restrict the strength and the scope of the qualification contribute to the fact that the speaker commits to her original claim despite the qualification. In Examples 1 and 4 the speaker retracted a claim or an assessment. However, retractions with final mutta can also be found after questions that create expectations for a certain type of answer. In these cases, the retraction is not produced as a part of the question but only after a pause, as a turn of its own (as in Example 1). In this context mutta-concessions are used for retracting some implications of the prior question that possibly prevent the recipient from producing a preferred answer. This idea comes close to Couper-Kuhlen’s & Thompson’s (2005) analysis of the three-part concessive pattern they call Concessive Repair. They demonstrate that the concessive turn is often produced as a reaction to some incipient disagreement. To see an example of this, we can go back to Extract (2): (2) [Hairdresser’s, Kotus T1208] [H GRABS A MIRROR 07 H:

.hh nyt [takk#aa näytä-n siu-le e#t [tarvii-ko now from.behind show-1SG 2SG-ALL PRT need-Q ‘I will now show you from behind that do you still want

08 C:

[ joo. ‘yeah.’

09 H:

täältä vielä ot↑TA-A; DEM.ADV still take-INF me to cut from here’

10

(1.0) H HOLDS UP THE MIRROR, C OBSERVES THE HAIRCUT

11 C:

n:o e:i-pä sieltä hirvveesti >et°tä° tuo-n niska-m mie >tietysti vielä< s#iis[ti#-m mu]tta, DEM-GEN neck-GEN 1SG of.course still make.tidy-1SG but ‘that neck I will of course still trim but,’ 14 C:

[nii. ] yeah.

15

(1.0) H HOLDS UP THE MIRROR

16 C:

[eihä sielta varsinaista.] ‘nothing particular there.’

17 H:

[°pittuus° ruppee ] olemma[a aika. ‘the length is starting to be quite.’

18 C:

[nii. sii↑nä se ↓rupee. ‘yeah. that starts to be (enough)’

As suggested previously, the hairdresser’s question in lines 7 and 9 embodies an implication that from her point of view, the haircut is ready (at least concerning the hair at the back of the client’s head). As a reaction to the client’s nonstraightforward answer, the hairdresser retracts her question partially (line 13). She does this by mitigating the implication of the original question: the haircut is not completely ready, as she is still planning to trim the neck. By doing so, she clears the harmful implication that has potentially made the client hesitant to provide a preferred answer. What is also noteworthy is that the concession is formulated as self-evident by using the particle tietysti (‘of course’). The implication is that trimming the neck is something minor that should not be paid attention to at this point. Turn-final mutta not only implies that the original claim (or the implication of the question) still holds (in general terms, the hair-cut is finished) but also that the client is still expected to provide an answer to the original question. This also happens in lines 16 and 19. Thus far, I have demonstrated that turn-final mutta has fixed contexts of use: it occurs at the end of turns in which the speaker partially retracts her earlier claim or the implications of her question. Besides these sequence-initiating actions, retractions with final mutta can also occur in second position, that is, as a response to a question or as a “second assessment”, i.e. as an agreeing or disagreeing response to an assessment (see Pomerantz 1984). The next extract is taken from a telephone conversation between two young men. Prior to this, they have agreed to cancel their gig on a summer festival organized by the local church. In lines 1-2 Tapani asks Mikko whether he plans to attend the festival at

68

Aino Koivisto

all. Mikko’s attendance is something that might be expected since Mikko is the son of the organizers. (5) [Mutta7 Sg141 A04] 01 Tapani: .mthh mutta tuutsä niinku katteleen sinne ite #nnn vai, ‘but will you be there to look around yourself or, 02

nn# (.) ajattelitsä. what are your plans.’

03 Mikko:

.HH krhm krhm no >tota< ↑mä en oikeen tiedä kun mm ‘well uhm I’m now quite sure cause

04

mul o vähä se koko sunnunt#ai aikataulu; oI have that whole Sunday schedule

05

epäselvä et se on nii,#= a bit unclear so it is- ’

06 Tapani:

=joo. (.) joo; ju[st °joo°. ] ‘Yeah. Yeah. Right.’

07 Mikko:

[] niinku mo[nest as]iast ‘like (depends) on many things’

08 Tapani:

[no? ] ‘well?’

09 Mikko: -> m’t tiet’sti (.) tiet’sti se voi olla et jos but of.course of.course DEM can be-INF PRT PRT ‘but of course (.) of course it might be that if 10

siinä (.) jää sitte aika-a et mä (.) tul-isi-n DEM.ADV remain then time-PART PRT 1SG come-COND-1SG there’s (.) time then I would come

11

#kattoo-m# °mut[ta°.= look-INF but to see but.’

12 Tapani:

[#mjoo. .mh joo aivan.# .hh ↑no mä ‘yeah. Right exactly. Well I-’ ((turn continues))

In this extract Mikko uses his mutta-final turn (lines 10–12) to back down from his answer (lines 3–5) to Tapani’s question (lines 1–2). What is noteworthy here is that Mikko’s answer in lines 3–5 is formulated as a dispreferred answer: it is delayed (note the initial audible inbreath and the clearing of throat), and

Taking an interactional perspective on final particles

69

consists of a claim of not knowing (‘I’m not quite sure’) and an account (for a discussion of dispreferred responses see e.g. Schegloff 2007: 58–81). Tapani treats this as a sufficient answer (lines 6 and 9) but Mikko extends it by presenting a concession in which he acknowledges the possibility for the preferred alternative, certain conditions prevailing (if there is time). As in Example 2, the turn contains the particle tietysti that marks the content of the turn as selfevident. However, the modal verb voida (‘may’) constructs the preferred option merely as a possibility. The inclusion of final mutta implies that despite the concession for the preferred alternative (attending the summer festival), Mikko commits to and foregrounds his original, dispreferred response. Example 5 shows that concessions ending in mutta can also be used in second position. That is, they can be used for dealing with expectations for getting a certain type of answer or producing an agreeing response to an assessment. These occurrences in second position are reminiscent of an interactional routine named Cardinal Concessive pattern which was introduced by CouperKuhlen & Thompson (2000) (see also Couper-Kuhlen 2012). Cardinal Concessive emerges in an assessment sequence where the recipient of an assessment first produces a weak agreement and then goes on to present a contrastive viewpoint [A: an assessment B: (weak) agreement B: contrastive claim] (on assessment sequences, see Pomerantz 1984). A variation of this pattern, comparable to Example 5, is that the recipient of the question or an assessment first produces a disagreeing or a dispreferred response and then makes a concession for the positive alternative (Couper-Kuhlen & Thompson 2000: 392–396). As CouperKuhlen & Thompson (2000: 395) put it, this ordering of components conveys a sense that the speaker is backing down. When these two variants involve a final mutta, the speaker implies that it is the first response that holds, whether it is an agreement or a contrasting point. In other words, if the ordering is [dispreferred response + concession + mutta], the dispreferred answer is foregrounded, and the concession for the positive alternative is backgrounded. If the ordering is [preferred answer + qualification + mutta] it is the preferred answer that is foregrounded and the qualification backgrounded. In both cases, the backgrounding effect of the final mutta is in service of dealing with problematic conversational activities – producing dispreferred responses to questions and disagreeing responses to assessments – in a way that is less face-threatening. The second position pattern in which final mutta occurs is essentially the same as the one in which the mutta-final utterance is produced after a first position turn. The similarity is that the pattern is constructed of two parts produced by the same speaker, and the second part is a concession ending in mutta. These two parts can be produced within a single intonation unit, without a chance for speaker change, or they can be produced in two separate intonation units and

70

Aino Koivisto

turns, allowing an intervening recipient reaction. In the latter case, the muttaconcession is typically produced as a reaction to incipient disagreement (cf. Couper-Kuhlen & Thompson 2005). In both variants, the final mutta is used to background the concessive turn it is attached to. It implies continuing relevance of the firstly stated assessment or the question or the answer by leaving a reformulation of it implicit. In other words, the discourse pattern for turn-final mutta is not bound to a particular sequential position. This highly flexible discourse pattern can thus be schematized as follows: A: FIRST MOVE : FIRST POSITION CLAIM , ASSESSMENT OR QUESTION OR SECOND POSITION CLAIM , ASSESSMENT, OR ANSWER

(PAUSE OR B’s RESPONSE ) A: SECOND MOVE : PARTIAL RETRACTION OF THE FIRST MOVE (OR ITS IMPLICATIONS ) BY ACKNOWLEDGING THE RELEVANCE OF A CONTRASTIVE VIEWPOINT

+

MUTTA

(‘THE FIRST MOVE STILL HOLDS ’)

5 Discussion: Is final mutta a final particle? In their study on final but in American and Australian English, Mulder & Thompson (2008; see also Thompson & Suzuki 2012) argue that in order to be treated as a fully-developed final particle, the word but has to be 1) turn-final (be followed by turn-transition) and 2) mark the content of the turn contrastive in a retrospective manner. According to these criteria, Finnish mutta would not have (yet) developed into a proper final particle. Rather, the occurrences seem to be consistent with the two intermediate phases in the grammaticalization pathway. I have shown cases where the same speaker continues after mutta and a pause but not with contrastive material ( Janus 2) and cases where mutta is turn-final in a sense that the co-participant takes a turn (Final 1). Also, I have suggested that mutta leaves the contrastive material implicit or “hanging”, which is also typical of the intermediate categories discussed by Mulder & Thompson (2008). However, in this article I have argued that when (partly) different criteria for finality are used, the turn or utterance-final use of mutta can be considered as a highly conventionalized feature of Finnish language. In the following, I will develop this line of thinking a bit further. First of all, I suggested that turn-transition is not the best criterion for distinguishing different phases of grammaticalization or conventionalization. Following Conversation Analytic thinking, it may be more fruitful to talk about potential turn-endings or turns-so-far rather than actual completions “sealed by the start of a following turn” (Schegloff 1996: 97). This view is warranted by the general fact that the boundaries of turns-at-talk are not predetermined or

Taking an interactional perspective on final particles

71

fixed but can be constructed “incrementally, through a series of turns-so-far” (Schegloff 1996: 55; see also Schegloff 1984: 45; Ford & Thompson 1996: 143). When looking at potential rather than actual completion points, we may come across cases where the turn is designed as complete but does not receive proper uptake (see Schegloff 1995, 1996; Ford, Fox & Thompson 2002). This means that the original speaker may select him/herself as the next speaker (see Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson 1974: 702–704, 711), i.e. continue talking. I have argued that in order to determine potential points of completion we should look at the on-going interactional sequence and the next actions that a conjunction-final turn makes relevant. The general point here is that turn-transitions and same-speaker continuations may sometimes occur with equally complete mutta-final contributions. This means that while turn-transition is compelling evidence for completeness, I do not wish to put too much weight on it in determining the stages of grammaticalization. Many different factors can affect the recipient’s behavior. To go a step further, even a grammatically fitted continuation (as in Example 2) does not necessarily mean that the continuation was “projected” and the recipient remained silent in the anticipation of a continuation. Rather, the speaker may expand his/her possibly complete turn with a fitting component and thereby retrospectively mask his/her turn as not-yet-complete, even if the turn was originally intended to be complete and transition-ready (see also Koivisto 2014). I take it that this happened in Example 2. Secondly, I have demonstrated that there are clearly identifiable and interactionally meaningful contexts of occurrence for final mutta. The fact that mutta systematically occurs at the end of turns that concede the validity of a (partially) opposite view, offers convincing evidence for the conventionalization of turnfinal mutta. The conventionalized contexts of occurrence also make mutta-final turns recognizable for the interlocutors as potentially complete interactional contributions, which, in turn, enables smooth turn-transition to the next speaker upon the production of turn-final mutta. This kind of successful turn-transition is of course an interactional achievement. That is, if the next speaker takes a turn immediately or in overlap with the on-going mutta-final turn, the producer of the current turn can then trust that his/her point has been understood without having to explicate the implication left “hanging”. The recognizability of turn-final mutta is made possible through the supposed developmental pathway for the mutta-final concessive pattern. As suggested, the two-part pattern [claim + concession + mutta] is a reduced form of a threepart pattern [claim + concession + return to the original claim] where the muttaprefaced return is compressed into mere mutta. This kind of reduction of conversational patterns has been claimed to be one way that new grammatical

72

Aino Koivisto

constructions emerge (see Couper-Kuhlen 2012).4 Arguably, the reduced version of the three-part concessive pattern is also specialized in serving different kinds of interactional functions (cf. Couper-Kuhlen 2012: 425; Hopper 1991 and Hopper & Traugott 2003 for specialization). That is, leaving something implicit and to inference allows the speakers to deal with problematic interactional tasks in a subtle manner. For example, the speaker can retract his/her initial, vulnerable claim and still commit to its validity without stating it explicitly. These aspects provide compelling evidence for the fact that final mutta has conventionalized into a recognizable and socially meaningful element of talk – even if it is not grammaticalized into a final particle according to the criteria presented in Mulder & Thompson (2008).

References Antaki, Charles & Margaret Wetherell. 1999. Show concessions. Discourse Studies 1 (1). 7–27. Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. 2012. Grammaticalization and conversation. In Heiko Narrog & Bernd Heine (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Grammaticalization, 424–437. London: Oxford University Press. Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth & Sandra A. Thompson. 2000. Concessive patterns in conversation. In Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen & Bernd Kortmann (eds.), Cause – Condition – Concession – Contrast. Cognitive and Discourse Perspectives, 381–410. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth & Sandra A. Thompson. 2005. A linguistic practice for retracting overstatements: ‘Concessive Repair’. In Auli Hakulinen & Margret Selting (eds.), Syntax and Lexis in Conversation. Studies on the use of Linguistic Resources in Talk-in-Interaction, 257–288. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Drake, Veronika. 2013. Turn-final or in English: A conversation analytic perspective. An unpublished dissertation. University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ford, Cecilia & Sandra A. Thompson. 1996. Interactional units in conversation: syntactic, intonational, and pragmatic resources for the management of turns. In Elinor Ochs, Emanuel A. Schegloff & Sandra A. Thompson (eds.), Interaction and grammar, 134–184. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ford, Cecilia, Barbara Fox & Sandra A. Thompson. 2002. Constituency and the grammar of turn increments. In Cecilia Ford, Barbara Fox & Sandra Thompson (eds.), The language of turn and sequence, 14–38. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heritage, John & Atkinson, Maxwell J. 1984. Introduction. In J. Maxwell Atkinson & John Heritage (eds.), Structures of social action. Studies in conversation analysis, 1–15. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 4 It should be noted that Couper-Kuhlen’s examples are bipartite sequential patterns that “collapse” into one expanded turn and a grammatical construction (examples include left dislocation, concession, and extraposition). However, I think that the general idea of the compression of sequential patterns is applicable to cases discussed in this article as well.

Taking an interactional perspective on final particles

73

Hopper, Paul. 1991. On some principles of grammaticization. In Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization. Vol 1, 17–35. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Hopper, Paul & Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 2003. Grammaticalization. 2. edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jefferson, Gail. 1983. On a Failed Hypothesis: ‘Conjunctionals’ as Overlap-vulnerable. Tilburg Papers in Language and Literature, 28. Tilburg: Tilburg University. Koivisto, Aino. 2011. Sanomattakin selvää? Ja, mutta ja että puheenvuoron lopussa. [Goes without saying? Finnish conjunctions ja, mutta and että in turn-final position]. Ph.D. Thesis. Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugric and Scandinavian studies, University of Helsinki. Available at http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-10-7323-6. Koivisto, Aino. 2012. Discourse patterns for turn-final conjunctions. Journal of Pragmatics 44. 1254–1272. Koivisto, Aino. 2014. Utterances ending in the conjunction että: complete or to be continued? In Laura Visapää, Jyrki Kalliokoski & Helena Sorva (eds.), Contexts of Subordination. Cognitive, typological and discourse perspectives 1. 223–244. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Koivisto, Aino, Ritva Laury & Eeva-Leena Seppänen. 2011. Syntactic and actional characteristics of Finnish että-clauses. In Ritva Laury & Ryoko Suzuki (eds.), Subordination in Conversation. A Crosslinguistic Perspective, 69–102. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lindström, Anna. 1999. Language as Social Action. Grammar, Prosody, and Interaction in Swedish Conversation. Institutionen för nordiska språk vid Uppsala universitet. Local, John & John Kelly. 1986. Projection and ‘silences’: notes on phonetic and conversational structure. Human Studies 9. 185–204. Local, John & Gareth Walker. 2005. Methodological imperatives for investigating the phonetic organization and phonological structures of spontaneous speech. Phonetica 62 (2–4). 120–130. Mazeland, Harrie & Mike Huiskes. 2001. Dutch ‘but’ as a sequential conjunction. In Margret Selting & Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen (eds.), Studies in Interactional Linguistics, 141–169. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Mulder, Jean & Sandra A.Thompson. 2008. The grammaticization of but as a final particle in English conversation. In Ritva Laury (ed.), Crosslinguistic Studies of Clause Combining: The Multifunctionality of Conjunctions, 179–204. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Ogden, Richard. 2001. Turn transition, creak and glottal stop in Finnish talk-in-interaction. Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 139–152. Ogden, Richard. 2004. Non-modal voice quality and turn-taking in Finnish. In Elizabeth CouperKuhlen & Cecilia E. Ford (eds.), Sound Patterns in Interaction, 29–62. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Pomerantz, Anita. 1984. Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: some features of preferred/ dispreferred turn shapes. In J.M. Atkinson & John Heritage (eds.), Structures of social action. Studies in conversation analysis, 57–101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Raymond, Geoffrey. 2004. Prompting action: the stand-alone ‘‘so’’ in ordinary conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction 37 (2). 185–218. Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel Schegloff & Gail Jefferson 1974. A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language 50. 696–735.

74

Aino Koivisto

Schegloff, Emanuel. 1984. On questions and ambiguities in conversation. In J. M. Atkinson & John Heritage (eds.), Structures of social action. Studies in conversation analysis, 28–52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, Emanuel. 1995. Discourse as an interactional achievement III: the omnirelevance of action. Research on Language and Social Interaction 28. 185–211. Schegloff, Emanuel. 1996. Turn organization: one intersection of grammar and interaction. In Elinor Ochs, Emanuel A.Schegloff & Sandra A. Thompson (eds.), Interaction and Grammar, 52–133. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, Emanuel. 2007. Sequence organization in interaction. A primer in conversation analysis. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schiffrin, Deborah. 1987. Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sorjonen, Marja-Leena. 1989. Vuoronalkuiset konnektorit: mutta [Turn-initial connectors: mutta]. In Auli Hakulinen (ed.), Suomalaisen keskustelun keinoja I, 162–176. Department of Finnish language, University of Helsinki. Sorjonen, Marja-Leena. 2001. Responding in Conversation. A Study of Response Particles in Finnish. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Thompson, Sandra A. & Ryoko Suzuki. 2012. The grammaticalization of final particles. In Heiko Narrog & Bernd Heine (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Grammaticalization, 668–680. London: Oxford University Press. Walker, Gareth. 2012. Coordination and interpretation of vocal and visible resources: ‘Trail-off’ conjunctions. Language and Speech 55 (1). 141–163.

Transcription symbols . , ; ?, ? ↑ ↓ en : [ ] (.) (0.5) >
concessive > discourse marker’” (Barth-Weingarten forthc.).

Some observations on the evolution of final particles

117

The extent to which connectives such as ‘but’, ‘and’, ‘or’, etc. are conventionalized as constructions used recurrently differs from one item to another and from one language to another. Some items are used regularly and are recognized by speakers as providing a convenient rhetorical option, while others are drawn on only sporadically. German dennoch ‘nevertheless’ in example (5c) is of the latter kind, and so is obwohl ‘although’, another concessive that occurs quite frequently as a thetical connective; as an FP however it appears to be rare. The following example is provided by Günthner (1999: 419). (7)

German (Günthner 1999: 419)7 Katzen und Kater (Sonja had taken her cat suffering from cancer to a veterinarian to put her to sleep) Sonja:

des war mir scho [arg.]

‘It was hard on me.’

Ulla:

[hajo.] (0.5) i weiß net ob i=s glei hätt mache lasse. obwo:hl? [strong breathing in]

‘Yes.’

de Müller hot halt gmoint, die sei scho so verKREBST, die dät bloß no leide. [sonscht.]

‘Mr. Müller thought,’ ‘She was already heavily affected by cancer’, ‘She was just suffering’ ‘Otherwise.’

[jo:h]

‘Yes.’

Sonja:

Ulla:

‘I wonder if I should have got it done straightaway.’ ‘Although?’

1.4 ‘And’ as a final particle The connective ‘and’ has been studied in a number of works already, both in its sentence-initial use (for an insightful analysis see Dorgeloh 2004) and its sentence-final use. As a thetical, the connective ‘and’ typically requires a turntaking discourse situation involving two utterances, namely a predication by speaker A, and a question by speaker B consisting of the connective ‘and’ asking A to continue. Auer and Günthner (2005: 339) call the German turn-initial connective und in (8), pronounced with a rising intonation, a conventionalized continuation marker. (9a) is a corresponding English example, while (9b) illustrates turn-final and (realised as weak form /n/). 7 Concerning the transcription conventions in this and other text data presented in this paper, see the sources cited; see also Du Bois et al. (1993).

118 (8)

(9)

Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck and Tania Kuteva

German (adapted from Auer and Günthner 2005: 339) A ich hab mich=n bischen müde ‘I‘ve read until I was a bit tired.’ gelesen; I have myself=a bit tired read B

ja? yes?

‘Yes, and?’

A

ich hab das buch schon fast aus. I have the book already almost out

‘I am already nearly through the book.’

B

echt? Really

‘Really?’

A

mhm, INTERJ

‘Mhm.’

B

und? And war=s schön, was=it nice

‘And?’

A

super. super

‘Super.’

a.

English (Lerner 2004: 164–65; quoted from Blöndal 2006)8 Mary: . . . Guess what happened yesterday

b.

‘Was it good?’

Alan:

Wha:t, (0.3)

Mary:

I talked t’To:ny:. (0.2)

Alan:

Ye:h, A:nd¿9

Mary:

Uh::: he doesn’t have too much to say since Bruce moved out, does’e

Alan:

Mm-mmhh

English (ICE-GB: S1A-046-322)10 C: Well it was really good It’s a tree with all these people living in it and A:

Is it too strong

8 Concerning the transcription conventions in this and other text data presented in this paper, see the sources cited; see also Du Bois et al. (1993). 9 An inverted question mark (¿) is used to indicate a rise stronger than a comma shows but weaker than usually designated by a question mark (see Ochs, Schegloff and Thompson 1996: 463). 10 ICE-GB stands for the British component of the International Corpus of English (cf. Nelson et al. 2002).

Some observations on the evolution of final particles

119

Asking the hearer for information, in accordance with (6b), can be rhetorical in that the speaker may simply be looking for the hearer’s approval or understanding for an assertion made in the first conjunct (S1). Thus, the following constructed example from German stands for a common construction where the connective und ‘and’ is used with a question intonation, but the hearer is not necessarily expected to reply; with this construction the speaker typically expresses that s/he assumes that the hearer cannot reasonably object to the content of S1. This use of the connective und may also imply that there are no consequences of the verb situation expressed in S1, hence the term inconsequential can be employed for it.11 (10)

German Ja, ich habe ihm Geld gegeben, yes I have him money given ‘Yes, I gave him money. So what?’

und? and?

1.5 Conclusion To conclude, all evidence that we were able to consult suggests that the rise of FPs does not involve grammaticalization but rather cooptation. Cooptation is an instantaneous operation that can happen any time and anywhere in discourse, and that has a wide range of different manifestations. In the case looked at in this paper it has the effect that a clause connective (C) is transferred from a construction (11a) of Sentence Grammar to the plane of Thetical Grammar, as sketched in (11b). In this transfer, there is no second conjunct S2, its meaning being implied but not expressed (see (2e)) – the result being an FP. But it may happen that the construction is used frequently and in many different contexts, and in such a case the FP can in fact undergo grammaticalization. (11)

Cooptation a. S1 + C + S2

Sentence Grammar

b.

Thetical Grammar

S1 - C

11 “Inconsequential” is a term that was initially used for a grammatical morpheme in the verbal paradigm of Hua (Haiman 1980: 158; Haiman 1988). It marks actions taken in vain, i.e. actions which remained without the expected, or wished-for results or consequences (Haiman 1988).

120

Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck and Tania Kuteva

2 Grammaticalization Grammaticalization is defined as the development from lexical to grammatical forms, and from grammatical to even more grammatical forms.12 Since the development of grammatical forms is not independent of the constructions to which they belong, the study of grammaticalization is in the same way concerned with constructions, and with even larger discourse segments (see Traugott and Heine 1991a; 1991b; Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer 1991; Hopper and Traugott 2003; Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca 1994; Lehmann 1995 [1982]; Heine and Kuteva 2007, and Narrog and Heine 2011 for details). In accordance with this definition, grammaticalization theory is concerned with the genesis and/or development of grammatical forms. Its primary goal is to describe how grammatical forms and constructions arise and develop through space and time, and to explain why they are structured the way they are. In order to identify processes of grammaticalization, a wide range of criteria or principles have been proposed (see e.g. Hopper 1991; Lehmann 1985; 1995 [1982]; Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca 1994). A number of notions are used, such as syntacticization, morphologization, obligatorification, subjectification, etc., offering convenient tools for describing grammaticalization phenomena. We believe, however, that they are either too restrictive, thereby excluding a number of such phenomena (e.g. Lehmann 1985; 1995 [1982]) or too general (Hopper 1991) to isolate the range of processes that we consider to be bona fide cases of grammaticalization. In our model it is the following four parameters that account for the major developments characterizing grammaticalization, each relating to a different domain of grammar: (a) Extension, i.e. the rise of new grammatical meanings when linguistic expressions are extended to new contexts, (b) desemanticization (or “semantic bleaching”), (c) decategorialization, and (d) erosion, i.e. loss in phonetic substance (Heine and Kuteva 2007: 40–2; see also Rhee 2002). Henceforth we will rely on these parameters, using them as a tool for identifying instances of grammaticalization. Our concern in this paper, however, is with theticals and it would seem that the grammaticalization of theticals differs in some ways from that of Sentence Grammar; it can be described as in (12).

12 For a fairly comprehensive list of definitions that have been proposed for grammaticalization, see Campbell and Janda (2001).

Some observations on the evolution of final particles

(12)

121

The grammaticalization of theticals a. Extension: The thetical is used more frequently and in more contexts.13 b.

Desemanticization: It loses its conceptual meaning and its ability to contribute to the truth value of the utterance in favor of procedural meaning relating to the discourse situation in general and to text cohesion in particular (Blakemore 1987; Wilson and Sperber 1993; Rouchota 1998; Grenoble 2004: 1955–67), and it also loses its ability to refer, e.g. to be focalized and to be addressed in discourse (Boye and Harder 2007: 578).

c.

Decategorialization: It loses its internal compositionality, lexical combinability, and ability to be modified, negated, and inflected, turning into a largely invariable form. The result is that the thetical changes from a paradigm with a larger number of members to a paradigm that has only one, or a few members, or, alternatively, it turns into a member of a new paradigm, e.g. that of discourse markers.

d.

Erosion: It loses its external prosodic autonomy. Its internal form may be morphologically and/or phonetically reduced, and it loses its ability to be stressed.

As this description shows, the grammaticalization of theticals differs in some ways from that of Sentence Grammar units. Whereas the former leads almost invariably to sentence-external forms and constructions having discourserelated functions, the latter gives rise to sentence-internal forms and constructions (e.g., markers of tense, aspect, modality, case, number, (in)definiteness, subordination, derivation, etc.). For good reasons therefore, some authors propose to refer to the former by a separate label, namely pragmaticalization (see e.g. Aijmer 1997: 6ff.; Günthner 1999; Wischer 2000: 359; Barth-Weingarten and Couper-Kuhlen 2002; Waltereit 2002; 2006; Watts 2003: 176; Günthner and Mutz 2004; Frank-Job 2006; Brinton 2008: 245; Giacalone Ramat and Mauri 2009; Arroyo 2011; Diewald 2011). The generalizations in (12) apply to theticals in general (see e.g. Heine 2013 on discourse markers). But, unlike most other theticals, FPs have no internal compositionality; hence reference to the internal structure of theticals in (12c) does not apply to them and will be ignored in the remainder of this paper, which is restricted to the meaning, the phonology, and the external relations of FPs. 13 The term “context” stands here for both the linguistic (co-text) and the extralinguistic environment that the thetical is exposed to.

122

Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck and Tania Kuteva

2.1 From cooptation to grammaticalization An overview of the structure of a number of FPs suggests that there are four salient stages in their semantic and phonological evolution, namely the ones distinguished in Table 1. Table 1: Some common lines of evolution of utterance-final particles. (C = connective, S1 = first conjunct, S2 = second conjunct). Stage

Meaning

Phonology

0 Sentence Grammar

C is an adversative, concessive, alternative, or additive conjunction, linking the propositional contents of S1 and S2.

I Cooptation

C is transferred to the plane of thetical grammar, where the content of S2 is implied but not expressed

C is an independent prosodic unit, separated from S1 by a pause

II

C loses its semantic content in favor of procedural functions relating to the discourse situation

C gradually loses its prosodic independence and pause

III

C is a semantically largely empty discourse marker serving text-structuring functions

C is a prosodic appendage of S1, no longer separated by a pause

FPs may undergo the whole evolution sketched in Table 1 from 0 to III but perhaps more commonly, it is arrested at either stage I or stage II. For example, the German FP und? (with rising question intonation), illustrated in (8) above, has become a conventionalized interactional marker in German conversations14, even though it does not appear to have proceeded beyond stage I: It has retained its discourse function in conversational turns, has remained an independent prosodic unit, and may form an utterance of its own. The shift from stage I to II is concluded when there is a context where the literal meaning of the FP does not make sense. Such a situation invites an interpretation of the FP with reference of some alternative function, typically one concerning discourse relations, like situating the host unit with respect to the surrounding discourse and with respect to the speaker-hearer relationship (Waltereit 2006: 64). Ideally, one would expect that there is a temporal correlation between the two different domains of grammar. For example, the findings made by Ford and 14 We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for having pointed this out to us.

Some observations on the evolution of final particles

123

Thompson (1996) show that intonational completions are almost always syntactic completions as well while the reverse is not true: Only 53.6% of syntactic completion points coincide with intonation completion points in their data. To our knowledge, so far no detailed information exists on this issue in the evolution of FPs. At stage III, the FP may have no more noticeable semantic or pragmatic function other than marking an utterance boundary or acting as a hesitating interjection or a pause filler, and prosodically it may be part of a word-searching, hesitant phase (cf. Dehé 2007: 266).

2.2 ‘Or’ Thetical ‘Or’ does not occur as a continuation marker in a turn-taking situation; rather, it serves to ask the hearer in a tag-like fashion whether there is an alternative to the predication made in S1. Compare the following example involving Icelandic eða ‘or’ in (13). (13)

Icelandic (Blöndal 2006) B: eða hún vinnur bara á kvöldin or she works only in the evenings ‘or, I think she only works in the evenings’ A:

nú er hún þá bara well is she just cutting ‘well, is she just cutting hair’

B:

bara just ‘yes’

A:

heima hjá sér at home ‘at home or’

B:

[já] (0.8) [yes] ‘yes’

að hair

held think

ég I

klippa svona, (1.4) like, (1.4)

já (0.2) yes eð[a], or,

The primary stage-I function of ‘or’ as an FP appears to be to give the hearer an opportunity to volunteer a non-aligning answer, i.e. one that is semantically opposite to the assertion made in conjunct S1. Furthermore, it may be used in anticipation of the hearer’s resistance to a point made by the speaker in S1 (see

124

Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck and Tania Kuteva

Blöndal 2006; Lindström 1999: 77). Blöndal (2006) concludes that the Icelandic FP eða has three main uses: (i) In questions, to serve the preference structure and allow for a non-aligning answer, (ii) in follow-up questions where a topic is pursued and an inference made on the ground of the prior context, and (iii) as a general response-seeking marker, not necessarily in a question. The function in (i) manifests the use of ‘or’ in its initial stage I of the evolution as an FP. In more general terms, this evolution can be sketched as in Table 2. We will now look at each stage in turn. Table 2: Some common lines of evolution of the connective ‘or’ as a final particle. (C = connective, S1 = first conjunct, S2 = second conjunct) Stage

Meaning

Phonology

0 Sentence Grammar

C expresses an alternative contrast between the conjuncts S1 and S2

I Cooptation

C serves to invite the hearer to take the floor and to propose an alternative to the content of S1. S2 is implied but not expressed

C is an independent prosodic unit, separated from S1 by a pause

II

C is no longer used to invite the hearer to take the floor; rather, C now serves functions relating to the situation of discourse

C may gradually lose its prosodic independence

III

C loses most of its functions, now serving mainly text-structuring functions, e.g., as a filling device for online planning, as a boundary marker, etc.

C may turn into a prosodic appendage of S1 (its host), no longer separated by a pause

Stage I. At this stage, ‘or’ functions as a turn-exit device where “the speaker gives his recipient an opportunity to give an answer that is semantically opposite to the opinion that the speaker holds himself”, facilitating a non-aligning, and therefore a non-preferred, answer (Blöndal 2006), inviting the hearer to take the floor and volunteer an alternative to the content of S1, as in (14).

Some observations on the evolution of final particles

(14)

125

Icelandic Only spiders (Blöndal 2006) A: já (.) ertu svolítið illa við þetta eða, yes (.) are you a bit scared of it or, ‘yes, are you a bit scared of it or’ B:

nei ekki járnsmiði no not ground beetles ‘no, not ground beetles’

A:

bara kóngulær only spiders ‘only spiders’

B.

já ‘yes’

A paradigm situation of a stage-I use would be one where the speaker asks the hearer for information on some specific point, as in the examples of (15). (15)

a.

German Du bist geschieden, oder? you are divorced or? ‘You are divorced, aren’t you?’

b.

English (ICE-GB:S1A-024 #45:1:A) A: Would it be typed documents or B: Uh the vast majority would be uh typed . . .

At the semantic stage I, the speaker assumes that the hearer is capable of giving a meaningful answer. Accordingly, in situations where the hearer would be disqualified to give an answer, as in (16a), or would not be expected to give an answer, as in commands like (16b), the use of stage-I ‘or’ would be semantically odd. (16)

German a. ?Ich habe Kopfschmerzen, I have headache ?‘I have a headache, isn’t it?’ b. ?Hilf mir bitte, oder? help to.me once or? ?‘Help me please, or?’

oder? or?

126

Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck and Tania Kuteva

The Icelandic FP eða ‘or’ is a clear instance of a stage-I marker (Blöndal 2006). Being part of a question form in informal spoken Icelandic, it is used by the speaker and received by his interlocutor as a token of a turn unit coming to an end and therefore a perfect place for speaker change. Of the 26 examples in Blöndal’s sample, 16 are typical yes/no questions, nine are questions formed as declarative sentences ending with eða, and one is a tag question where eða is in the turn-final position, after the tag. At the same time, eða appears to have proceeded at least to the phonological stage II, as is suggested by the fact that the “speaker never pauses, laughs, or gives any other signals of an upcoming speaker change before eða in the eðaquestions”, which we take to indicate that there is no distinct phonological boundary separating eða from its preceding host S1. There is reason to assume even that the Icelandic FP eða ‘or’ is close to having reached the phonological stage III: As Blöndal (2006) observes, “the turn-final eða and the preceding word have integrated so well that sometimes they could be perceived as one word”. Stage II. C is no longer used to invite the hearer to take the floor: It has lost its function as a response-seeker or as a question. It now serves discourse-specific functions, such as mitigating the force of an assertion or suggestion, or establishing a more relaxed social situation. Icelandic eða does not seem to have proceeded beyond the semantic stage I. For example, “eða shows no sign of being a tag after the main clause” (Blöndal 2006). We have not found clear indications for the presence of stage-II uses of oder ‘or’ in High German either, but there appear to be such uses among speakers of Allemanian German in Waldshut, southwestern Germany. For these speakers, oder can be used e.g. in commands such as the one in (17), where it appears to serve speaker-hearer interaction, weakening the strength of a command: (17)

Southwestern German (Petra Jäger, p.c.) Reich mir mal den Hammer rüber pass me once the hammer over.here ‘Pass me on the hammer, please!’

oder? or

Stage III. At this stage, C is neither a response seeker nor does it serve social or other discourse-specific functions; rather, it is a desemanticized discourse marker. And it is no longer restricted to the utterance-final position but can be added also to other chunks of discourse. Stage-III uses of German oder ‘or’ appear to be widespread in Swiss German-speaking areas of Switzerland. The

Some observations on the evolution of final particles

127

following utterance was recorded by Christa König (p.c.) when asking in the city center of Zurich for information on a certain location: (18) German in Zurich (Christa König, p.c.)15 Dann gehen Sie zuerst geradeaus oder, dann links in die then go you first straight or then left in the Bahnhofstraße, und dann auf der rechten Seite sind Sie da oder. Bahnhofstraße and then on the right side are you there or ‘Then you go first straight on, then turn left into the Bahnhofstraße, and then on the right side you are there.’ Apart from Swiss German, however, we are not aware of any other language that has grammaticalized an ‘or’-connective up to the semantic stage III.

2.3 ‘But’ Our framework differs from that of Mulder and Thompson (2008) in the following: First, we argue that there are two major evolutionary processes involved, namely cooptation followed by grammaticalization. And second, rather than attempting to account for all the pragmatic and semantic variations that characterize the many uses of but as an FP, we are restricted to a small set of distinctions, namely the ones in (19). (19)

Criteria that are relevant to describe the grammaticalization of but as an FP Semantic: (a) Contrast (conceptual meaning), (b) discourse relations (procedural meaning), and (c) text-structuring functions. Syntactic: (a) Boundary between FP and its host, (b) no boundary. Phonology: (a) Prosodic break between FP and its host, (b) no prosodic break.

In accordance with the general scenario proposed in Table 1, the evolution of but is hypothesized to take a form of the kind summarized in Table 3.

15 The orthography is adapted to that of Standard German. The particle oder was consistently pronounced as [ͻ̀dŕ] with a question intonation.

128

Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck and Tania Kuteva

Table 3: Some common lines of evolution of ‘but’ as an utterance-final particle. (C = connective, S1 = first conjunct, S2 = second conjunct). Stage

Meaning

Phonology

0 Sentence Grammar

C expresses an adversative contrast between the conjuncts S1 and S2

I Cooptation

C expresses a contrast on the plane of discourse, where the content of S2 is implied but not expressed

C is an independent prosodic unit, separated from S1 by a pause

II

C loses its ability to express a contrast in favor of functions relating to the situation of discourse

C gradually loses its prosodic independence

III

C loses most of its functions, now serving text-structuring functions , e.g.as a filling device for online planning, as a boundary marker, etc.

C is a prosodic appendage of S1 (its host), no longer separated by a pause

Mulder and Thompson (2008) hypothesize that the behavior of but in contemporary spoken English (and written Australian dialog) can be modeled as a continuum from an initial conjunction to FP “in a way that suggests a grammaticization process in progress”, leading from a turn-continuing connective to a turn-yielding discourse marker. While we also assume that there is a process by which “final but” is emerging from “initial but”, it would seem that this process presupposes a prior process of cooptation: It is only after having been transferred as a thetical from Sentence Grammar to Thetical Grammar that grammaticalization sets in, in the manner described by Mulder and Thompson (2008).

Cooptation as a connective, not as FP The authors provide an example where but is not only an FP but also a connective thetical. This structure is not relevant to our scenario since it does not relate directly to the final use of but; rather, it appears to illustrate the ubiquitous process of thetical formation. But since the authors suggest to classify it as their Janus but, we need to also take it into account. Janus but serves both as a potential final but, coming across prosodically as being final upon its production, and as an “initial but”. Thus, in (20a), Marci goes on to add another clause after some delay, and in (20b), but occurs utteranceinitially and is separated from the remainder of the utterance by pauses. In

Some observations on the evolution of final particles

129

accordance with its status as a thetical, but forms a prosodic unit of its own in both cases. (20)

English (Mulder and Thompson 2008: 182; Thompson 2002: 145–6) a. MARCI: I don’t know what the real story is, but, . . . (1.1) it sounded kinda neat. b.

B:

but uh – . . . (1.7) like J used to say, [talk] about things like that,

A:

[hm].

B:

that, . . . (1.0) poets and ad men, . . are . . . doing the same thing, at a . . . very di erent level.

This is exactly the structure to be expected from cooptation when the item coopted takes along its “valency” structure [S1 - C - S2] to the plane of Thetical Grammar. Although cooptation presents items as syntactically unattached, some ‘traces’ of their original syntactic status may remain: The two conjuncts are retained, not as coordinated clauses but rather as independent information units, set off from the connective by means of syntactic and prosodic boundaries. However, there is reason to argue that the two examples in (20) are not instances of but as an FP or of an intermediate stage on the way to such a particle – unlike the cases to be discussed below; rather, we argue that they constitute a distinct case of cooptation where but is coopted without its conjuncts S1 and S2 – an operation that can be commonly observed in spoken discourse, where a connective forms a distinct prosodic unit, independent of its syntactic environment. Stage I. Among the examples provided by the authors who have dealt with the English FP but there are a number of semantic stage-I examples. Thus, in the following example there is a clear implication left “hanging” and “the clause ending with but is open to being interpreted as a concession, with the claim for which it is a concession only implied”. At the same time, the absence of a comma before the particle suggests that phonologically this might be a stage II (or a stage III) situation.

130

Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck and Tania Kuteva

(21)

English (Game Night 16; Mulder and Thompson 2008) Talking about whether Abbie is Norwegian or not. 1 Abbie: It’s a complica [ted story.] 2 Terry: [totally.] 3 Maureen:

R(h)eally.

4 Abbie:

And the NA:ME is MY NA:ME is Norwegian but,

5 Maureen:

What a- what is his [nationality?]

6 Terry:

[Sola.]

7 Abbie:

Hungarian,

8

(1.0)

Stage II. At this stage there is no longer a conceptual contrast expressed or implied, but lack of “comma prosody” suggests that phonologically again there is stage II or III. Example (22), which Mulder and Thompson classify as Janus 2, is in our analysis both semantically and formally a stage-II FP, for the following reason: It does not express a semantic contrast. Rather, it finishes a social action with the material following it, launching a new social action, which does not contrast with what precedes. We take this to suggest that its function is primarily about discourse relations, that is, concerns the situation of discourse (Kaltenböck et al. 2011). Accordingly, it is tentatively hypothesized that but in (22) has a discourseorganizing function, conceivably that of signaling the end of an information unit – and hence, belongs to the semantic stage II. Lack of a comma as well as the description volunteered by the authors suggest that there is no prosodic break between but and the preceding host, hence this appears to be an instance of the phonological stage II or III. (22)

English (“Bank Products”; Mulder and Thompson 2008: 183) 1 JIM: . . we would charge (H) % . . five-hundred fifty dollars on ac- on an account, 2

it would be five-hundred dollars,

3

it’s really kind of a switch around but.

4

(H) what . . what that would –

5

. . I think it would be good for (H) . . the five or six of us,

6

(H) to have Galino down here,

7

(H) can kind of explain what products,

8

. . . we can offer from the bank side,

9

JOE:

. . . hm.

Some observations on the evolution of final particles

131

Izutsu and Izutsu (2010a) provide the following stage-II example from Australian English, where backshifted but acts like a tag (‘isn’t it?’), used to seek agreement: It’s a hot day, but? In such cases, but appears to be desemanticized: There is no adversative or concessive contrast expressed or implied; rather, the function of but appears to relate exclusively to the situation of discourse, more specifically to speaker-hearer interaction. As the discussion by Hancil (forthc.) suggests, utterance-final but displays both stage-I and stage-II structures in British English. In its stage-I uses it expresses a semantic contrast and behaves like an “orphan”, that is, an autonomous thetical set off by a comma from S1. In its stage-II uses, it signals discourse reference such as anaphoric and cataphoric relations and appears to be integrated in the preceding S1, as is suggested by the absence of commas. Thus, in the following example, but can be paraphrased by you know, rather than by an adversative or concessive connective: (23)

British English (BNC, KB1; Hancil forthc.) She went and picked our Kia up and went back to Bill’s . Then she’s wondering She’s so thoughtless ! then she’s saying where is everybody when she comes and we ‘re both in pigging bed! Yeah I know, but. I know, but we shouldn’t have to borrow mother when I had to get back, to borrow my wages off Jes to get her tax for her car which left us with no money!

The examples provided by Mulder and Thompson (2008) have the FP directly linked to S1, that is, there does not appear to be any prosodic discontinity between S1 and but. This suggests that but as an FP is formally solidly at stage II (if not stage III). In other words, there does not appear to be clear evidence that there are any correlations between the semantic and the syntactic or prosodic structures. Considering what has been observed on other theticals, this is by no means an unusual situation (cf. Dehé 2007). Stage III. This stage does not appear to exist in American English, but there is evidence for an incipient stage III in varieties of Australian English. There is no longer an implication left “hanging” nor is but used for signalling discourse relations. Thus, in Australian English, the FP but “appears to be well on the way to becoming, or, indeed, it has become, a socially recognized marker”, that is, a discourse marker of the semantic stage III, which may be assuming a new function as a boundary marker. In the wording of Izutsu and Izutsu (2010a), it functions as a terminator, “a spoken full stop”. In New South Wales, for example, but is appended to a sentence as a finish, as in I’m going to the shops, but.

132

Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck and Tania Kuteva

But there remain some questions on the situation in Australian English. First, in a number of written examples, such as the one from New South Wales just mentioned, but is set off from S1 by a comma: Does this indicate that there is a prosodic boundary separating but from the preceding utterance? In this case we would have a phonological stage-I situation. Furthermore, Peters (1995: 65) notes that some speakers of Australian English “use but at the end of a sentence as a way of softening its impact for the listener”. This might suggest that but also has discourse-specific functions of stage II. More research is needed on these issues.

2.4 Discussion The observations made above are not entirely in line with alternative analyses that have been proposed. First, they lead to an analysis that would modify that of Barth-Weingarten (forthc.), according to which there is a boundary shifting in the formation of the FP but. Thus, in examples such as (24), the prosodic and syntactic boundaries do not coincide; rather, the prosodic boundary occurs one word after the syntactic unit. She argues that the unit I drink orange juice is extended by the connective but, which mainstream syntax would regard as the initial item of the following syntactic unit: The connective is integrated into the preceding syntactic unit by prosodic means so that it forms the tail of the preceding prosodic unit: “It continues the declination line and it is rhythmically integrated, so much so that it forms a phonological word with juice.” According to the present interpretation there is no boundary shift but rather boundary loss: Being separated from S1 (the preceding information unit) by a syntactic and prosodic boundary at stage I, we observe that in the present example but is fully integrated in S1, hence we are dealing with a prosodic (or phonological) stage III, that is, the final stage of phonological grammaticalization; cf. the erosion parameter in (12d). (24)

Orange juice (Barth-Weingarten forthc.) 1 JEFF: . . i keep it really cool; 2

so-

3

. . it’s cold enough for me?

4

JILL:

. . oh:.

5

JEFF:

. . so you’re absolutely right;=

6

=I drink ORange . (Hx)

7

(TSK) through like a cArton: (H) of Orange juice;

8

. . Every two DAYS;

Some observations on the evolution of final particles

133

And second, the present scenario of the evolution of English but suggests on the one hand a number of correspondences with that of Mulder and Thompson (2008), but on the other hand there are also two main differences, as the summary in table 4 below shows. The first concerns the cooptation of but as a connective that was already mentioned. And the second concerns a development to what Mulder and Thompson call the Final 2, we will refer to it loosely as the “contrastive FP but”. This information unit differs from the FP but looked at above in that, instead of our stage II, the contrast function of but is not desematicized but is retained, shifting to S1, thereby resulting in what the authors call a retrospective clause-final contrast marker. In the wording of Mulder and Thompson, “the semantically contrastive material is supplied in the IU ending with the “final but particle”.” Thus, in the following example, Diana agrees with Kylie in line 2 and introduces in line 3 the contrastive material in the form of an assessment about herself. Mulder and Thompson conclude that for Australian speakers, “final but” has gone all the way to become a “fully-developed” final particle marking contrastive content. (25)

English (Mulder and Thompson 2008: 191) Diana has just made some strange noises 1 Kylie: You sounded funny @@(H) 2

Diana:

I know.

3

Sounded like an alright person but.

4

(3.3)

5

Kylie:

Thus, they argue that English but has followed the same pathway of grammaticalization that though had gone earlier: As noted above, the usage of but and its grammaticization pathway that we have argued for here are quite parallel to those of though. Barth-Weingarten and Couper-Kuhlen (2002) argue that in present-day English “final though” has developed as a discourse particle. They point out how though in IU final-position is prosodically unobtrusive, lacks pitch prominence itself, forms a single intonation contour with the semantically contrastive material preceding it in the IU, and concedes a prior point without making that point explicit (pp. 348–9). These features precisely match our “final 2 but”, suggesting that the road which but is traveling on has been taken before in English. (Mulder and Thompson 2008)

It would seem that this road concerns only the contrastive FP but and should be distinguished from the FP but discussed in Section 2.3. Table 4 differs from what

134

Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck and Tania Kuteva

we consider to be the “regular” pathway of grammaticalization that was sketched in table 3 of Section 2.3 in the fact that instead of stage II we have the alternative stage II’. There is no evidence to suggest that this pathway proceeds any further; hence there is no corresponding stage III. It would seem that the contrastive FP but is due to a separate cooptation process that needs to be distinguished from the one discussed in this paper and, hence, calls for a study in its own right (see above). Table 4: The semantic evolution of contrastive FP but. Stage

Heine, Kaltenböck and Kuteva

Stage

Mulder and Thompson

0 Sentence Grammar

C expresses an adversative contrast between the conjuncts S1 and S2

Initial but

but is used to introduce talk which provides a contrast with what precedes it

I

Cooptation: C expresses a contrast on the plane of Thetical Grammar, where the content of S2 is implied but not expressed

“Janus 2”, “Final 1”

The speaker leaves the contrastive material implied and goes on with a new social action

II’

C is now an utterance-final contrast marker on S1

“Final 2”

The contrastive material is explicit

2.5 Generalized stage-III markers Once FPs or other theticals have turned into semantically largely empty discourse markers of stage III, they may be generalized to the extent that they can be exapted for use as fillers or hesitation markers (see Amiridze et al. 2010), and as such they may become characteristics of personal style, used extensively by some people but not by others. The somewhat anecdotal text example in (26), relating to another English thetical, namely the discourse marker if you will (Brinton 2008: 163–6), illustrates such a case: With some people it appears to have been grammaticalized to a stage-III marker, where it has lost its conceptual and discourse-specific meaning and may be interpreted as a feature of personal style: (26)

English (Forsey, A Life on the Fringe: The Memoirs of Eugene Forsey. 1990; Brinton 2008: 166) I privately doubted whether the House would be impressed by George’s habit of interlarding his speeches with ‘if you will’ every six or eight words.

Some observations on the evolution of final particles

135

3 Conclusions As was observed in Section 2.4, the pathway sketched here is not the only one that FPs can take. Another alternative pathway has been described in a seminal study by Barth-Weingarten and Couper-Kuhlen (2002), according to which grammaticalization does not involve desemanticization. The observations made in this paper suggest in particular the following. First, the genesis of FPs presupposes a prior phase of cooptation, whereby a clause connective is transferred from the plane of Sentence Grammar to that of Thetical Grammar. Second, grammaticalization comes in only when an FP is established as a syntactically and prosodically independent information unit. A requirement for the process is that the FP be used frequently and in many different contexts (cf. the grammaticalization parameter of extension, (12a)). Third, describing the grammaticalization of FPs in terms of a three-stage scenario, as was done in this paper, is a simplification of the actual process, which is gradual rather than discontinuous. The endpoints of this process are depicted in Table 5, while its internal structure is still largely unclear. And finally, the paper was concerned mainly with some semantic characteristics of FPs. An urgent task for future research is the study of the syntactic and prosodic behavior of FPs across the various stages of their evolution. Table 5: A chain of grammaticalization of utterance-final particles (C = connective, S1 = first conjunct, or host). Source

Target

Domain

C is an adversative, concessive, alternative, or additive conjunction



C is a semantically largely empty discourse marker

Meaning

C is an autonomous unit



C is a syntactic appendage of S1

Syntax

C is an independent prosodic unit



C is a prosodic appendage of S1

Phonology

The framework proposed here, expounded in more detail in Kaltenböck et al. (2011) and Heine et al. (2013), differs in a number of ways from alternative approaches, most of all in the claim that cooptation is an instantaneous operation. Rather than a gradual grammaticalization from a conjoined construction [S1 + C + S2] to another construction [S1 - C], where the second conjunct S2 is ellipsed over time, there is an abrupt operation whereby the connective C is transferred to the plane of Thetical Grammar, with S2 being implied but not formally expressed – an operation that can constantly be observed in spoken discourse. Once a clause connective such as ‘but’, ‘or’, or ‘and’ has been transferred to function as an FP, the latter constitutes the right utterance boundary. And once the left boundary separating the FP from its preceding host (S1) is

136

Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck and Tania Kuteva

eliminated via grammaticalization, the FP may turn into an integrated appendage of its preceding host constituent. On this view there is no need, and no reason, to invoke boundary shifting (Barth-Weingarten forthc.), whereby a prosodic boundary would shift from a location after to a position before the erstwhile connective: What grammaticalization achieves in this case is gradual boundary loss, namely erosion of the prosodic and syntactic boundaries between S1 and the FP.

Abbreviations ICE-GB = International Corpus of English - British component; IU = information unit, intonation unit; S1 = first conjunct, S2 = second conjunct; SG = sentence grammar; FP = utterance-final particle.

Acknowledgements We wish to express our gratitude to a number of colleagues who have been of help in writing this paper, in particular to Petra Jäger and Christa König, as well as to the participants of the International Conference on Final Particles, held on 27–28 May 2010 in Rouen. Most of all, we wish to thank Sylvie Hancil for all the assistance and cooperation; without her encouragement, this paper would never have been written. Finally, our gratitude is also due to the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology for generously having sponsored the research leading to this paper within its World Class University program, and to the University of Cape Town for having provided the first author with an ideal research environment to work on the paper. The third author is greatly indebted to SOAS (University of London) and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for their generous support.

References Aijmer, Karin. 1997. “I think” – an English modal particle. In Toril Swan and Olaf Jansen Westvik (eds.), Modality in Germanic languages: Historical and comparative Perspectives, 1–47. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Altenberg, Bengt. 1986. Contrastive linking in spoken and written English. In Gunnel Tottie and Ingegerd Bäcklund (eds.), English in speech and writing: A symposium. (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Anglistica Upsaliensis, 60), 13–40. Uppsala, Stockholm: Almquist und Wiksell International.

Some observations on the evolution of final particles

137

Amiridze, Nino, Boyd H. Davis & Margaret Maclagan (eds.). 2010. Fillers, pauses and placeholders. (Typological Studies in Language 93). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Arroyo, José Luis Blas. 2011. From politeness to discourse marking: The process of gragmaticalization of muy bien in vernacular Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics 43. 855–874. Auer, Peter & Susanne Günthner. 2005. Die Entstehung von Diskursmarkern im Deutschen – ein Fall von Grammatikalisierung? In Torsten Leuschner, Tanja Mortelmans & Sarah De Groodt (eds.), Grammatikalisierung im Deutschen. (Linguistik – Impulse & Tendenzen 9), 335–362. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar forthc. “You never know but ”: Prosodic and syntactic units in English conversational data. To appear in Interaction and Linguistic Structures forthc. Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar & Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen. 2002. On the development of final though: A case of grammaticalization? In Ilse Wischer & Gabriele Diewald (eds.), New reflections on grammaticalization, 345–361. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Biber, Douglas, S. Johansson, G. Leech, S. Conrad and E. Finegan. 1999. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. London: Longman. Blakemore, Diane. 1987. Semantic constraints on Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell. Blöndal, Þórunn. 2006. Turn-final eđa (‘or’) in spoken Icelandic. Typescript. Boye, Kasper & Peter Harder. 2007. Complement-taking predicates: Usage and linguistic structure. Studies in Language 31(3). 569–606. Brinton, Laurel J. 2008. The comment clause in English: Syntactic origins and pragmatic development. (Studies in English Language). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burton-Roberts, Noel. 2005. Parentheticals. Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. 2nd edition, volume 9, 179–182. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Bybee, Joan L., Revere D. Perkins & William Pagliuca. 1994. The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Campbell, Lyle & Richard Janda. 2001. Introduction: conceptions of grammaticalization and their problems. Language Sciences 23(2–3). 93–112. Corum, Claudia. 1975. A pragmatic analysis of parenthetic adjuncts. CLS (Chicago Linguistic Society) 11. 133–141. Dehé, Nicole. 2007. The relation between syntactic and prosodic parenthesis. In Nicole Dehé & Yordanka Kavalova (eds.), Parentheticals. (Linguistics Today, 106), 261–285. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Dehé, Nicole & Yordanka Kavalova. 2007. Parentheticals. (Linguistics Today 106) Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (Linguistics Today 106). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Diewald, Gabriele. 2011. Grammaticalization and pragmaticalization. In Heiko Narrog & Bernd Heine (eds.), The Oxford handbook of grammaticalization, 450–461. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dik, Simon C. 1997. The theory of functional grammar, Part 2: Complex and derived constructions. (Functional Grammar Series 21). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Dixon, R.M.W. 2005. A semantic approach to English grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dorgeloh, Heidrun. 2004. Conjunction in sentence and discourse: Sentence initial and and discourse structure. Journal of Pragmatics 36. 1761–1779. Du Bois, John W., Stephan Schuetze-Coburn, Susanna Cumming & Danae Paolino. 1993. Outline of discourse transcription. In Jane A. Edwards & Martin D. Lampert (eds.), Talking data: Transcription and coding methods for discourse research, 45–89. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Espinal, M. 1991. The representation of disjunct constituents. Language 67. 726–762.

138

Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck and Tania Kuteva

Ford, Cecilia E. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1996. Interactional units in conversation: syntactic, informational, and pragmatic resources for the management of turns. In Elinor Ochs, Emanuel A. Schegloff & Sandra A. Thompson (eds.), Interaction and grammar, 134–184. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Frank-Job, Barbara. 2006. A dynamic-interactional approach to discourse markers. In Kerstin Fischer (ed.), Approaches to discourse particles, 359–374. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Fraser, Bruce. 2007. The English contrastive discourse marker instead. In Christopher S. Butler, Raquel Hidalgo Downing & Julia Lavid (eds.), Functional perspectives on grammar and discourse: In honour of Angela Downing. (Studies in Language Companion Series 85), 301–312. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Giacalone Ramat, Anna & Caterina Mauri. 2009. Introduction to the workshop “Grammaticalization between semantics and pragmatics”. Typescript, Pavia, February 2009. Grenoble, Lenore. 2004. Parentheticals in Russian. Journal of Pragmatics 36(11). 1953–1974. Günthner, Susanne. 1999. Entwickelt sich der Konzessivkonnektor obwohl zum Diskursmarker? Grammatikalisierungstendenzen im gesprochenen Deutsch. Linguistische Berichte 180. 409–446. Günthner, Susanne. 2000. From concessive connector to discourse marker: The use of obwohl in everyday German interaction. In Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen & Bernd Kortmann (eds.), Cause-condition-concession-contrast: Cognitive and discourse perspectives, 439–468. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Günthner, Susanne & K. Mutz. 2004. Grammaticalization vs. pragmaticalization? The development of pragmatic markers in German and Italian. In W. Bisang, N. Himmelmann & B. Wiemer (eds.), What makes grammaticalization? A look from its fringes and its components, 77–101. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Haegeman, Liliane. 1991. Parenthetical adverbials: the radical orphanage approach. In Shuji Chiba et al. (eds.), Aspects of modern English linguistics: Papers presented to Masatomo Ukaji on his 60th birthday, 232–254. Tokyo: Kaitakusha. Haiman, John. 1980. HUA: A Papuan language of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Haiman, John. 1988. Inconsequential clauses in Hua and the typology of clauses. In John Haiman & Sandra Thompson (eds.), Clause combining in grammar and discourse, 49–69. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Hancil, Sylvie. 2009. The role of prosody in affective speech. Bern, Berlin: Peter Lang. Hancil, Sylvie. forthc. Sentence-final ‘but’ in British English. In Sylvie Hancil (ed.), Discourse markers and subjectivity. Rouen: Presses Universitaires de Rouen. Haselow, Alexander. 2011. Discourse marker and modal particle: The functions of utterancefinal then in spoken English. Journal of Pragmatics 43. 3603–3623. Haselow, Alexander. 2013. Arguing for a wide conception of grammar: The case of final particles in spoken discourse. Folia Linguistica 47(2). 375–424. Heine, Bernd. 2013. On discourse markers: Grammaticalization, pragmaticalization, or something else? Linguistics 51(6). 1205–1247. Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi & Friederike Hünnemeyer. 1991. Grammaticalization: a conceptual framework. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Heine, Bernd, Gunther Kaltenböck, Tania Kuteva & Haiping Long. 2013. An outline of discourse grammar. In Shannon Bischoff & Carmen Jany (eds.), Functional approaches to language, 175–233. Berlin & Boston: Mouton de Gruyter. Heine, Bernd & Tania Kuteva. 2007. The genesis of grammar: a reconstruction. (Studies in the Evolution of Language 9) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Some observations on the evolution of final particles

139

Hopper, Paul J. 1991. On some principles of grammaticization. In Elizabeth C. Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization. Volume 1. (Typological Studies in Language 19, 1), 17–35. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Hopper, Paul J. & Elizabeth C. Traugott. 2003. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Izutsu, Mitsuko Narita & Katsunobu Izutsu. 2010a. Hanging or back-shifting?: The rise of the final particle but and their comparables in Japanese. Paper presented at the International Conference on Final Particles, 27–28 May, 2010, Rouen, France. Izutsu, Mitsuko Narita & Katsunobu Izutsu. 2010b. “Okashiisho Sosite”: The dialectal characteristics observed in the meaning and function of sosite in Hokkaido speech. Proceedings of the 25th Congress of the Japanese Association of Sociolinguistics Science. 78–81. Kaltenböck, Gunther. 2007. Spoken parenthetical clauses in English. In Nicole Dehé & Yordanka Kavalova (eds.), Parentheticals. (Linguistics Today 106), 25–52. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Kaltenböck, Gunther, Bernd Heine, and Tania Kuteva. 2011. On thetical grammar. Studies in Language 35, 4: 848–893. Koivisto, Aino. 2006. Finnish että as a turn-final particle: negotiating topic-transitions. Paper presented at the International Conference on Conversation Analysis (ICCA) 2006, Comparative Perspectives in Conversation Analysis, 10–14 May 2006, Helsinki. Kuroda, S.-Y. 1972. The categorical and the thetic judgment. Evidence from Japanese syntax. Foundations of Language 9. 153–185. Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. Information structure and sentence form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lehmann, Christian. 1985. Grammaticalization: synchronic variation and diachronic change. Lingua e Stile 20(3). 303–318. Lehmann, Christian. 1995 [1982]. Thoughts on grammaticalization. Munich: Lincom Europa. Lerner, Gene H. 2004. On the place of linguistic resources in the organization of talk-ininteraction: Grammar as action in prompting a speaker to elaborate. In Gene H. Lerner (ed.), Research on language and social interaction [Special Issue: Practices of Turn Construction in Conversation] 37(2). 151–184. Lindström, Anna. 1999. Language as social action: Grammar, prosody, and interaction in Swedish conversation. Institutionen för Nordiska Språk vid Uppsala Universitet. Mulder, Jean & Sandra A. Thompson. 2008. The grammaticization of but as a final particle in English conversation. In Ritva Laury (ed.), Crosslinguistic studies of clause combining: The multifunctionality of conjunctions, 179–204. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Mulder, Jean, Sandra A. Thompson & Cara Penry Williams. 2009. Final but in Australian English conversation. In Peter Collins & Pam Peters (eds.), Comparative grammatical studies in Australian and New Zealand English. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Narrog, Heiko and Bernd Heine (eds.). 2011. The Oxford handbook of grammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nelson, Gerald, Sean Wallis & Bas Aarts. 2002. Exploring natural language. Working with the British component of the International Corpus of English. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Ochs, Elinor, Emanuel A. Schegloff & Sandra A. Thompson (eds.). 1996. Interaction and grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Peters, Pamela. 1995. The pocket Macquarie writers’ guide. Milton, Queensland: The Jacaranda Press.

140

Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck and Tania Kuteva

Peterson, P. 1998. On the boundaries of syntax: non-syntagmatic relations. In Peter Collins & D. Lee (eds.), The clause in English: In honour of Rodney Huddleston, 229–250. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Potts, Christopher. 2002. The syntax and semantics of as-parentheticals. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 20. 623–689. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London, New York: Longman. Rhee, Seongha. 2002. From silence to grammar: Grammaticalization and ellipsis in Korean. Paper presented at the conference on New Reflections on Grammaticalization II, University of Amsterdam, April 3–6, 2002. Rouchota, Villy. 1998. Procedural meaning and parenthetical discourse markers. In Andreas H. Jucker & Yael Ziv (eds.), Discourse markers: Descriptions and theory, 97–126. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Safir, K. 1986. Relative clauses in a theory of binding and levels. Linguistic Inquiry 17. 663–689. Sasse, Hans-Jürgen. 1987. The thetic/categorical distinction revisited. Linguistics 25. 511–580. Sasse, Hans-Jürgen. 2006. Theticity. In G. Bernini & M. L. Schwartz (eds.), Pragmatic organization of discourse in the languages of Europe, 255–308. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1998. Reflections on studying prosody in talk-in-interaction. Language and Speech 41. 235–263. Sohn, Sung-Ock. 2010. The emergence of sentence-final particles in Korean. Paper presented at the International Conference on Final Particles, 27–28 May, 2010, Rouen, France. Thompson, Sandra A. 2002. ‘Object complements’ and conversation: Towards a realistic account. Studies in Language 26(1). 125–64. Thompson, Sandra A. & Anthony Mulac. 1991. A quantitative perspective on the grammaticization of epistemic parentheticals in English. In Elizabeth C. Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization. Volume 2. (Typological Studies in Language 19, 2), 313–319 Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Thompson, Sandra A. & Ryoko Suzuki. 2011. Grammaticalization of final particles. In Heiko Narrog & Bernd Heine (eds.), The Oxford handbook of grammaticalization, 665–677. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Traugott, Elizabeth C. & Bernd Heine (eds.). 1991a. Approaches to grammaticalization. Volume 1. (Typological Studies in Language 19, 1) Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Traugott, Elizabeth C. & Bernd Heine (eds.). 1991b. Approaches to grammaticalization. Volume 2. (Typological Studies in Language 19, 2) Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Urmson, J. O. 1980. Parenthetical verbs. Mind 61. 480–496. Waltereit, Richard. 2002. Imperatives, interruption in conversation and the rise of discourse markers: a study of Italian guarda. Linguistics 40. 987–1010. Waltereit, Richard. 2006. The rise of discourse markers in Italian: A specific type of language change. In Kerstin Fischer (ed.), Approaches to discourse markers. (Studies in Pragmatics 1), 61–76. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Watts, Richard. 2003. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wichmann, Anne. 2001. Spoken parentheticals. In Karin Aijmer (ed.), A wealth of English: Studies in honour of Goran Kjellmer, 171–193. Gothenburg: Gothenburg University Press. Wilson, Deidre & Dan Sperber. 1993. Linguistic form and relevance. Lingua 90(1–2). 1–25. Wischer, Ilse. 2000. Grammaticalization versus lexicalization: ‘Methinks’ there is some confusion. In Olga Fischer, Anette Rosenbach & Dieter Stein (eds.), Pathways of change. Grammaticalization in English, 355–370. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Yuki Taylor

6 The evolution of Japanese toka in utterance-final position This synchronic study examines how the Japanese exemplifying particle toka behaves differently in different genres based on the theory of grammaticalization. Because semantic polysemies of a form frequently arise as the byproduct of conversational implicatures, toka developed differently in written discourse and spoken discourse. According to the traditional analysis, this particle is used to provide concrete examples to explain abstract ideas. This is toka’s exemplifying function. However, examination of spoken language reveals that in addition to the exemplifying function, there are several different functions. Especially, a function which may be termed as the “softening function” can be seen as playing a crucial role. Toka in sentence-final position mitigates the whole utterance and softens the assertiveness of the utterance. Toka often appears at the utterance-final position in the spoken discourse data. This final toka has a hedging effect, making the utterance soft and less assertive for the sake of interpersonal communication. The paper suggests that this metapragmatic toka is used to express indirectness, fuzziness, and softening for the purposes of politeness as a communicative strategy in conversational discourse.1 Key words: utterance-final particle, pragmatics, grammaticalization, softening, hedging, Japanese particle toka

1 Introduction It is widely accepted that Japanese is a verb-final SOV language (e.g. Kuno 1973). As in other SOV languages such as Korean, Japanese is an agglutinative language, and particles are postpositionally attached to the head. Therefore, particles attached to a verb end up in the utterance-final position. Especially in conversa-

1 This paper is a revised, developed and condensed version that I originally wrote in my dissertation. I would like to thank everyone who gave me comments, especially Shoichi Iwasaki and Olga Yokoyama who read earlier versions. My thanks also go to Sylvie Hancil who coordinated the International Conference on Final Particles in Rouen, and to Sung-Ock Sohn, whose encouragement provided me with the opportunity to attend the conference. Yuki Taylor, Occidental College

142

Yuki Taylor

tion, rather than ending with a simple verb, utterances may end with particles as well as auxiliaries or interactive phrases (Maynard 1997). The speaker often ends the utterance with extra attitudinal elements which are “message-packaging devices” that cushion the impact of the message “by signaling that it is only the speaker’s judgment” (Maynard 1997). Research in Japanese linguistics has examined a number of conjunctions in utterance-final position. Results show that Japanese connective particles in this position primarily produce a pragmatic softening effect, not only because it is left up to the other interlocutor to infer what is omitted but also because it signals a mitigating of the speaker’s assertiveness.2 In addition to conjunctions, utterance-final adverbial particles also have a pragmatic function. Maynard explains that the utterance-final gerundive form is “used not to indicate the continuation of talk but primarily to soften the statement by leaving the propositional content with a feeling of incompleteness” (Maynard 1989: 38). In utterance-final position, the targeted particle of this research, toka, has a similar function. By adding toka at the end of the utterance, the utterance becomes softer, and toka moderates the content. This paper examines the grammaticalization of toka by focusing on polysemy in its exemplifying and defocusing functions and on the process of decategorization that occurs in utterance-final position. In utterance-final position, both functions of toka – as an exemplifying particle and as a quotative marker – are decategorized, losing their semantic meaning and becoming a pragmatic particle that softens the utterance.

2 Grammaticalization Grammaticalization as a theory has been discussed in functional linguistics for several decades. It is based on the principle that grammar is derived from language use and employs a usage-based approach to the investigation of “the actual phenomena of language”, which “becomes more grammatical through time” (Hopper and Traugott 1993: 2). This usage-based model focuses on lan-

2 For example, kedo ‘though’ is usually a grammatical connective particle, but in utterancefinal position, kedo is no longer a grammatical particle, but an interactional one. Kedo in utterance-final position makes the statement less assertive and softens the message (Maynard 1989). Mori’s (1999) examination of kedo in utterance-final position shows its use to mitigate disagreement or imply partial agreement. Kamio (1994) and Iguchi (1998) argue that utterance-final particles in spoken language do not have specific lexical meanings. Both of them discuss the example of the connective particle kara ‘because’ and demonstrate that in final position, the basic meaning of kara is bleached out semantically.

The evolution of Japanese toka in utterance-final position

143

guage performance rather than competence (Fillmore 1979) and its orientation is bottom-up rather than top-down (Langacker 2000). This contrasts with a view that grammar is a mental artifact that is independent of how it is actually used. There are a number of linguistic studies which provide both synchronic and diachronic investigations of the grammaticalizing process (Hopper 1991; Hopper and Thompson 1984; Hopper and Traugott 1993; Traugott 1989; Heine 2002). Hopper and Traugott see the phenomena of grammaticalization as a product of interlocutors negotiating meaning in communicative situations (1993: 63). They claim that there is a stage during the process of grammaticalization where the same form has multiple meanings and functions, and that semantic polysemies of a form frequently arise as the byproduct of conversational implicatures (1993: 75). Dahl (1985) explains the process of semantic polysemies as follows: “If some condition happens to be fulfilled frequently when a certain category is used, a stronger association may develop between the condition and the category in such a way that the condition comes to be understood as an integral part of the meaning of the category” (Dahl 1985: 11). By frequent use, the grammatical form expands its semantic domain and comes to acquire multiple meanings and functions as a result. This phenomenon is exactly the one found in the data analyzed in this study. Multiple meanings emerge from the frequent use of the implicated semantic association.

3 An overview of toka There is not a single pragmatic particle toka but two lexically different particles, consisting of the particle to combined with the indefinite particle ka. Exemplifying toka is derived from the so-called “juxtaposition particle to” and it attaches to noun or verb phrases. Quotative toka is derived from the quotative marker to and is a complementizer, turning the attached clause into a subject or object. This section takes a closer look at these two origins of toka and the evolution of a defocusing function from exemplifying toka.

3.1 From juxtaposition particle to to exemplifying toka The traditional analysis of the particle toka is that it is used to provide concrete examples to explain abstract ideas. As previously mentioned, exemplifying toka is created by the combination of juxtaposition particle to and the indefinite particle ka (Shirakawa 2001).

144

Yuki Taylor

Juxtaposition to is used to list items which share a common element or nature, as in (1): (1)

juxtaposition to koohii to koocha ga atta. coffee and black tea NOM exist:PAST ‘There were coffee and black tea.’

In (1), the juxtaposition particle to connects two drinks, koohii ‘coffee’ and koocha ‘black tea’ as a coordinating conjunctive particle for listing multiple items. By connecting two nouns (koohii ‘coffee’ and koocha ‘black tea’), it becomes a noun phrase (koohii to koocha ‘coffee and black tea’), which is the subject of the sentence. When juxtaposition to is used, the items in a group are a closed set, specified and limited. Therefore, the drinks they had were ‘coffee’ and ‘black tea’ and nothing else. By adding the indefinite particle ka after juxtaposition to, the exemplifying particle toka is created. When exemplifying toka follows each noun as illustrated in (2), the items listed with the particle toka are exemplars of an open set group, which is not limited. (2)

Exemplifying particle (juxtaposition particle to + indefinite particle ka) koohii toka koocha toka iroirona mono ga atta. black tea EP various thing NOM exist:PAST coffee EP ‘There were various things such as coffee and black tea.’

In (2), the two specified beverages koohii ‘coffee’ and koocha ‘black tea’ are mentioned in the same syntactic constituent and prior to the conceptually nearempty head noun mono ‘thing’. Therefore, the hearer can infer that mono ‘thing’ is something to drink. Like juxtaposition particle to, the speaker provides enumerated drinks as exemplars. At the same time, toka here connotes that there were other drinks as well because the indefinite particle ka conveys indeterminacy. The structural pattern of exemplifying toka is [main idea] [specific exemplar 1 + toka] ([specific exemplar 2 + toka], [etc.]). The main abstract idea, which is a categorizing label, is followed by an exemplar with the particle toka.

3.2 From quotative marker to to toka The quotative marker toka is created by the combination of the complementizer to and the indefinite particle ka. Quotative to as a complementizer is illustrated in (4).

The evolution of Japanese toka in utterance-final position

(3)

145

Quotative marker to Yamada-san wa paatii ni ikanai to itta. Mr. Yamada TOP party DAT go:NEG QT say:PAST ‘Mr. Yamada said that (he) would not go to the party.’

In example (3), a quotative marker to is a subordinating conjunction marking an embedded quote, paatii ni ikanai ‘(he) would not go to the party’. This subordinating conjunction, which marks the embedded quote in (3), could be replaced by toka as follows: (4)

Quotative marker toka Yamada-san wa paatii ni ikanai toka itta. say:PAST Mr. Yamada TOP party DAT go:NEG QT ‘Mr. Yamada said something like (he) would not go to the party.’

By adding toka instead of to after the quote, a speaker expresses the main point of the quote without taking responsibility for its complete accuracy via the implication of impreciseness. This toka (i.e. X toka iu ‘to say something like X’) indicates uncertainty or hearsay, while to (i.e. X to iu ‘to say X’) is more definite, and it expresses bokashi ‘vagueness’ (Murata 1994). Again, the grammatical structures of exemplifying toka and quotative toka are different. While the exemplifying particle toka is created by the combination of the juxtaposition particle to and the indefinite particle ka illustrated in (2), the quotative marker toka is a combination of the quotative marker to and the indefinite particle ka illustrated in (4). Exemplifying toka attaches itself to a phrase such as a noun phrase or a verb phrase. It connects grammatically equal elements such as [NP toka NP]. On other hand, toka as a quotative marker is a complementizer, which subordinates the phrase it is attached to as reported speech. Therefore, the phrases before and after exemplifying toka and quotative marker toka function at different levels in the grammatical structure.

3.3 Exemplifying toka to defocusing toka Like the imprecision or softening implied by the quotative marker toka, the function of exemplifying toka has evolved to include a softening function. It can be used not only to exemplify a category but also to express uncertainty. It becomes a particle of uncertainty and softening when it is used to avoid limitation and assertion (Murata 1994). This defocusing toka is illustrated in (5) and is notably only attached to a single noun instead of being attached to multiple exemplars as illustrated in (2).

146 (5)

Yuki Taylor

A softening function evolved from the exemplifying particle koohii toka nomitai. drink:DES coffee EP ‘I want to have a coffee or something.’

By adding toka, the statement in (5) becomes less assertive. The implication is that coffee is only an example of what the speaker would like. Defocusing toka weakens the tension that might be caused by a specified demand. It shows hesitation in order to mitigate directness. This mitigation parallels the result of the quotative marker toka in (4) despite the difference in underlying constitutional structure.

4 Data and methodology The data for this study consist of 19 segments of two-party, spontaneous, informal conversation between native Japanese speakers. The participants ranged in age from the teens to the late sixties. The relationship between the interlocutors varied, ranging from family members to friends and acquaintances, and even strangers. The length of the 19 segments varies from approximately two minutes to 20 minutes, totaling approximately 200 minutes. The data include both mixedgender and same-gender conversations. These tape-recorded conversations were transcribed according to conventions borrowed from both Du Bois et al. (1993) and Iwasaki (2000).

5 Results 5.1 Exemplifying toka in spoken discourse As mentioned earlier, multiple exemplars are often given as the speaker provides several concrete exemplars to the hearer in order to make a vague concept clearer. At the same time, the reference becomes less determinate because toka implies an unspecified open set. In the following example from spoken discourse (6), exemplifying toka is used with exemplars that make the propositional meaning of the utterance clearer. This interactional process of disambiguation can be observed as a hearer provides backchannels immediately after the speaker’s utterance of toka, giving a signal of understanding.

The evolution of Japanese toka in utterance-final position

147

(6) 1 A: hoide, nanka, dokka, tamatama watashi to futari de CONJ SOF somewhere by chance 1st SNG COM two:CLS INSTR 2 M: nn BCK

3 A: ano, kaimono ni, itta toki ni INJ shopping LOC go:PAST time LOC 4

kekkoo hora, shoppingu mooru toka, sentaa toka de mo sa shopping mall EP center EP LOC HP PP often INJ

5 M: nn

nn

nn

BCK BCK BCK

6 A: koo, . . . tatoeba, o-mise no mae ni, koo, INJ for example POL-shop LK front LOC INJ 7

kookoku ga aru janai advertisement NOM exist IT ‘There are advertisements in front of shops when we go somewhere like a shopping mall or a shopping center.’

In the utterance above, the speaker utters the conceptually near-empty noun dokka ‘somewhere’ in Line 1, and provides the exemplars of it in Line 4. Dokka ‘somewhere’ has a cataphoric function. It points ahead to the referring terms shoppingu mooru ‘shopping malls’ and sentaa ‘centers’, and toka is a marker of approximation. Because the speaker wants to provide the image of the categorizing label, dokka ‘somewhere’, she provides two actual exemplars of places, shoppingu mooru ‘a shopping mall’ and sentaa ‘(shopping) center’ in Line 4. After each of the exemplars, the speaker adds the particle toka. In Line 5, the hearer’s backchannel signifies an acknowledgment that the exemplars of shopping areas have successfully disambiguated dokka ‘somewhere’. While toka creates an open set of shopping malls, shopping centers and similar places, it is up to the hearer to resolve the question of how to extend the reference to specific places other than shopping malls and shopping centers.

5.2 Softening toka in spoken discourse In this section, we look at the data for instances that follow the pattern of example (5), defocusing toka evolved from exemplifying toka and example (4), quotative marker toka where toka softens the illocutionary force of the utterance.

148

Yuki Taylor

5.2.1 Defocusing toka As illustrated in (6), when the speaker provides multiple exemplars, toka is attached to each given exemplar; multiple exemplars require multiple uses of toka. However, it is also possible to use only one exemplar with single toka. Because the item followed by the exemplifying particle toka infers other items in a certain category, the speaker has a choice to present only one exemplar with toka and omit other items. In the spoken discourse examined, the single toka structure is far more common than the multiple toka structure, with 79% of the utterances being single toka utterances and only 21% being multiple toka utterances. The single toka structure is used not only for exemplification but also for softening through defocusing. An example of a single defocusing toka utterance in the data is given in (7). (7)

1

Y:

[hurui n desu yo. chiku sanjuu (.)3 old NML POL PP built thirty ‘(It) is old. (It) was built thirty . . .’

2

S:

[soo na n that COP NML ‘Is that right?’

desu

ka.

POL

Q

3

Y:

go-nen toka soo iu kanji da EP that say impression COP five ‘five years ago, something like that, so . . .’

4

S:

naruhodo I see ‘I see.’

kara. because

ne. PP

In the example above, Y explains that her apartment is very old. She tries to estimate how old it is and provides the approximate age of the building by saying chiku sanjuu go-nen toka ‘built 35 or so years ago’. Because the category of the phrase with toka is the age of the building, it is possible to continue by saying another exemplar of age such as yonjuu nen toka ‘40 years or so’. By uttering toka once, the hearer can infer other exemplars, and the speaker can imply that the information is not exact but only an estimated age for the building. This toka suggests that the speaker does not have direct evidence for the age of the building while still expressing that her apartment is rather old. The speaker can 3 The transcription convention [ indicates the point from which the current talk is overlapped by other talk, and (.) indicates a micro-pause.

The evolution of Japanese toka in utterance-final position

149

express uncertainty by using toka after a counting word and thus avoid giving an exact number. The justification for the speaker’s insertion of toka in (7) can be explained in terms of Grice’s maxims (Grice 1975). It appears that the speaker is not in a position to guarantee that the building was built exactly thirty-five years ago. However, Grice’s Maxim of Quality, which includes not saying what one lacks evidence for, is maintained due to the presence of toka attached to sanjuu go-nen ‘thirty-five years’. At the same time, the speaker may even be said to satisfy Grice’s second Maxim of Quantity, which tells us not to be more informative than necessary. The precise age of the building was not the central focus of the discourse. So we observe that single toka here takes the offered age and defocuses it by expanding the semantic area. This is an example of the process of toka grammaticalization.

5.2.2 Quotative marker toka in spoken discourse In this study, there are many tokens of X toka iu ‘to say something like X’. The following example (8) has two tokens of toka iu. (8)

1

A:

2

ne PP

baito part time job

3 4

datte CONJ

nande why M:

toka toka

[nn

nn

BCK

BCK

ne PP

[itte FRG

yameta-n quit:PAST- SE yutta say:PAST

da COP

toka toka

iu say

kara, because

no, PP

‘Because she said something like “I quit my part time job”, I said something like “why”’ In (8), speaker A explains the conversation between her and her friend to M. The first toka in Line 2 attaches to the quote baito ne, yameta-n da ‘I quit my part time job’ and precedes iu ‘to say’. The second toka in Line 3 is added to another quote – nande ‘Why?’, and itte, yutta, which are the derivative forms of iu ‘to say’, follow after that. In informal conversation, quotative toka is often found in utterance-final position. By attaching toka, the quote is made less precise and less certain, and the speaker can provide a quotation without concern for an exact reproduction of it. This “hearsay” toka has the same function as epistemic

150

Yuki Taylor

modals connoting how much certainty or evidence a speaker has for the proposition expressed by his/her utterance, such as might or could. This usage is also similar to the one shown in defocusing toka. It displays uncertainty and softens the quote by making it more vague.

5.3 Distribution of toka by function in spoken discourse Table 1 counts the instances of toka in the corpus of spoken discourse examined here. Instances of softening whether from defocusing toka or quotative toka were counted together. Table 1: Frequency of toka by function

Exemplifying Softening Others Total

toka

in %

144 253 11 408

35% 62% 3% 100%

Instances of the softening function (62%) far exceed that of exemplifying (35%) and others (3%).4 So, in this corpus of informal conversations, toka is used far more commonly to produce a softening effect than to exemplify.

6 Decategorization of toka In grammaticalization theory it “can be shown that function words have their origins in content words” (Hopper and Traugott 1993: 4). In the process of grammaticalization, the semantic content is “bleached” or “faded” and is decategorized from major category to minor category (Hopper and Traugott 1993: 104). This section explains how the two different constructions of toka have been decategorized and reconstructed in utterance-final position to become a pragmatic particle that softens the whole utterance. At the utterance-final position, defocusing toka, which is an extension of exemplifying toka structured as a coordinating conjunctive particle, and quotative toka, functioning as a complementizer, are used as pragmatic particles. 4 This “3%” includes tokas of downgrading or upgrading the attached item. These have a highlighting function which expresses the speaker’s point of view and are discussed in Taylor (2010).

The evolution of Japanese toka in utterance-final position

151

6.1 Utterance-final toka When toka is placed in utterance-final position, the exemplifying function is bleached out, and instead the illocutionary force of the whole utterance is modified. I propose here that toka in utterance-final position has a pragmatic softening function and behaves as a sentence-final particle producing a “soft landing” for the utterance. 81 tokens (32%) out of the 253 instances of softening toka in the spoken data are utterance-final (see Table 2). Table 2: Softening functions in medial and final positions

Defocusing toka Quotative toka Total softening toka

medial position

final position

total

11 161 172

37 44 81

48 205 253

While medial-position quotative toka occurs approximately four times more often than final-position toka, final-position defocusing toka occurs approximately three times more than medial- position toka. As illustrated in (9) below, final toka produces a hedging effect that makes the utterance softer and less assertive for the sake of interpersonal communication. (9) Utterance-final position of the exemplifying particle toka 1 F: denwa shita toki ni sutamina mo nai kanji datta nde, Telephone do:PAST time DAT stamina also lack seem COP: PAST CONJ 2

a, jaa tte itte todoketa n desu yo. INJ so QT say:GRD send:PAST NML COP : POL PP

3

soshitara sugoku yappari genki ni nattari toka. then very after all energetic DAT become:tari toka ‘Because it seemed that he didn’t have stamina when I called him, I said “O.K.” and sent (the soup to him). Then, (he) became really well [toka].’

In (9), the speaker explains how her fiancé got much better after she sent soup to him. In this example, toka is clearly not functioning as an exemplifying particle because it is difficult to infer similar states of genki ni nattari ‘becoming well’. Rather, the use of toka at the end of the utterance has the effect of making the utterance fade out softly. Moreover, propositionally and grammatically, the

152

Yuki Taylor

speaker does not need to utter toka; the utterance in (9) would be both possible and well-formed without toka. This final toka has been decategorized from being an exemplifying particle and it has no longer any of its original exemplifying function or semantic transparency. Another example of decategorized toka involving quotative toka in the utterance-final position is illustrated in (10) below. (10) Utterance-final position of complementizer toka 1 A: hatachi o sugita kara, atashi wa otona da toka: TOP adult COP toka 20 years old ACC pass:PAST because I ‘I said something like “because I am older than 20 years old, I am an adult now”.’ 2 M: nn

nn

BCK BCK

3 A: demo . . . soo wa omotteita no yo mae wa. but that TOP think:STA : PAST NML PP before TOP ‘But . . . I thought like that before’ Speaker A looks back at her life and explains how she thought in her twenties. Because the implied main verb omou ‘to think’ is omitted after complementizer toka, the last word of the utterance is toka. Compared to other complementizers such as to, which was introduced in example (3) in Section 3.2, or tte (the informal form of to), toka expresses vagueness about what the speaker had in mind in her twenties. This use of toka results in softening the utterance as a whole. The position of toka in (9) and (10) are both utterance-final although the underlying grammatical structure of (9) is an exemplifying particle and of (10) a complementizer. However, these grammatical functions have been bleached, and these toka’s in utterance-final position are being used for pragmatic reasons to soften the statement and reduce the assertiveness of the utterance. In informal communication, a speaker simultaneously monitors the propositional content and the pragmatic effects of their utterance (Pawly and Syder 1983). In these examples, the speakers are adding toka in the utterance-final position not to add to the utterances propositional content but to create a pragmatic softening effect. These instances of softening toka function as an interactional cushion for the conversation.

6.2 Extending the scope of toka In this section, by examining the scope of toka in the examples above, I propose that through decategorization, exemplifying and quotative toka are functionally

153

The evolution of Japanese toka in utterance-final position

merged and reconstructed as a pragmatic particle. As an exemplifying particle, the scope of toka is the local item (see 3.1), as illustrated in (11), which is a partial repeat of (6) above: (11)

dokka . . . [shoppingu mooru] toka [sentaa] toka EP center EP somewhere shopping mall ‘somewhere like a shopping mall or a shopping center.’

de

mo

sa

LOC

HP

PP

The scope of the first toka is the noun phrase, shoppingu mooru ‘shopping mall’, and the scope of the second toka is also a noun phrase, sentaa ‘center’ as shown in square brackets. The scope of defocusing toka illustrated in (7) in 5.2.1 and repeated as (12) below is also the attached local item, sanjuu-go-nen ‘35 years’: (12) chiku [sanjuu (.) go-nen] toka soo iu kanji da kara that say impression COP because built thirty five years EP (It) was built thirty . . . five years ago or so, something like that, so . . . Although the function of toka in the example above is not precisely exemplifying but defocusing, similar to the softening function of utterance-final toka, the scope of toka is only the local noun phrase in square brackets. On the other hand, the scope of utterance-final toka is beyond the local phrase. As I suggested previously, utterance-final toka softens the assertiveness of the entire utterance, regardless of its underlying origin as exemplifier or complementizer. Its scope is not merely the attached element but the whole utterance. In the following example (13), a partial repeat of (9), toka is utterance-final and its scope is not local but the entire utterance: (13)

[soshitara sugoku yappari genki then very after all energetic ‘Then, (he) became really well.’

ni DAT

nattari] become:tari

toka. toka

Note that another exemplifying particle, tari, precedes toka in (13), making the exemplifying particle toka after tari grammatically and semantically redundant. In other words, utterance-final toka in (13) does not contribute any propositional meaning. Rather, it functions to soften the whole utterance. Complementizer toka in utterance-final position has the same function, as illustrated in (14), which is a repetition of a part of (10):

154

Yuki Taylor

(14) [hatachi o sugita kara, atashi wa otona da] toka TOP adult COP toka 20 years old ACC pass:PAST because I ‘Because I am older than 20 years old, I am an adult now.’ As shown in the translation above, it is difficult to translate this instance of toka into English. This quotative marker toka reduces the intensity of the speaker’s insistence. In (14), the scope of toka is the whole sentence, which reports the speaker’s thinking at the time. In both (13) and (14), utterance-final toka softens the whole utterance.

7 Concluding remarks The research presented above suggests that both exemplifying toka and quotative marker toka in utterance-final position have been decategorized and reconstructed as a pragmatic particle. This pragmatic toka is used for indirectness, fuzziness, and softening for the purposes of politeness as a communicative strategy in conversational discourse. By first examining the polysemy of toka, I suggested a synchronic stage during the process of toka’s grammaticalization, where the same form has multiple functions. Second, I demonstrated how the exemplifying particle toka and toka as a complementizer of a quotative marker in utterance-final position have been reconstructed as a pragmatic particle to soften the utterance as a whole. This extensional grammaticalization occurs through the replacement of instrumental substance by “empty ritual” (Haiman 1994) and semantic bleaching. In Japanese, the speaker expresses humbleness to lower his/her own action for the sake of showing respect to the hearer. By reducing the assertiveness of an utterance, utterance-final softening has a similar effect and is another resource for speakers to make a display of respect to the hearer. This softening function can be seen as playing a crucial role in communication; it is a manifestation of the speaker’s consideration towards the hearer.

The evolution of Japanese toka in utterance-final position

155

Abbreviations ACC BCK CLS COM CONJ COP DAT DES EP FRG GRD HP INJ INSTR IT

accusative particle back-channel classifier comittative particle conjunctive particle copula dative particle desiderative exemplifying particle fragment gerundive highlighting particle interjection instrumental particle interactional element

LK LOC NEG NML NOM PAST POL PP Q QT SE SNG SOF STA TOP

linker locative particle negative nominalizer nominative past polite suffix pragmatic particle question marker quotative marker sentence extender singular softening element stative topic marking

References Dahl, Östen. 1985. Tense and aspect systems. New York: Oxford. Du Bois, John W., Stephan Schuetze-Coburn, Susanna Cumming & Danae Paolino. 1993. Outline of discourse transcription. In Jane A. Edwards & Martin D. Lampert (eds.), Talking data: transcription and coding in discourse research, 45–89. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlabaum. Fillmore, Charles. 1979. On fluency. In Charles Fillmore, Daniel Kempler & William Wang (eds.), Individual differences in language ability and language behavior, 85–101. New York: Academic Press. Grice, H. Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Peter Cole & Jerrold Morgan (eds.) Speech acts, 41–58. New York: Academic Press. Haiman, John. 1994. Ritualization and the development of language. In William Pagliuca (ed.), Perspectives on grammaticalization, 3–28. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Heine, Bernd. 2002. On the role of context in grammaticalization. In Ilse Wischer & Gabriele Diewald (eds.), New reflections of grammaticalization, 83–101. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Hopper, Paul J. 1991. On some principles of grammaticalization. In Elisabeth C. Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization 1. 17–35. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hopper, Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1984. The discourse basis for lexical categories in universal grammar. Language 60. 703–762. Hopper, Paul J. & Elisabeth C. Traugott. 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

156

Yuki Taylor

Iguchi, Yuko. 1998. Functional variety in the Japanese conjunctive particle kara ‘because’. In Toshio Ohori (ed.), Studies in Japanese grammaticalization – Cognitive and discourse perspectives, 99–134. Tokyo: Kuroshio. Iwasaki, Shoichi. 2000. Procedures for “Speech segmentation”. Unpublished manuscript. Kamio, Akio. 1994. Theory of territory of information. Journal of Pragmatics 21. 67–100. Kuno, Susumu. 1973. Nihon bunpoo kenkyuu [Studies in Japanese grammar]. Tokyo: Taishuukan Shoten. Langacker, Ronald W. 2000. A dynamic usage-based model. In Michael Barlow & Suzanne Kemmer (eds.), Usage-based models of language, 1–63. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications. Maynard, Senko. 1989. Japanese conversation: Self-contextualization through structure and interactional management. Norwood: Ablex. Maynard, Senko. 1997. Japanese communication: Language and thought in context. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Mori, Junko. 1999. Negotiating agreement and disagreement in Japanese. Philadelphia: Benjamins. Murata, Mihoko. 1994. Bokashi hyougen no shin-houkou [New report of vague expressions]. Kokubungaku kaishaku to kanshou 59(7). 119–126. Pawley, Andrew and Frances Hodgetts Syder. 1983. Natural selection in syntax: Notes on adaptive variation and change in vernacular and literary grammar. Journal of Pragmatics 7. 551–579. Shirakawa, Hiroyuki. (ed.). 2001. Chuujookyuu o oshieru hito no tame no nihongo bunpo handbook [A handbook of Japanese grammar for people who teach intermediate-advanced level]. Tokyo: 3A Network. Taylor, Yuki. 2010. Functions of Japanese exemplifying particles in spoken and written discourse. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. Traugott, Elizabeth C. 1989. On the rise of epistemic meanings in English: An example of subjectification in semantic change. Language 65(1). 31–55.

Rumiko Shinzato

7 Two Types of Conditionals and Two Different Grammaticalization Paths This paper discusses two types of ba-conditionals in Japanese. The first type has an embedded verb of saying in its original constructions (= quotative conditionals). It expresses various speaker attitudes and has become decategorized as a sentence-final particle (= SFP), while the second type, with no embedded verb of saying (= ‘regular’ conditionals) has not fully grammaticalized as a SFP. In this paper, four possible factors are considered for this divergent development: (1) the internal morphological make-up; (2) the protasis-apodosis relationship; (3) (non-)inclusion of a verb of saying; and (4) (non-)invocation of counterexpectation. Further, it recognizes two subtypes in quotative conditionals: those with and those without phonological contraction of the original strings. It is argued that these phonological variants have distinct meanings and functions. This paper notes that quotative conditionals show diachronic change in terms of subjectification (Langacker 1990) and (inter)subjectification (Traugott 2003). Key words: conditionals, verbs of saying, phonological variants, (inter)subjectification

1 Introduction This paper discusses two types of ba-conditionals and their divergent developmental paths.1 The first type, which is referred to in this paper as “regular” conditionals, has developed so-called sentence-final usage, expressing condition, suggestion and wish (Hayes and Shinzato 2001). However, these meanings are

1 This paper is based on part of my presentation at the International Conference on Final Particles (FiPa 2010) held at the University of Rouen on May 27–28, 2010. I am grateful to the insightful comments that I received from the audience. I would also like to express my gratitude to Katsunobu Izutsu, Mitsuko Izutsu, and Sung-Ock Sohn for their inspiring comments at the inception of this paper. I am deeply indebted to Satoko Suzuki for consultation over her papers, and Foong Ha Yap for reading the draft and providing me with thoughtful and eye-opening feedback, which improved this paper greatly. Nonetheless, any remaining errors are my sole responsibility. Rumiko Shinzato, Georgia Institute of Technology

158

Rumiko Shinzato

deduced from the deleted apodoses and thus their status as full-fledged sentencefinal particles (henceforth SFP) are still disputable.2 The second type, referred to as quotative conditionals, involves a verb of saying in its original strings, expresses various speaker attitudes and is decategorized as a SFP, as the existence of the apodosis is no longer felt. Put in another way, the first type has the apodosis truncated, thus the conditional construction is incomplete by itself, and as a result, invites the addressee to fill in the expected, but unstated apodoses (Shirakawa 1995 inter alia). In contrast, the second type is complete by itself, where the grammaticalized SFPs are no longer taken to be part of the conditional protases. In fact, the original conditional protasis is reanalyzed as an independent sentence + SFP, where the SFP is equipped with its own illocutionary force, like other SFPs. This paper seeks possible factors that led the two conditionals to develop into two distinct speech acts. As such factors, this paper suggests (1) the internal morphological make-up, (2) the protasis-apodosis relationship; (3) the presence or absence of the inclusion of a verb of saying in the constructions; and (4) with/ without the invocation of counter-expectation. From the point of view of grammaticalization, this paper notes that the quotative conditionals show a diachronic change of subjectification (Langacker 1990) and (inter)subjectification (cf. Traugott 2003). Furthermore, it recognizes two subtypes of quotative conditionals: one in which the original strings (quotative particle + verb of saying + conditional particle) are phonologically collapsed and contracted, and the other with no such phonological contractions. Subsequently, it stresses that these phonological variants are not free variations, but rather have distinct meanings and functions. It then discusses the implication of these two subtypes for the relation to the regular conditionals. In passing, this paper also touches upon a pair of gerundive constructions, which parallel the two conditionals dealt with in this paper in their internal make-up and, accordingly, in their functions as well.

2 Two types of conditionals: Functions and Development This section first compares the two types of conditionals in their functions and then traces their historical development. Following that, it analyzes the two subtypes of quotative conditionals in their functions and development. 2 Very often, the former is characterized as shuujoshi yoohooo ‘the sentence-final particle usage’ (Gen 2010) or “unfinished” sentences with -tara and -reba (Shirakawa 1995). The latter makes into a dictionary entry as SFP (e.g. Daijirin), but the former does not.

Two Types of Conditionals and Two Different Grammaticalization Paths

159

2.1 Functional differences between -tara, -eba and -ttara, -tteba The regular conditionals, X-tara/X-eba ‘if’, express the meanings of condition, suggestion and wish, as in (i)–(iii), where expected/formulaic apodoses, doo suru/naru ‘how/what + do/be(come)’, doo ‘how’ and ii ‘good’ respectively, are left unstated: (i) X-tara/-eba? ‘What if it’s X?’ < X-tara/-eba, doo suru/naru? ‘How/What would you do if it’s X? or How/ What would that be if it’s X?’ (ii) X-tara/-eba? ‘Why don’t you do X?’ < X-tara/-eba doo? ‘How would it be if you do X?’3 (iii) X-tara/-eba . . .‘I wish it were X’ < X-tara/-eba ii. ‘It would be good if it were X’ The following are examples of such usage of -tara (or its phonological variant -dara) in (1) and eba in (2), taken from modern Japanese novels: (1)

a.

Kinuko:

Moshi, sonna koto ni kakawariat-tara. . . If that.kind.of things in involve-tara ‘What if (Kyoko) is involved in that kind of thing (marijuana-smoking)?’

Sayaka:

Kyooko Kyoko

wa TOP

keshite never

sonna that.kind.of

koto things

wa TOP

yara-nai to omoimasu. QUOT think do-NEG I think Kyoko will never do that kind of thing.’ (Pale Purple Weekend) b.

Kyoo Today

wa TOP

moo already

yame-tara? quit-tara

Okaasan mother

ga SBJ

nekon-dara, get.sick-tara

watashi mo komaru. I also in.trouble ‘Why don’t you quit for today? If you (=mother) get sick, I will be in trouble, too.’ (Pale Purple Weekend) c.

‘Ohayoo, Chie’ tte itte kure-tara. good.morning Chie QUOT say for.me-tara ‘(Referring to her father just passed away), I wish he would get up and say “Good morning, Chie”.’ (Okurete Kita Kyaku)

3 For a more fine-grained classification of this category involving interpersonal relationships of the participants, see Gen (2010).

160 (2)

Rumiko Shinzato

a.

b.

c.

A:

Jaa, takakere-ba? then expensive-COND ‘What if it’s expensive?’

B:

Soshitara kawa-nai. then buy-NEG ‘Then I won’t buy it.’ (constructed example)

A:

Shukudai sun-da-nda. homework finish-PST-it’s.that ‘It’s that I finished my homework.’

B:

Jaa, yoshuu demo yat-toke-ba? then preparation things.like do-in.advance-COND ‘Why don’t you do things like preparation in advance? (Niji ni Mukatte Hashire)

Shikamo in addition mon

ne.

SFP

SFP

hoka other

no GEN

onna-no-ko girls

mo also

koroshite-i-ta kill-be-PST

ndesu it’s.that

Moo sukoshi hayaku wakatte-ire-ba more a bit early know-be-COND ‘In addition, it’s that he had also killed other girls. I wish I had known about it a bit earlier . . .’ (N to M Tantei-kyoku Akuma o Oitsumero) Compared to regular conditionals, which merely invite the addressee to fill in the unsaid, quotative conditionals act on the addressee to urge his/her acts or alter his/her beliefs. If the first type could be characterized as an invitation, this type may be characterized as imposition.4 The following examples illustrate this. The SFPs ttara and tteba preceded by the imperative forms in (3a) and (4a) give the sense that the speaker is irritated and annoyed, while the same particles in (3b) and (4b) preceded by the finite form indicate the speaker’s insistence and strong assertive stance on the comment: (3) a. Chotto omoi wa yo. Doite-ttara. hey heavy SFP SFP get.off.IMP-ttara ‘Hey. You’re heavy, you know. Get off me!’ (Isogashii Hanayome) b. Marude kyoohaku da na. Warui koto ja nai-ttara things COP NEG . FINITE -ttara like accusatory COP SFP bad ‘(Asked what he is cooking up with his friend behind) Your tone is so accusatory. It’s nothing bad!’ (Shoonen no Umi) 4 Functional differences similar to invitation vs. imposition are reported in what Izutsu and Izutsu (2010) call truncated/hanging ‘but’ and backshifted ‘but’.

Two Types of Conditionals and Two Different Grammaticalization Paths

(4)

a.

b.

A:

Hanase! Hanase let.me.go.IMP let.me.go.IMP ‘Le me go! Let me go!’

161

yo! SFP

B:

Hori-kun ne! Anata, konna koto o shite (. . .) this.kind.of things OBJ do (. . .) Hori-DIM SFP you ‘(You’re) Hori, aren’t you! You are doing this kind of thing (. . .)’

A:

Hanase-tteba! Kono yaroo! bitch let.me.go.IMP- tteba this ‘Let me go! This bitch!’ (Akuma no yoona Onna)

Kore, this

awa-nai match-NEG

nda5 it’s.that

tteba! tteba

Nando how.many.times

itt-tara say-COND

wakaru no yo! understand NOM SFP ‘It doesn’t match! How many times do I (have to) tell to make you understand!’ (Niji ni Mukatte Hashire)

2.2 Historical development of regular conditionals: -tara, -eba 2.2.1 -tara This conditional originally appeared in a construction in which the irrealis form -tara of the perfect auxiliary tari was followed by the conditional particle ba, as follows: -tara (irrealis form of the perfect auxiliary tari) + ba (conditional particle). The string -tara ba initially expressed conditionality ‘if’ but later came to express temporality ‘when’ as well, depending on the certainty the speaker feels about the content of the proposition.6 This string then lost the conditional particle around the late 16th to early 17th C (Sakakura 1993: 111–113), as -tara ba > -taryaa > -tara,7 but kept its conditional meaning and its apodosis. In present-day Japanese, the extended meanings of suggestion and wish were developed along with the loss of the apodosis, as shown in (1) above. Example (5) comes from one of the earliest texts, Manyooshuu (8th C): 5 Nda is a grammaticalized form of the nominalizer no + the copula da (finite form). 6 See Akatsuka’s (1985) epistemic scale. 7 An alternative etymology for -tara is given by Yoshida (1971): tare (realis form) + ba > tarya > tara. Sakakura (1993) convincingly disputes Yoshida’s etymology. Thus, in this paper, Sakakura’s etymology is adopted.

162 (5)

Rumiko Shinzato

Okitsumo-no-hana saki-tara-ba ware ni tsuge koso to tell.IMP SFP duckweed flower bloom-PRF.IR-COND me ‘If the duckweed flowers have bloomed (in the ocean), please let me know.’ (Manyooshuu 7: 1248, 8th C)

2.2.2 -eba This conditional originally consisted of the realis form of a predicate followed by the conditional particle ba as in -e (realis form) + ba (conditional particle), and did not express conditionality, but rather it expressed temporality, as in (6a), and causality, as in (6b). However, in the course of its development, the conditional meaning evolved around late 16th to early 17th C, as the realis forms superseded the irrealis forms in the history of Japanese (Matsumura 1971: 670) and took over its conditional function. Examples (6a) and (6b) are some of the earliest attested examples of this form. Present-day examples with the new usages were shown in (2) above. (6)

a.

(. . .) kaheri mi-sur-eba tsuki katabuki-nu (. . .) turn.around see-HOR-TEMPORAL moon setting-PRF ‘(. . .) When I turned around, I saw the setting moon.’ (Manyooshuu 1: 48, 8th C)

b.

samuku shi ar-eba asabusuma hiki-kagahuri EMPH be-CAUSE linen.blanket pull-cover cold ‘Since it was so cold, I pulled and covered myself with a linen blanket.’ (Manyooshuu 5: 892, 8th C)

2.3 Historical development of the quotative conditionals: -ttara, -tteba The second type of conditionals, -ttara and -tteba, had a verb of saying – the verb ihu – in their make-up and thus meant ‘if/when one says X’, as below (the first of the say verb pair is the older form): (i) X to (ihi / it) -tara -(ba) Y (ii) X to (ihe /ie) -(ba) Y PRF COND Y X QUOT say/say The phonological and semantic/functional changes occurred as depicted in Figure 1 (cf. Shinzato 2007: 184). From left to right, one may envision the increasingly strengthened force exerted towards the addressee.

Two Types of Conditionals and Two Different Grammaticalization Paths

Stage 1 (Adv.clauses)

163

Stage 2 (Formulaic declaratives) Stage 3 (SFP)

X to (ihi / it)-tara-(ba) Y X to it-tara X X to (ihe / ie-(ba) Y X to ie-ba X ‘If/When one says X, then Y’ ‘When I say X, it’s X’

X ttara X tteba ‘You confirm/comply with X’

Figure 1: Developmental Stages of Quotative Conditionals into Sentence-Final Particles

Taking X to (ihi/it) tara ba as an example, the three stages are illustrated in (7) below: (7) a. (. . .) senaka wo nagashite-kudasee to it-tara. . . babaame OBJ wash-give.IMP QUOT say-when hag (. . .) back ga tawashi wo motte kiyagatte o-senaka wo (pot)scrubbing brush OBJ bring came HOR-back OBJ

SBJ

araimashoo ka to nukashiyagaru. Q QUOT say wash ‘(. . .) When I said, “Please wash my back,” an old hag came with a (pot) scrubbing brush and said, “May I scrub your back?”’ (Tokaidoochu Hizakurige 1802–1809) b. Moo oritekuretamae. (. . .) already step.down.IMP (. . .) Oriro to i-ttara ori-ta ga ii ja-nai ka. step down.IMP QUOT say-when step.down-PST SBJ good COP-NEG Q ‘Step down! (. . .) Wouldn’t it better to step down when I say so?’ (Ukigumo 1887) c. Chotto omoi wa yo. Doite-ttara. hey heavy SFP SFP get.off-ttara ‘Hey. You are heavy. Get off!’ (Isogashii Hanayome 1986) Example (7a) represents the first stage, where the temporal string to ittara simply quotes what someone8 said rather matter-of-factly. In contrast, in example (7b) of the second stage, the same string expresses the speaker’s irritation, annoyance

8 Example (7a) is actually what was said by the speaker himself. But it should be noted that the subject I here is not the same as the speaking-self. The subject here is a projected-self separate from the speaking-self. In Langacker’s (1990: 11) stage model, this is the on-stage I (projected-self) vis-à-vis the off-stage I (speaking-self). Another analogy would be the image of the painter in his self-portrait vis-à-vis the painter himself (cf. Maynard 1997: 191).

164

Rumiko Shinzato

and insistence. This high emotivity stems from the fact that it is the speaker himself saying it in the immediate speech context and what is more, it takes a repetitive construction, ‘If I say X, it is X’. In other words, it has the ingredients for a performative sentence (I-here-now), which is executed in an effective and forceful construction. In the third stage (7c), the reduced string ttara no longer takes the form of a quote, nor does it indicate whose quote it is overtly. Instead, it puts the addressee in focus and functions as a SFP to direct the emotive force to the addressee so as to get the addressee to act in the speaker’s intended way. From a theoretical standpoint, the 2nd and the 3rd stages are consistent with Langacker’s notion of subjectification, as the object of conception invokes the ground (the speaker) as a reference point. This is the construal relationship what Langacker calls the “subjective axis”. Contrastingly, in the first stage, the external event – e.g. talking to the old lady in (13a) – is construed objectively without invoking the ground, and this relationship is characterized as the “objective axis”. For Langacker (1990: 17), subjectification is “the realignment of some relationship from the objective axis to the subjective axis.”9 In terms of Traugott’s notion of subjectification and intersubjectification as quoted below from Traugott (2003), the 2nd and the 3rd stages represent subjectification and intersubjectification respectively. This is because the meaning at the 2nd stage is more centered on the speaker, while it is the addressee that comes into focus at the 3rd stage: “(. . .) while subjectification is a mechanism whereby meanings become more deeply centered on the SP[eaker]/W[riter], intersubjectification is a mechanism whereby meanings become more centered on the addressee (. . .) The hypothesis is that, for any lexeme L, intersubjectification is historically later than and arises out of subjectification.” (Traugott 2003: 128)

2.4 Two subgroups of quotative conditionals: uncontracted vs. contracted What was portrayed in section 2.3 does not depict the entire picture of the development of the quotative conditionals because of the coexisting sentence-final uncontracted variants at the 3rd stage, which are functionally different from their contracted counterparts. Firstly, the uncontracted strings did not grammaticalize as 9 In his later work, Langacker (2006: 21) revises this definition over the treatment of the subjective axis being non-existent to immanent at the beginning of the process, but the directionality of the change remains the same.

Two Types of Conditionals and Two Different Grammaticalization Paths

165

SFPs. Secondly, sentence-finally, their functions parallel those of the regular conditionals, as shown in the following minimal pairs culled from blog entries. The first sentences in (8) and (9) are uncontracted quotative conditionals, which express “suggestion” in both cases similar to the regular conditional (1b) and (2b). The second sentences are SFPs in both cases, adding the speaker’s irritation, insistence, imposition, etc. as in (3) and (4). (8)

a.

‘Yamete tte it-tara?’ to watashi ga iu to (. . .) SBJ say when (. . .) quit.IMP QUOT say-tara QUOT I ‘When I said, “why don’t you tell (him) to quit?” (. . .)’10

b.

Tameiki tsuku no sigh breathe NOM ‘Quit breathing sighs!’11

yamete-ttara quit-ttara

(9) a. Shoogaisha ga kite toire o tsukai-tai to ie-ba, handicapped SUB come toilet OBJ use-want QUOT say-COND ‘Koko ni wa nai tte ie-ba?’ to no koto deshi-ta. here in TOP non-existent QUOT say-COND QUOT GEN message COP-PST ‘The message was “Why don’t you tell him we don’t have one here?” if a handicapped person comes and says that he wants to use the toilet.’12 b. Uchi ni wa nai-tteba!! Kudoi-na. our.house in TOP non.existent-tteba pest-SFP ‘We don’t have one at our house!! Don’t be a pest.’13 Thus, having identified two subtypes within the realm of the quotative conditionals and incorporating them in the typological analysis of regular and quotative conditionals, the functional cline below can be obtained. The uncontracted variants align themselves structurally with quotative conditionals because of the inclusion of a verb of saying, but functionally they are similar to the truncated regular conditionals:

10 Source of (8a): http://okwave.jp/qa/q3454867.html (blog entry, last visited 6 June 2014) 11 From http://www.geocities.jp/sakura_moondrop/novel/valentine.html (blog entry, last visited 6 June 2014) 12 From http://union-milme.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2010/05/post-0e15.html (blog entry, last visited 6 June 2014) 13 From http://kohada.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/csaloon/1324475248/ (blog entry, last visited 6 June 2014)

166

Rumiko Shinzato

Regular cond.

– Quotative (uncontracted) – Quotative (contracted) cond. cond.

X-tara/X-e ba

X to it-tara/to i-eba

X ttara /X tteba

sentence-final usage

sentence-final usage

sentence-final particle (SFP)

invitation

invitation

insistence/imposition

A slight digression from the current discussion (quotative conditionals > sentencefinal forms), but nonetheless relevant, is the fact that a similar contrast between uncontracted and contracted quotative conditionals is also seen in the grammaticalization paths of the quotative conditionals to topic markers.14 According to Shinzato and Suzuki (2007: 177), the following semantic/functional differences are noted in coexisting uncontracted and contracted pairs: X to i(h)e-ba/it-tara Y: (a) X has been recently introduced (or evoked) in the discourse. (b) The X-Y relationship is pre-established. Y is expected. X tteba/ttara Y: (c) X may or may not be recently mentioned. (d) Y is counter to expectation. For instance, in (10) the uncontracted topic marker to ittara shows that the relationship between the contextually evoked topic ‘New Year’ and its comment, ‘watching the comedies on TV’ is natural and expected, since that is what everyone does over New Year’s holidays. On the other hand, in (11), the topic otoosama marked with the contracted topic marker, ttara, indicates the unexpected connection between topic and comment. As seen in the translation, what the father did in (11) is a total surprise to the speaker: (10)

Shoogatsu to it-tara owarai desu. New-Year speaking of comedy COP ‘Speaking of the New Year, it is time for comedies.’ (Nobu 417.net) (Shinzato and Suzuki 2007)

(11)

[I don’t know when I will be able to wear it, but] otoosama-ttara kinoo katte-oide- ninat-ta no yesterday buy-come-HOR-PST NOM father-TOP

yo (. . .) SFP (. . .)

Okashina otoosama deshoo? funny father isn’t.he ‘My father, (to my surprise), bought a hat for me yesterday. Isn’t he funny?’ (Kaze Tachinu 1938) 14 This is reminiscent of Haiman’s (1978) well-known claim that conditionals are topics.

Two Types of Conditionals and Two Different Grammaticalization Paths

167

The uncontracted version simply establishes the previously introduced item as a topic and provides an expected comment straightforwardly, while the contracted variant adds the speaker’s emotion, such as surprise. Thus, it is evident that the contracted version is more subjective than the uncontracted version (see also Scheibman (2000)’s account of I don’t know vs. I dunno and Shinzato and Masuda (2009) on the Japanese adverb yahari ‘as expected’ vs. the pragmatic marker yappa). To recapitulate, phonological variants are not free variations, but are distinct functionally and semantically. Furthermore, the functional and semantic differences between uncontracted and contracted forms are similar both at the right periphery (i.e. quotative conditionals > sentence-final forms) and at the left periphery (i.e. quotative conditionals > topic markers). That is, chronologically newer, innovative forms such as sentence-final forms and topic markers are more subjective than their original counterparts.

2.5 Brief summary of development To sum up, Section 2 delineated the developmental paths of the two conditionals: the regular and the quotative conditionals. Along the path for the regular conditionals (-tara and -eba), a simple truncation of the apodosis occurred, thereby inviting the addressee to fill in the deleted, but easily recoverable formulaic apodosis. The other path led the quotative conditionals to the decategorization as full-fledged SFPs. The result of such decategorization is a reanalysis of the quotative conditional protases as ‘full sentence + SFP’ since the deleted apodoses are no longer felt relevant. Here, SFPs are interpreted as adding an emotional coloring. The developmental path of the quotative conditionals to the SFPs ttara and tteba involves subjectification in the sense of the more profiled construal of the subjective axis (ground) in Langacker’s notion, or (inter)subjectification in Traugott’s sense of speaker/hearer centeredness. Within the realm of quotative conditionals two subtypes are identified: uncontracted vs. contracted. It was argued that such phonological variants do not simply translate as free variations, as they are different structurally and functionally. It was shown that uncontracted quotative conditionals exhibit close structural affinity to their contracted counterparts, but functionally they align with regular conditionals (cf. cline in Section 2.4).

168

Rumiko Shinzato

3 What triggered such divergent paths? The previous section delineated the diverging developmental paths of the two conditionals. A question might arise as to what triggered such a divergence. In response, this section suggests four factors: (1) the internal morphological makeup; (2) the protasis-apodosis relationships from the point of view of clausecombining (Hopper and Traugott 1993); (3) the inclusion of a verb of saying; and (4) the applicability of the rhetoric of counter-expectation. What follows addresses each factor in detail.

3.1 Internal make-up The term “internal make-up” in this paper refers to the conjugational forms to which the two conditionals are appended. The regular conditionals -tara and -eba take either the stem or the realis conjugational forms, as in (12) and (13) respectively, which are based on ex. (1) and (2) above. Neither of them can stand alone without the conditional markers, -tara and -eba, as substantiated by the ungrammaticality of the stem-/realis-ending sentences in (12a–c) and (13a–c). On the other hand, the grammaticalized quotative conditionals ttara and tteba take the imperative or finite conjugational forms as in (14) and (15), both of which can stand alone as full-fledged sentences even without ttara and tteba, as in (14a–b) and (15a–b): (12) Stem-tara a. *(. . .) kakawariat (. . .) (< (. . .) kakawariat-tara (. . .) cf. 1a) b. *Kyoo wa moo yame. (< Kyoo wa moo yame-tara? cf. 1b) c. *‘Ohayoo, Chie’ tte itte-kure. ( subjective > intersubjective. In particular, it is shown that the various meanings associated with the final particle but have an interactional function in the BNC, showing the implicit participation of the interlocutor, whereas in the NECTE corpus they have an interactive function, explicitly involving the participation of the interlocutor. It is demonstrated that final but is an instance of pragmaticization in Southern English whereas it is a matter of grammaticalization in Newcastle English. Sociolinguistic criteria (sex, age, socio-economic class, region) are also considered to identify the distribution of final but in Britain. The semantic behaviour of the final particle but is then accounted for in terms of Brown & Levinson’s theory of politeness.1 Key words: final particle; conjunction; discourse marker; grammaticalization; pragmaticalization.

1 Introduction Final but has recently been the focus of much attention in American English and in Australian English (Mulder & Thompson 2008, Mulder, Thompson & Williams 2009) but it has not been explored in other dialects of English. This analysis is meant to close the gap and complements existing studies on the particle by offering a semantic-pragmatic analysis of final but in British English, namely 1 The author would like to thank Martin Secular, along with Kate Korrigan and her students for their help in the interpretation of the data. Sylvie Hancil, University of Rouen

198

Sylvie Hancil

by comparing the behaviour of the particle in Southern English and in Northern English. Because the use of the particle is a matter of spoken English, this paper presents a synchronic analysis of final but in the spoken demographic section of the British National Corpus (henceforth BNC-SD) and in the Newcastle Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English (NECTE). The spoken demographic section of the BNC is an almost 5 million-word corpus; it contains the transcriptions of spontaneous natural conversations produced by volunteers of various age groups, social classes and originating from different regions. These conversations were produced in different situations, including formal business or government meetings to conversations on radio shows and phone-ins. These were to account for both the demographic distribution of spoken language and those of linguistically significant variation due to context. According to our statistics, mainly Southern English is represented. So a nice contrast can be made with the examination of Northern Eastern English in the Newcastle Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English (NECTE), an almost 1 million-word corpus, which is based on two pre-existing corpora representing audio-recorded speech: one of them from the late-60s’ Tyneside Linguistic Survey (TLS) project, which includes Tyneside speakers talking about their life stories and their attitudes to the local dialect; and the other from the 1994 Phonological Variation and Change in Contemporary Spoken English (PVC) project, which comprises dyads of Tyneside friends and relatives talking about a large variety of topics. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 offers a quantitative analysis in the two corpora. Section 3 studies final but in the light of Hopper’s (1991) five principles of grammaticalization: divergence, layering, specialization, persistence and decategorization. Section 4 focuses on the socio-linguistic criteria (sex, age, socio-economic class, region) which are associated with the distribution of the marker in Britain. Section 5 complements the analysis by examining the semantic evolution of but, using the four pragmatic-semantic regularities illustrated in Traugott & Dasher (2002). The interactional forces which involve the participation of the interlocutor in conversation will be understood in terms of discourse strategy (section 6), which will lead us to see in section 7 how the use of final but can be accounted for by Brown & Levinson’s (1987) theory of politeness.

2 Quantitative analysis In the BNC-SD (see Table 1), there are 27,667 occurrences of but (0.56% of the total) and 78 tokens of final but (0.28% of all the occurrences of but), hence 16 occurrences of this marker per one million words. In the NECTE corpus (see

Grammaticalization of final but: from conjunction to final particle

199

Table 1), the percentage of the number of tokens of but (0.79%) is superior to that in the BNC-SD (0.56%) by 41%. So we would expect an increase of the percentage of final but in the same proportions in the NECTE corpus. In fact, we find a 470% increase compared to the results in the BNC-SD. There are 113 occurrences of final but (1.60% of the total of but, therefore 124 occurrences of this marker per one million words). Therefore it would be worthwhile examining the semantic, pragmatic and syntactic evolution of this marker. Table 1: Number of occurrences of final but in the spoken demographic section of the BNC and in the NECTE corpus Corpus

BNC-SD

NECTE

Nb of words Total nb of but Total nb of final but

4,890 m 27,667 (0.56%) 78 (0.28% of the total nb of but)

918,354 7,288 (0.79%) 113 (1.55% of the total nb of but)

3 Five principles of grammaticalization (Hopper 1991) Based on Hopper’s (1991) five principles of grammaticalization, five semanticpragmatic values can be identified: a value of contrast, a value of doubt, an anaphoric value, a cataphoric value and an intensifying value.

3.1 Principle 1: Layering The principle of layering refers to the fact that an emerging form does not automatically replace an existing expression for the grammatical phenomenon examined, thereby explaining that old and new forms co-exist. Thus the already existing initial but co-exists with the emerging final but, the latter being in competition with another new form, final though, relating to the preceding utterance which might lead to an inadmissable inference. The examples illustrating this principle of layering are in (1)–(4): (1)

I think we ought to give all this another dimension in churches. That one would be thankful of the fact that Christ has spoke and talked about life. Now, this approach was criticised by the Orthodox church representatives as merely criticism an attempt to unify different faiths. But many of us saw it as an approach which emphasised the need to allow the faith of Christ to be incarnated within particular culture. (BNC, KB0)

200 (2)

Sylvie Hancil

A:

proper little del boy

B:

oh yeah did you see that the other night

A:

no I meant to set the timer but I taped something completely different (NECTE, pvc01)

(3)

Oh that’s very naughty. Right. Definitely smoking. Well, we were sitting there doing the VAT and I thought, I don’t know that’s just not but How much is it when you want to go cinema? Oh, about two seventy five I think but I’m not sure Is it as little as that? it might be more but. Well I’d either do it that way or pay, erm, credit cards. I don’t really take any notice. Terrible Naughty, isn’t it? I don’t think it’s terrible White Fang. Oh what on earth’s that? It’s the latest Disney extravaganza, and a wolf cub in it, oh Kirsty loves. Oh isn’t it? No, it says here, the story of a young wolf. (BNC, KBH)

(4)

A:

that’s right but ehm we always i i took a b tec national equivalent to two a levels but it’s nowhere near as hard is it

B:

no not really

A:

people just seems to have all the time off but i mean you know a levels weren’t that hard but

B:

yeah it’s vocational as well

A:

mm

B: bit more eh well use (NECTE, pvc10)

3.2 Principle 2: Divergence The principle of divergence shows that existing forms take on new meanings in specific contexts. A large variety of meanings of final but is exemplified in the following examples, extending from expressions of doubt to intensifiers, via cataphoric/anaphoric values and phatic expressions (i.e. fillers). The indication of doubt, which can be paraphrased by I am not sure, is only present in the NECTE corpus with a very low percentage (5.3% of the total number of occurrences, i.e. 6 occurrences), which is the lowest percentage among the new meanings in the NECTE corpus, as illustrated in (5) and (6):

Grammaticalization of final but: from conjunction to final particle

(5)

201

B:

because eh the Newcastle manager had a bit of a go at him like the the eh kids things so he just told the bloke there he didn’t ever want to play again and he didn’t bit of a waste really like isn’t it

A:

yeah I suppose but

B: I wouldn’t have done that like i’m sure i would have played on (NECTE, pvc10) (6)

A:

it would have been a good experience mind

B:

yeah

A:

to see the show

B:

mm hm

A:

but again it’s just the bus

B:

if it had been staying overnight I might have gone but

A:

yeah

B:

A:

would be good

B:

like that leeds trip we went to well I went to with my english class to see that play that was awful (NECTE, pvc09)

Final but can take an anaphoric value, when it points to already existent information in the preceding context. There are very few occurrences in the BNC-SD (4 occurrences, 5.1% of the total) but there is a significant number of examples (18 occurrences, 15.9%) in the NECTE corpus, as exemplified in (7)–(8): (7)

Mm well I rem And Robin and L and erm Carol doing that er cabbage cabbage Oh that revolting That was horrible. That was terrible. I remember Jill though. I don’t remember the mix but mm I don’t know that, I vaguely remember now, yes but Oh they were all there Mm. because we’d gone out, I think it was the christmas shopping we were doing on our own. Was it? Mm. Mm. Yes I’ve got a hazy recollection but. Mm. Jill’ll remember. But she was a lot younger surely, Jill? And she’d be a bit Oh she’d be young, erm Younger than them I mean. (BNC, KBP)

202 (8)

Sylvie Hancil

A:

mm hm I don’t know my things are all different colours you see

B:

but I like red well I suppose mine are all different things but

A:

like I’ve got a pale colour you see i want the cream ones

B: if they’re if they’re a sort of like diff all different colours I’d wear black (NECTE, pvc12) The percentage of examples with a cataphoric interpretation, namely referring to information in the coming context, is three times as high as that for an anaphoric meaning (15.4%, 12 occurrences) in the BNC-SD corpus, whereas in the NECTE corpus, the percentage is slightly lower (12.4%) for the same meaning, as shown in (9)–(10): (9)

Unfortunately I haven’t got any spare earth to put it . I’ve got an idea I read that salt of course kitchen salt does it, which I imagine would kill most anything. Well yes. Yes, and it might kill the flowers off, but. It was just that erm, if you do it gently, layer by layer Yes you’ll probably come across those little yes interlaced mats yeah which I think are the spores aren’t they? (BNC, KC9)

(10)

A:

was that the other night

B:

ehm what day is it

A:

it would have

B:

friday

A:

it would have been not last night but

B:

wednesday

A:

yeah she said that she saw him

B:

yeah

A:

because I was out with her last night

B: because he rang up (NECTE, pvc13) The marking of emphasis, which can be paraphrased as really, reaches almost 18% (14 occurrences) in the BNC-SD but it is twice as high in the NECTE corpus (34.5%, 39 occurrences), as illustrated in (11)–(12):

Grammaticalization of final but: from conjunction to final particle

203

(11)

people keep using the water cos they very careful on using the water Yes. but if I’d have give it , had to give them some water they’d have done much better but I, like everybody else we kept hoping it were gonna rain, but! That’s right. Yeah. And it never did at the right. No. time. No. (BNC, KC0)

(12)

A:

well you get a laugh at some of them

B:

mm yes that’s true but

A:

never really bothered with them

B: yeah (NECTE, tlsg10) The use of the marker but with a phatic value, namely that of a filler, represents 24.4% of the occurrences (19) in the BNC-SD, namely the highest percentage among the newly created meanings in the BNC-SD, whereas it includes 17.7% of the occurrences (20) in the NECTE corpus, namely the second most represented percentage among the newly created meanings in this corpus, as exemplified in (13)–(14): (13)

Ah lovely, thank you so much, that’s from, from Sylvie. Yes. Yes oh lovely, aah. That’s the one, that , this is a, a one, this is When they come. Do they come out ? Yes this is a magazine. I’ll get you the catalogue, I have the catalogue upstairs. Oh, have some. yeah. Beautiful. This is. I like. I wouldn’t know him, but. No, I wouldn’t know. I. Yes,. But, someone to sometimes. Yes, I don’t like it. Er romantic and so you don’t like it? No, I have to get a terrible picture of cows up close, huge huge and , and . Have. Yeah yeah. Does that come out every month? Every month, I’ll give you one every month, if you want. You’re joking. (BNC, KCV)

(14)

B:

it’s a bit nasty on work experience like isn’t it

A:

yeah exactly i suppose they’re trying to get you what it’s really like but

B:

yeah

A: that’s their excuse (NECTE, pvc10) In this section, the data show that compared to the results in the BNC-SD, the contrastive value is dramatically losing ground in the northern part of the

204

Sylvie Hancil

country and is counterbalanced by an increase in the anaphoric value and, above all, in the intensifying value. The use as a filler is also less popular in Geordie English than in Southern English. Here is an overview of the different semantic functions of final but (Table 2): Table 2: Overview of the different semantic functions of final but Corpus/ Semantic Values of final but

BNC-SD

NECTE

Contrast Doubt Anaphor Cataphor Intensifier Filler Total

29 (37.2%) 0 (0%) 4 (5.1%) 12 (15.4%) 14 (17.9%) 19 (24.4%) 78

16 (14.2%) 6 (5.3%) 18 (15.9%) 14 (12.4%) 39 (34.5%) 20 (17.7%) 113

3.3 Principle 3: Specialization The principle of specialization leads to the singling out of one or a few forms for grammaticalization. When grammaticalization of the new form is complete, there should be no alternative choice for the marker examined: no interchangeable term should be available. Nevertheless, the principle is not fully supported by the data since the expression systematically has a synonym in final position. The synonym for a contrastive meaning is final though, which indicates that a plausible inference based on what has been said is not valid, as indicated in (15): (15)

I suppose actually loading Wordperfect will be the slowest job of all. Always takes a bit longer doesn’t it ? Mm. It’s er there’s not so many discs to load though. No? There ’s not so many discs. No, but er I can’t just do this with it! No. (BNC, KB0)

The synonym for an anaphoric/cataphoric interpretation can be exemplified by you know, referring respectively to previous or subsequent information in the discourse. Here is an example of an anaphor in (16):

Grammaticalization of final but: from conjunction to final particle

(16)

205

Don’t think I feel like anything to eat after that late lunch. But I thought you’d read that paper this morning? Not Well where’s your glasses? Mm? You ought to wear them you know. Did you s see the end of the news? Er a stronger virus er What for? for flu has been found and they Mm. think it might lead to a, an epidemic, mm. (BNC, KBB)

Here is an example of a cataphor in (17): (17)

It it’s taking taking shape. I ’ve I ’ve just look I ’ve just got the neck now to do. Which I’m doing. Hope I ’ve got it right. You could wear this inside out you know. It looks just as good as the other way doesn’t it ? Yeah. Just as good the other way. Yeah. Now I have n’t got any knitting. (KB7)

The synonym for an intensifying value is often illustrated by really, as shown in (18): (18)

But it ’s a good store isn’t it? For your ironing board and cleaner and Yes it ’s quite large as well isn’t it? Mm. Yeah. I I mean you can put anything in there really. Yeah. I mean I did have some of the boxes in there until I sort of, thought while I was sorting things out. Yeah, yeah. (BNC, KB7)

The expressions that are used with a similar purely phatic value can be found in the use of you know, like or man2, as exemplified in (19)–(21): (19)

yeah so make it out cheaper they’ll make them out cheaper a little bit cheaper absolutely, yeah Fair enough , as long as though we honest Well I think you know, you, you, you, it was an honest answer to, to both questions, cos they didn’t say do you smoke a pipe, that you smoke you know or whatever or just said cigarettes. (BNC, KB7)

(20)

Bloody how they, what the hell do they want a lollipop lady on a zebra co Yeah. pelican crossing though ! Yeah, but with all the kids crossing to other side like. It ’s a total waste of money! And there isnt one on this one here and it ’s nearest to school! No, but they ’re bloody grown up children in there. (BNC, KB1)

2 The interchangeability of these three expressions could be further explored but this will be the focus of future research.

206 (21)

Sylvie Hancil

Do you know what you ’re saying you are, you are some stupid – He’s a legend, man. Fool. You know? (BNC, KPG)

3.4 Principle 4: Persistence The principle of persistence shows that vestiges of the earlier meaning of contrast are still retained in the emerging final marker: the contrastive meaning persists with a higher proportion in the BNC-SD (37.2%) than in the NECTE corpus (14.2%), as shown in (22)–(23): (22)

got out of the chair and went . I was absolutely furious! And then she turned round and said well I do n’t hear it! And I said, no but you have the door open and these doors were going on , like they ’re seeing this wild woman off! Well I thought I don’t but. No, I say I won’t leave it now, if I get much more of it then it’s the environmental health! Ah! But she’s one of those cantankerous types! (BNC, KE6)

(23)

B:

do you think eh you would have been eh willing to stay on like if if you had had the chance or

A:

I think I would yeah if i’d had the chance like you know but

B:

have you had any eh further education since then of any kind no (NECTE, tlsg02)

3.5 Principle 5: De-categorization The principle of de-categorization argues that the new form shifts away from its original syntactic category as an initial conjunction. Table 3: Syntactic category of final but in the two corpora Syntactic category of final but

BNC-SD

Orphan

36 (46.2%)

0 (0%)

IP-Adjunct

42 (53.8%)

113 (100%)

NECTE

According to Table 3, final but has a mixed syntactic behaviour in the BNC-SD and is only half-way through (the process of) syntactic grammaticalization; it

Grammaticalization of final but: from conjunction to final particle

207

is either an orphan (Haegeman 1991) or an IP-adjunct. That is, it is either not syntactically integrated into the clause and is linguistically preceded by a comma; or it is fully integrated into the clause and there is no pause before the marker. By contrast, the marker is fully integrated into the clause in the NECTE corpus as there is no pause before the particle; so its grammaticalization has reached completion syntactically. It is worth noting that the various types of semantic values encountered are not dependent on the syntactic nature of the constructions examined, whatever their syntactic category may be. The syntactic differences observed in the different dialects reflect in fact the degree of grammaticalization of the construction. Let us examine now how socio-linguistic parameters contribute to the distribution of final but.

4 Distribution of final but and socio-linguistic criteria Among the various socio-linguistic parameters, the relevant criteria are speaker gender and region for the BNC-SD. In this corpus, the most frequent value used is the contrastive value (37%), the intensifying value coming third (15%). The tokens used by women (47) represent more than 60% of the total number of occurrences of final but, whereas the tokens by men (31) make up less than 40%. Consequently, women use more occurrences of final but than men, which confirms the common hypothesis that women are usually more expressive. Moreover, women employ but to show contrast three times as often as men (21/8 tokens). Women use but slightly more as an attention-getter than men: 17 occurrences as opposed to 13. They use but as an intensifier eleven times more than their male counterparts. Women and men use but as a filler in roughly the same proportions: 9 tokens for women, against 10 for men. The tokens from the South of Britain represent almost 80% of tokens of final but, London and the Home Counties representing 30 tokens out of 78. Among women from the South, all socio-economic classes are represented, but the top socio-economic category AB lies slightly ahead with 13 occurrences out of 35; among men from the South, the middle class C1 stands first, with 9 occurrences out of 17. The same can be said for age categories: it is difficult to clearly establish a category very much in favour of the use of the marker, but it is possible to say that the category of the 35–44 years old leads the use for both AB women and C1 men in the south. Interestingly, in the north, very few occurrences have been identified (10) in the BNC-SD corpus, nearly all of them coming from men

208

Sylvie Hancil

(9). It is the 45–59 year-old male category from the lowest socio-economic class which favours the use of the marker. In the Midlands, there is also a reduced number of examples identified (8 occurrences, most of them coming from men (6)); men over 60 from the lowest socio-economic class DE are those who use it most frequently (3 occurrences). The various semantic values of final but are all best represented by the members of the top socio-economic class AB, mainly in the southern regions. The contrastive meaning is mostly used by mature women (45–59) from the AB category and by male teenagers (0–14) from this category. There is no significant tendency which explains the distribution of the anaphoric and cataphoric values. The emphatic value tends to be employed by upper-class women, age 35 to 44, in 3 occurrences out of 5, and by men of the same age but belonging to the middle class C1 in 2 occurrences out of 3. The phatic value is popularized by southern women from the upper class in 5 occurrences out of 9, all age categories considered, and by northern middle-class men between 35 and 44 of age in 3 occurrences out of 5. According to the BNC-SD, final but is practically not used in the North. But a close look at the NECTE corpus shows the contrary; it is a Geordie use. Thus the BNC-SD gives a global idea about what is going on regionally but a fine-grained analysis of the data in Newcastle can change the whole picture. In the NECTE corpus, the tendencies are reversed with respect to the category of gender: men use final but three times as much as women (86/27 tokens respectively). The leading socio-economic class among men is the middle class, the category of the 25–30 year-olds (32 occurrences) coming first, followed by the category of the 16–20 year-olds (25 occurrences). Interestingly, among women, the working class (15 occurrences) is more keen than the middle class (12 occurrences) to use the marker, especially the 16–20 year-olds (8 occurrences). In the middle class, the women who mostly use the marker are 51 to 60 years of age (7 occurrences). Among the two groups of men favouring the marker, the young middle-class men between 16 and 20 years of age still privilege a contrastive meaning (9 occurrences), then the anaphoric value (5 occurrences), whereas the young middle-class men between 25 and 30 of age minimise the contrastive use (5 occurrences) and maximise the emphatic use (25 occurrences). Among the groups of women using the marker most of the time, the young women between 16 and 20 do not seem to privilege a specific meaning. Rather, for young working class women, the equally used meanings are the contrastive, cataphoric and phatic meanings, whereas for young middle class women, all the values are almost equally employed, except the anaphoric value, which is not present in their speech.

Grammaticalization of final but: from conjunction to final particle

209

Consequently, the data show that the contrastive value is losing ground in the northern part of the country in favour of the intensifying value in NECTE and the marker is no longer used as an exclusive means of expressivity for women in this corpus. Let us now further explore the subjectivity parameter by considering Traugott & Dasher’s subjectivity scale (Traugott & Dasher 2002).

5 Towards of the (inter)subjectification of final but Following Grice’s Maxim of Manner “be brief”, hearers are invited to make the inference that more (information) is conveyed in an utterance than simply literal information. The meaning of final but is understood in procedural terms. The hearer is given an interpretive cue as to the intended inference she is supposed to draw. In all the following cases, the speaker guides the hearer’s interpretation of the previous utterance and encourages her to make the necessary adjustments to achieve the proper interpretation of the utterance. In this sense, final but can be said to be intersubjective since it is clearly hearer-orientated. Other values can be superimposed, as shown in Table 4: Table 4: Distribution of the semantic values in relation to the subjectivity scale Semantic value of final but

Subjectivity scale

Contrast Doubt Anaphor/Cataphor Emphasis Filler

Metalinguistic + Intersubjective Subjective + Intersubjective Metalinguistic + Intersubjective Subjective + Intersubjective Intersubjective

When final but acquires a contrastive meaning, it has a metalinguistic value: the utterance in which final but appears is semantically compared to the previous utterance and the comparison is linguistically expressed in terms of contrast. Likewise, when final but is described with a cataphoric or anaphoric value, it can be interpreted metalinguistically since it modifies the linguistic expression of the utterance by creating a special link with the following or previous utterance. Besides, in examples expressing doubt or emphasis, the marker has an epistemic, and therefore, subjective meaning since the speaker uses it to evaluate the degree of validity of the situation and express a personal opinion.

210

Sylvie Hancil

In the case of its use as a filler, no other meaning is added to the intersubjective interpretation. Thus, the switch from initial but to final but illustrates a movement from typically non-subjective meanings toward primarily intersubjective values, along with a change in scope, going from scope over whole propositions to scope over segments of discourse, which is in line with Traugott and Dasher’s principles of grammaticalization – illustrating an increase in subjectification in the process of grammaticalization. Let us examine now how the speaker’s discourse strategy is expressed through various interactional forces.

6 Interactional forces and discourse strategy 6.1 Management of recipient turns The postposing of constituents can be directly related to the speaker’s discourse strategy, and can be accounted for in interactional terms. Indeed, the genre of the text directly influences its communicative goal: informal conversations involve exchanges between interlocutors, so they are hearer-oriented. The syntax, i.e. the linear order of constituents, is adapted to these interactional forces. The speaker’s pragmatic discourse strategy brings about syntactic tensions leading the speaker to extract the conjunct from its initial position, which is in accordance with the dialogical arguments provided by Traugott (2007, 2010) and Waltereit (2007, 2012) for the emergence of discourse markers and modal particles. Various studies in discourse analysis have long established that the ideal place for the hearer to manifest his point of view about the speaker’s sentence is at the end of the speaker’s sentence (see Pomerantz 1984 and, more recently, Haselow 2012). According to Ford and Thompson’s data analysis (Ford & Thompson 1996: 155), there is a high proportion of speaker change at CTRPs3 (71%) but it is possible to find a significant number of occurrences of speaker change in nonCTRPs, in which syntactic completion points do not coincide with intonational completion points (47%) and for which speaker change can only be explained in interactional terms (Ford & Thompson 1996: 159). 3 A CTRP is defined as follows: «Intonation and pragmatic completion points select from the syntactic completion points to form what we will call « Complex Transition Relevance Places. The term « turn unit », then, will refer to a unit which is characterized by ending at a CTRP. » (Ford & Thompson 1996: 154)

Grammaticalization of final but: from conjunction to final particle

211

In our data, final but does not generate speaker change in the BNC-SD, whether it be in CTRPs or in non-CTRPs; it is to be noted that the quasi-totality of the occurrences with final adverbials are represented by the Southern English regions in the BNC-SD. In the NECTE corpus, every single occurrence of speaker change occurs after a non-CTRP. Thus, the results show that the number of speaker changes is increasing when we move up to the North of Britain. The findings confirm, too, that the increasing use of final but in non-CTRPs is directly related to the increasing use of interactional criteria. Now, what does all this mean for the grammaticalization of but to a final particle.? In Southern England, the use of final clause-oriented adverbs could be said to emerge as an instance of grammaticalization on a semantic and pragmatic basis only. Syntactically, the behaviour of final but is not uniform. The interactional forces do not lead to a change of speaker role; the hearer is only invited to participate in the exchange implicitly. So, final but in Southern English can be considered as an instance of pragmaticalization only, and not of grammaticalization. In Newcastle English, all the grammaticalization criteria are met. Syntactically, all the markers can be identified as IP-adjuncts and are fully integrated into the previous sentence; so the syntactic grammaticalization is complete. As for the interactional parameter, all the occurrences systematically bring about a change of speaker. One could say that these markers are employed in final position to be in the service of interactivity, explicitly inviting the participation of the interlocutor.

6.2 Encouragement of the hearer’s agreement Final but is likely to invite the hearer to produce an utterance indicating his attitude. Several tendencies can be identified. 6.2.1 Examples of agreement In the NECTE corpus, almost half of the occurrences (47.8%) of final but are followed by an indication of agreement from the hearer, which shows that the hearers can identify the function of but as a final particle. The distribution is as follows: 12 yes; (e;g. (24)) 14 yeah (e.g. (25)); 10 aye (e.g. (26)); 16 mm (e.g. (27)); 2 uhhuh (e.g. (28)). (24)

A:

if i think they’re saying the wrong thing i check them but

B:

yes

212

Sylvie Hancil

A: clamming yes yes do you use it i mean you obviously know (NECTE, tlsg31) (25)

B:

watch the watch the people going underneath you know the chair lift with their legs dangling

A:

yeah

A:

quite good go up about a kilometre and a half like that

A:

mm hm

B:

freezing cold and it’s a bit scary but would have been better if we’d skied down but

A:

yeah

B:



A:

how did you get down then

B: we turned round and got back down in the chair (NECTE, pvc09) (26)

A:

well when you’re when when you’re living amongst them you’re it all sounds the same but

B: aye (NECTE, tlsg19) (27)

A:

but ehm can’t be bad getting paid for that

B:

no he says it’s all right but

A:

mm

B:

i know why he likes it because there’s a bandit there

A:

oh he got it

B:

he’s obsessed lik

A: he’s got it bad (NECTE, pvc10) (28)

B:

no eh where did you get it at

A:

uhhuh

B:

yes ne- never mind I’ll manage but

A:

uhhuh

Grammaticalization of final but: from conjunction to final particle

B:

213

yeah ehm never the wonder I couldn’t get it to work it’s not plugged in

A: uhhuh (NECTE, tlsg10)

6.2.2 Example of disagreement There are very few instances of disagreement after final but: 7 occurrences, indicated by no (6.2%) in the NECTE corpus. Here is an example in (29): (29)

B:

no many people were there there

A:

mmhm

B:

where did you get it at no eh never mind I’ll manage but

A:

no

B:

no eh never the wonder I couldn’t get it to work it’s not plugged in never the wonder

A: eh possibly you know no not really you’d more or less say (NECTE, tlsg02)

6.2.3 Examples of the hearer’s attitude After final but, it is also possible to identify 12 instances (10.6%) marking the attitude of the hearer with respect to the speaker’s proposition in the NECTE corpus. Here are examples in which the hearer judges the situation as being normal (that’s right in example (30)), evaluates its degree of validity (never really think about it in example (30)), or even considers the situation as being funny (example (31)): (30)

B:

that was the one thing about university which would have been good if i’d went away

A:

mm

B:

getting away from them but

A:

oh that’s right if you go to university you’ve got to go away haven’t you
ba, ma

Force >

Evaluative > ne

Mood >

Fin

This may be the case more generally, and final particles in VO languages are in fact markers of something other than interrogative force. The Chrau particle đăng mentioned in section 5.2 as being able to occur in embedded clauses is the emphatic particle, for instance, and as such may not be a “true” question particle. Two questions then arise: 1) How is the utterance typed as a question? and 2) What does the “question particle” actually do in the sentence? Any clause must be a certain type of clause. “Interrogative” is used to describe one such sentence type; that is, a category of sentence that contrasts with other types, such as declarative or imperative. These three types are frequently given as the basic sentence types and they are mutually exclusive, as noted by Huddleston (1994), König & Siemund (2007) and many others. A sentence cannot simultaneously be interrogative and declarative, for instance. This is clearest in languages in which any sentence must contain some typing morpheme. König & Siemund (2007) illustrate with examples from Greenlandic Eskimo:

Word order and the syntax of question particles

(44)

iga-voq cook-DEC . 3SG ‘He cooks.’

(45)

iga-va cook-INT. 3SG ‘Does he cook?’

(46)

iga-git/ guk cook-IMP. 2SG / - IMP. 2/3SG ‘Cook (something)!/ Cook it!’ (König and Siemund, 2007: 277–278)

421

The sentences in (44)–(46) are incomplete without the clause-typing morphemes, and they cannot co-occur. The question particles under discussion in this paper are generally assumed to type interrogative clauses, or encode question force. As well as Force, questions have a head in the left periphery encoding polarity: (47)

Polarity can be affirmative, negative or open: (48)

Affirmative: It’s raining. Negative: It isn’t raining. Open (neither affirmative nor negative): Is it raining? If it’s raining, we won’t go. (Bailey et al. 2010)

The polarity head encodes something like ‘true/not true’ and in a neutral question it is open. In a biased question, just as in an affirmative or negative declarative, it is set positively or negatively. The combination of these two heads removes the need for a head Typ or Int, as posited by Rizzi (2001) and others.

422

Laura R. Bailey

Whereas neutral questions are [+Q] and [±Pol], other types of question may be [-Q] or [+Pol] or [-Pol], in any combination. If a question is [+Q] (has the illocutionary force of a question), it calls for an answer, and not to answer is infelicitous, as in (49). If it is [-Q], it does not call for an answer, and although one may be provided, it is not required and a bare yes or no may be odd, as in (50), where it is more natural to provide extra information:5 (49)

A: Does it often rain here? B: Yes/No/#Me too/#I know/#Mm

(50)

A: I wonder if it often rains here? B: #Yes/#No/Me too/I know/Mm/It does, yes

For open polarity, one can use the licensing of negative polarity items as a test. As noted, NPIs may only appear in non-veridical contexts (Giannakidou 2001), or negatives and (true) questions. While this heuristic cannot test negative questions, as the NPI will be licensed due to the negation, it can differentiate between an affirmatively-biased question and an open question. If an NPI is licensed, the question has open polarity. If it is not, the polarity is affirmative, as in (51)–(52): (51)

Are there any witnesses?

(52)

There are some/*any witnesses, aren’t there? (Bailey et al. 2010)

Thus there are four logically possible combinations of the two features: (53)

[+Q, ±Pol] Open questions [+Q, +Pol]/[+Q,-Pol] Alternative questions, requests, confirmation questions [-Q, ±Pol] Speculative questions, embedded questions [-Q, +Pol]/[-Q, -Pol] Declaratives

5 A reviewer argues that ‘an utterance of (50). . . may certainly be comprehended as a question’. This is so; but this is precisely the point at issue. The utterance is contextually comprehended as a question, but it is not grammatically encoded as an interrogative. The notion of illocutionary force employed here is strictly syntactic.

Word order and the syntax of question particles

423

If a language has a question particle, it could be expected to encode one of these two features or both, which will determine in what type of questions it can appear: a particle that represents both question force and open polarity will only be used in neutral, main clause polar questions. It would not be able to appear in embedded questions, as they lack question force, and it would not be able to appear in biased questions, alternative questions or requests, as they lack open polarity. A particle that represented only question force would be acceptable in alternative questions, requests and confirmation questions, but in neutral questions it would have to be accompanied by another means of marking open polarity, and it would not be permitted in speculative or embedded questions (which should also include the open polarity marker). A particle representing only open polarity and not question force would be allowed in embedded and speculative questions, but not in the other types already listed, or in neutral questions only alongside a marker of question force. Of course a particle representing either question force or open polarity would never be expected to surface in declaratives. A particle that is optional may encode neither of these, but instead be something else entirely, such as Li’s Mandarin ma and Chrau đăng discussed above. Many of the particles in the languages investigated are in fact optional (with interrogative intonation generally present):6 (54)

(55)

Wawpey Yawnən-re du-puy-e (yokri) Wawpey Yawnən-OBJ FACT- hit-PST perhaps ‘Did Wawpey hit Yawnən by any chance?’ (Awtuw; Feldman 1986: 143) vo

gi tapuok angina, (la) he return today Q ‘Will he return today?’ (Tigak; Beaumont 1979: 35) FUT

(56)

(57)

nĭ qù (ma) you go Q ‘Are you going?’ (Mandarin; Li & Thompson 1981: 520) ni

Nnaa

(nú)

COMP

COMP :quake

Q

‘Was there an earthquake?’ (Yosondúa Mixtec; Farris, 1992: 35)

6 Question particles are not always optional, however, as an anonymous reviewer points out. Some languages have obligatory question particles, and in this way they differ from particles encoding emphasis and other such values.

424

Laura R. Bailey

In Awtuw (54) the particle yokri indicates doubt and can be used in declaratives, and similarly for Yosondúa Mixtec nú (57), which means ‘if’. As discussed above, Chrau đăng and Mandarin ma (56) indicate an emphatic question. Tigak (55) has many question particles, each with its own semantic content. It seems that these particles are not true question markers at all. In that case, where no other syntactic or morphological question-marking device is present, the question force/polarity must be marked by intonation. In Syrian Arabic and European Portuguese, for instance, there is no question marker other than intonation for any kind of question. In these languages the intonation encodes both force and polarity. Conversely, in Swedish and Finnish (and, it is argued, British English), where there is no question intonation, there must always be some other mechanism to mark a neutral (true) question – intonation can mark neither force nor polarity (Bailey et al. 2010).

7 Conclusion In this paper I have introduced and exemplified question particles, and shown that the existing syntactic analyses of final particles in VO languages cannot be maintained if FOFC is held to be a universal constraint. The solution that these particles might in fact be the disjunction was discussed, and shown to have some merit. However, it relies on the homophony between the question particle and the disjunctive particle, which is not always evident. Investigation of the NPI test led to a further hypothesis, that the particle in such cases might in fact be an optional marker or a marker of some other element than question force. If the “question particle” is not a head in the left periphery, there is no FOFC violation and this useful constraint can be retained.

References Aissen, Judith L. 1987. Tzotzil clause structure. Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing Company. Aldridge, Edith. 2009. Neg-to-Q: Historical development of one clause-final particle in Chinese. Ms. Bailey, Laura, Anders Holmberg, Małgorzata Krzek, Michelle Sheehan & Mais Sulaiman. 2010. Intonation questions. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain, Leeds, 1st–4th September 2010. Beaumont, Clive H. 1979. The Tigak language of New Ireland. Canberra, Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. Bencini, Giulia. 2003. Toward a diachronic typology of yes/no question constructions with particles. Proceedings from the annual meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society 39. 604– 621.

Word order and the syntax of question particles

425

Biberauer, Theresa, Anders Holmberg & Ian Roberts. 2008. Linearising disharmonic word orders: the Final-over-Final Constraint. In Jong Yurl Yoon & Kyoung-Ae Kim (eds.), Perspectives of linguistics in the 21st century, 301–318. Seoul: Hankook Munhwasa. Biberauer, Theresa, Anders Holmberg & Ian Roberts. 2009. Linearization and the architecture of grammar: A view from the Final-Over-Final Constraint. In Vincenzo Moscati & Emilio Servidio (eds.), Proceedings of the ‘Incontro di Grammatica Generativa XXXV’. Studies in Linguistics 3, 77–89. Cambridge, MA: MIT Working Papers in Linguistics. Biberauer, Theresa, Anders Holmberg & Ian Roberts. 2014. A syntactic universal and its consequences. Linguistic Inquiry 45. 169–225. Biberauer, Theresa, Glenda Newton & Michelle Sheehan. 2009. Limiting synchronic and diachronic variation and change: the Final-Over-Final Constraint. Language and Linguistics 10. 701–743. Biberauer, Theresa & Michelle Sheehan. 2010. Disharmony, antisymmetry, and the Final-OverFinal Constraint. In Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria & Vidal Valmala (eds.), Ways of structure building (Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics), 206–244. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cole, Peter. 1982. Imbabura Quechua. Lingua Descriptive Studies Vol. 5. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company. Dryer, Matthew. 1992. The Greenbergian word order correlations. Language 68. 81–138. Dryer, Matthew. 2008a. Polar questions. In Martin Haspelmath, Matthew Dryer, David Gil & Bernard Comrie (eds.), The world atlas of language structures online. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library, chapter 116. http://wals.info/ (12 May 2014). Dryer, Matthew. 2008b. Position of polar question particles. In Martin Haspelmath, Matthew Dryer, David Gil & Bernard Comrie (eds.), The world atlas of language structures online. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library, chapter 92. http://wals.info/ (12 May 2014). Dryer, Matthew. 2008c. Order of object and verb. In Martin Haspelmath, Matthew Dryer, David Gil & Bernard Comrie (eds.), The world atlas of language structures online. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library, chapter 83. http://wals.info/ (12 May 2014). Farris, Edwin R. 1992. Yosondúa. In C. Henry Bradley & Barbara E. Hollenbach (eds.), Studies in the syntax of Mixtecan languages, Vol. 4, 1–72. Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington Publications in Linguistics. Feldman, Harry. 1986. A grammar of Awtuw. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics Series. Giannakidou, Anastasia. 2001. The meaning of free choice. Linguistics and Philosophy 24. 659– 735. Ginsburg, Jason. 2009. Interrogative features. PhD thesis. Department of Linguistics, University of Arizona Graduate College. Hagstrom, Paul. 1999. The movement of question particles. North Eastern Linguistic Society 30. Hawkins, John A. 1983. Word order universals. New York: Academic Press. Holmberg, Anders. 2000. Deriving OV order in Finnish. In Peter Svenonius (ed.), The derivation of VO and OV, 123–152. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Huddleston, Rodney. 1994. The contrast between interrogatives and questions. Journal of Linguistics 30. 411–439. Jayaseelan, Karattuparambil A. 2008. Question particles and disjunction. http://ling.auf.net/ lingBuzz/000644 (12 May 2014). Julien, Marit. 2001. Word order type and syntactic structure. Linguistic Variation Yearbook 1. 17–60. Kahombo, Mateene. 1992. Essai de grammaire du Kihunde. Munster: LIT Verlag.

426

Laura R. Bailey

Karttunen, Lauri. 1977. Syntax and semantics of questions. Linguistics and philosophy 1. 3–44. Katz, Jerrold J. 1972. Semantic theory. New York: Harper and Row. Kayne, Richard. 1994. The antisymmetry of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Klinken, Catherina Lumien van. 1999. A grammar of the Fehan dialect of Tetun: An Austronesian language of West Timor. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. König, Ekkehard & Peter Siemund. 2007. Speech act distinctions in grammar. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description. Vol 1. Clause structure, 276– 324. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kornfilt, Jaklin. 1997. Turkish. London: Routledge. Lee, Felicia. 2005. Force first: clause-fronting and clause typing in San Lucas Quiavinì Zapotec. In Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley & Sheila Ann Dooley (eds.), Verb first: on the syntax of verb-inital languages, 91–106. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Li, Boya. 2006. Chinese final particles and the syntax of the periphery. PhD thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Universiteit Leiden. Li, Charles N. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1981. Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: University of California Press. McCloskey, James. 1991. Clause structure, ellipsis and proper government in Irish. Lingua 85. 259–302. Newton, Glenda. 2007. Complementisers and C Particles. Ms. http://research.ncl.ac.uk/ linearization/Final_C_elements.pdf (1 April 2014). Plann, Susan. 1982. Indirect questions in Spanish. Linguistic Inquiry 13. 297–312. Reesink, Ger P. 1999. A Grammar of Hatam, Bird’s Head Peninsula, Irian Jaya. Pacific Linguistics, Series C, 146. Canberra: Australian National University. Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In Liliane Haegeman (ed.), Elements of grammar, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Rizzi, Luigi. 2001. On the position ‘Interrogative’ in the left periphery of the clause. In Guglielmo Cinque & Giampaolo Salvi (eds.), Current studies in Italian syntax: Essays offered to Lorenzo Renzi, 287–296. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Simpson, Andrew & Xiu-Zhi Zoe Wu. 2002a. Agreement, shells and focus. Language 78. 287– 313. Simpson, Andrew & Xiu-Zhi Zoe Wu. 2002b. IP-raising, tone sandhi and the creation of S-final particles: Evidence for cyclic Spell-Out. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 11. 67–99.

Subject index adjunct 8, 24, 42, 54, 112, 206, 207, 21, 338, 339, 351, 387, 388 adverb 7, 9, 12, 13, 16, 20, 22, 26, 29, 40– 44, 47–52, 66, 78, 82, 86, 88, 89, 91, 95, 100, 114–116, 167, 173, 191, 193, 211, 226, 231, 250, 281, 286, 287, 290, 342, 345, 361, 362, 365, 368, 269, 285, 287, 388 adverbial 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 20, 24, 39, 40–43, 75, 86, 88, 102, 111, 211, 376–378, 384, 412 analysis – conversation 3, 7, 18–21, 23, 37, 55, 57, 70 – discourse 3, 7, 18–20, 37, 210 Antisymmetry Hypothesis 27, 28, 333 antisymmetric 334, 354 apodosis 23, 157–159, 161, 167–171, 174, 177 asymmetric 14, 26, 285, 290, 298, 389 asymmetry 27, 376, 388, 407, 411 attractor 361, 366, 367, 375, 378, 384 boundary – left 22, 111, 135 – right 22, 111, 135 Cantonese 4, 9, 13–17, 77, 78 categorization 6, 9, 18, 22, 77, 78 causal relation 251, 287, 292, 294, 297, 298, 310 certainty 20, 39, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 50–53, 78, 88, 150, 161, 215 Chinese 9, 14, 19, 28, 225, 236, 338, 341, 343, 347, 354, 359–361, 378, 381–385, 420 clitic 285, 292, 295, 296, 299, 306 cliticization 274, 275 cliticized 26, 292 cognitive 3, 6, 8, 18–21, 25, 29, 30, 79, 85, 89, 93, 94, 98, 101, 103, 104, 114, 173, 219, 252–257, 260–264, 280, 282 cohesion 16, 21, 49, 52, 53, 121 communicative 4, 14, 16, 20, 29, 79, 81, 89, 92, 97, 99–101, 103, 104, 114, 141, 143, 154, 210, 262, 296, 300

complementizer 143–145, 152–154, 171, 184, 345, 371–375, 383, 412, 414, 415, 418 complete 4, 10, 56–58, 62, 63, 71, 83–85, 90, 158, 169, 171, 204, 211 completeness 57, 58, 60, 62, 71, 82 completion 10, 11, 45, 56, 58, 59, 70, 71, 82–86, 88, 91, 123, 207, 210, 268 conceptual 4, 12, 16, 28, 45, 86, 121, 127, 130, 134, 144, 250, 256, 281, 296, 297, 354 concessive 21, 63, 70–72, 115–117, 122, 131, 135, 326 conditional 11, 12, 23, 91, 92, 157–177 conjunct 8, 12, 16, 52, 84, 91, 116, 119, 122– 124, 128, 129, 134, 135, 210, 234, 235, 287 conjunction 7, 9–11, 16, 21, 22, 26, 55, 56, 58, 62, 63, 71, 82, 85, 89, 91, 101, 102, 111, 114, 115, 135, 142, 193, 197, 206, 243 – coordinating 5, 286, 287 – final 21, 56, 60 – postpositive 299 – sentence-final 233 – subordinating 145, 225, 226, 286, 287 – turn-final 57 constructional 56, 82, 224, 226 content 22, 24, 41, 44, 46, 47, 49, 53, 69, 70, 79, 91, 92, 116, 119, 122, 133, 174, 197, 215, 225, 263, 280, 296, 297, 374 – propositional 5, 11, 12, 77, 78, 81, 89, 93, 98, 122, 124, 128, 134, 142, 152, 161, 172, 221, 226, 243, 252 – semantic 7, 45, 89, 103, 150, 424 – truth-conditional 250, 251, 255, 281, 296 contextual 13, 15, 17, 53, 81, 84, 91, 92, 95, 96, 98, 104, 166, 170, 250, 254, 255, 257, 259, 260, 262, 268, 270, 274, 276, 294, 298, 325, 422 continuum 10, 63, 128 conventionalized 63, 70, 71, 72, 117, 122, 226, 275, 298 conversational 10, 17, 39, 42, 50, 55–57, 69, 80, 82, 83, 88, 91, 95, 99, 102, 103, 122, 141, 143, 154, 182, 189, 191, 259, 279

428

Subject index

cooptation 22, 79, 111, 112, 114, 115, 119, 122, 124, 127–129, 133–135 core meaning 17, 89, 98 core function 15, 101 counter-expectation 23, 158, 168, 173, 174, 177 CTRP 210, 211 decategorization 23, 24, 242, 150, 152, 167, 182, 197, 198, 206, 216 desemanticization 120, 121, 126, 128, 131, 215, 328 diachronic 7, 16, 21, 143, 157, 158, 176, 177, 225, 242, 360, 369, 377, 384 dialect 10, 24, 26, 80, 197, 198, 207, 225, 231, 285–288, 290, 298–300, 259–362, 366, 369, 374, 377, 384 discourse-pragmatic variation 7 disjunct 43–53, 112 disjunction 349, 407, 416–418 divergence 23, 24, 168, 174, 177, 197, 198, 200 Dutch 4, 7, 10, 11, 13, 18, 19, 25, 63, 77, 221– 228, 231, 234–244, 285, 361, 364, 376, 416 ellipsis 26, 64, 99, 113, 135, 183, 193, 250, 263, 289, 290, 292, 299, 300 English 4–8, 10–22, 24, 25, 39, 40, 42, 52, 55, 56, 63, 70, 77, 82, 86, 97, 101, 111– 114, 117, 118, 125, 128–134, 136, 154, 197, 198, 201, 204, 211, 214–216, 221, 223, 231, 233, 236, 242, 249–253, 257, 259, 260, 262, 264–267, 275, 277, 280, 289, 334, 338, 340, 347, 352, 354, 362, 394, 413, 416, 420, 424 enunciative 26 EPP 28, 333–355 erosion 120, 121, 132, 136, 182 exemplifying 22, 23, 141–154 extension 48, 88, 120, 121, 135, 150, 182 Finnish 10, 11, 19, 21, 55–58, 62, 63, 70, 77, 409, 410, 424 FOFC 27, 407, 410–418, 424 FP (Final Particle) see particle, final

FP (Focus Phrase) 268–279 formal 7, 9, 77, 78, 80, 100, 103, 104, 359 French 5, 12, 13, 16, 28, 215, 306, 338, 340, 345, 347, 348, 352, 354, 372, 373, 394 functional 78–80, 89, 100, 102–104, 142, 152, 159–167, 176, 224, 225, 242, 252, 266, 295, 334, 361, 373, 377, 384, 387, 388, 391, 404, 413, 414 generative 3, 4, 7, 8, 19, 27, 222, 234, 331 German 5, 13, 14, 18, 19, 21, 22, 77–80, 82, 83, 85, 86, 89, 98–101, 103, 104, 115, 117–119, 122, 125–127, 221, 226, 235, 236, 249, 251, 258, 285, 305, 306, 376, 377, 387–389, 391 gerundive 142, 158, 174, 176, 177 gradual 22, 79, 111, 114, 115, 122, 124, 128, 135, 136 grammar 6–8, 20, 22, 40, 42, 78–80, 120, 122, 142, 143, 216, 249, 281, 282, 287, 417, 418 – construction 225 – sentence 78, 79, 111–115, 119–122, 124, 128, 134, 135 – thetical 8, 22, 79, 111, 113, 115, 119, 122, 128, 129, 134, 135 grammatical 3, 8, 9, 42, 52, 55, 71, 72, 77– 80, 86, 88, 101, 112, 119–122, 142, 145, 151–153, 176, 182, 183, 199, 216, 250, 258, 266, 279, 418, 422 grammaticality 103, 267, 345, 349 grammaticalization 3, 7–10, 15, 18–25, 29, 56, 57, 63, 70, 72, 109, 111, 112, 115, 116, 119, 120, 127, 128, 132, 134–136, 141–143, 149, 150, 154, 157, 169, 171, 173, 181, 193, 194, 197–199, 204, 206, 207, 210, 211, 215, 216, 221, 222, 226, 242, 250, 251, 290, 299, 375, 377, 385, 415, 417 hanging 10, 11, 70, 71, 115, 129, 131, 160, 216, 371, 373 head-final 27, 333, 334, 346, 407, 410, 411, 413, 414 head-initial 27, 383, 407, 410, 411, 414, 415 hedging 23, 141, 151

Subject index

429

higher-level explicature 255, 258, 259, 263, 274, 281, 282

Italian 4, 19, 39, 225, 359–362, 366, 369, 372, 384, 413

illocutionary force 11, 14, 15, 16, 81, 147, 151, 158, 419, 422 illocutionary type 5, 12, 81, 102 implicature 15, 141, 143, 182, 183, 259, 269, 271, 365 implicit 11, 23, 24, 26, 39, 52, 58, 60, 63, 70, 72, 98, 193, 197, 211, 256, 259, 269, 285, 288, 292, 300, 308 inference 72, 91, 92, 94, 124, 169, 199, 204, 209, 249, 250, 253, 254, 255, 262, 263, 265, 274, 280, 294, 297, 299, 300 inferential 25, 254, 255, 256, 258, 261, 268, 300 instantaneous 22, 111, 115, 119, 135 interactional 5, 9, 21, 24, 55, 56, 57, 63, 69, 71, 72, 79, 81, 83, 84, 85, 99, 103, 104, 115, 122, 142, 146, 152, 155, 181–183, 193, 194, 197, 198, 210, 211, 216, 226, 242 interactive 6, 7, 8, 20, 21, 24, 78, 84, 85, 103, 104, 142, 193, 197, 269 interjection 86, 123, 226, 227, 228, 237 interpersonal 23, 29, 141, 151, 159, 181, 182, 183, 265 interpretive cue 4, 16, 23, 77, 98, 103, 209 interrogative 27, 75, 81, 189, 253, 261–263, 266, 267, 271, 272–276, 280–282, 323, 333, 339, 343, 344, 353, 354, 369, 379, 407, 408, 413, 419–423 intersubjectification 164 intersubjective 6, 17, 18, 174, 197, 209, 210, 233, 311, 318 intonation 14, 15, 16, 18, 25, 74, 82, 83, 87, 88, 91, 98, 100, 103, 117, 119, 122, 123, 127, 133, 170, 210, 223, 225, 230, 249, 251, 252, 254, 256, 259, 260, 265, 268, 270–274, 277–279, 281, 282, 295, 340, 364, 369, 373, 380, 408, 419, 420, 423, 424 intonation unit 63, 69, 77, 82, 84, 98, 105, 136, 296 invariant meaning 25, 98, 259, 285, 288, 290, 298

Janus ‘but’ 22, 60, 63, 70, 128, 130, 134 Japanese 7, 10, 11, 14, 15, 19, 22, 23, 27–29, 77, 78, 82, 141, 142, 146, 154, 157–162, 167, 169, 173, 174, 177, 181, 233, 236, 333–354, 387–392, 397–399, 404, 409 Khmer 9, 14, 19, 26, 305–308, 326 Korean 9, 10, 14–18, 19, 23, 24, 77, 78, 136, 141, 181–184, 186–189, 193, 338, 347 layering 24, 197, 198, 199 left periphery 49, 167, 222, 224, 236, 237, 240, 335, 338, 340–342, 345, 346, 348–350, 352, 354, 421, 424 macrogrammar 8, 79 Mandarin 9, 19, 28, 172, 242, 359, 360, 361, 378, 381–385, 420, 423, 424 mental model 21, 101, 103 mental unit 26, 285, 290 metacommunicative 100 metapragmatic 5, 7, 23 metarepresentation 249, 255, 256, 258, 259, 268, 274, 282 middle field 81, 85, 93, 100, 221, 222, 226, 228, 229, 231, 236, 237, 241, 243, 244, 249, 251, 252, 258, 387 mitigating 47, 67, 126, 141, 142, 146 modality 16, 39, 41, 49, 95, 121, 194 morphology 14, 181, 188, 345, 346, 354, 355 movement (syntactic) 8, 15, 27, 28, 29, 239, 333–335, 338–342, 344–349, 351–354, 359, 360, 367, 369, 383, 399, 402–404, 411, 414, 415 mutual manifestness 25, 249, 255, 257–259, 261, 263, 264, 274, 277, 278 Norwegian 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 26, 130, 235, 236, 249–255, 259, 260, 262–266, 268–275, 277, 281, 282, 299, 300 noun 85, 144, 145, 147, 169, 227 noun phrase 86, 97, 143, 144, 145, 153, 223, 250, 310

430

Subject index

optionality 340, 420 parenthetical 111–114, 250, 251, 258, 364, 367, 369, 377 particle – CP 185, 186, 187, 194, 361, 378, 384 – discourse 5, 8, 9, 10, 21, 24, 26, 28, 49, 77, 78, 80, 81, 87, 100, 101, 102, 114, 115, 121, 122, 128, 131, 133, 134, 135, 174, 175, 214, 221, 225, 233, 295, 297, 305, 306 – final, FP 3–29, 55–57, 60, 63, 70, 77–85, 88–104, 111–136, 151, 157, 158, 163, 166, 175, 178, 181, 183, 184, 193, 194, 197, 211, 221–229, 235, 236, 241–244, 249, 261, 266, 285, 286, 296, 299, 338, 351, 359–361, 366, 367, 369, 371, 376– 378, 381–385, 408, 409, 412–420, 424 – focus 9, 13, 89, 96, 226, 229, 230, 232 – IP 361 – juxtaposition 143–145 – modal 5, 21, 77, 78, 80, 81, 210, 221, 226, 228–230, 236, 237, 285, 296, 300 – peripheral 17, 224 – polar question 19, 27, 407, 408, 414, 416, 420 – postpositive 285, 287, 290, 299, 300 – pragmatic 5, 22, 26, 142, 143, 150, 153– 155, 221–225, 236, 240, 242, 243, 285, 288, 295–297, 300 – question 7, 9, 17, 19, 27, 352, 407, 408, 410, 412-424 – sentence-final 4, 7, 8, 14, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 99, 151, 157, 158, 163–178, 181, 221, 226, 228, 229, 233, 249, 359–367, 369, 371, 375–385, 415, 420 – sentence-initial 28, 359–361, 363–365, 369–377, 384 – sentence-internal 26, 28, 359–361, 376– 378, 384 – sentence-medial 81, 95 – sentential 28, 359–362, 364–370, 372, 378, 382–384 – utterance-final 4, 7, 8, 21, 23–26, 57, 99, 122, 128, 131, 135, 136, 141, 142, 151, 181–186, 188, 193, 194, 221–226, 235, 236, 249, 261, 266, 285, 286, 296, 299 particle doubling 25, 221, 222, 240, 241, 244

periphery 5, 6, 25, 39, 49, 88, 113, 167, 221– 225, 228–231, 236–238, 240, 242, 244, 335, 338, 340–342, 345–354, 375, 421, 424 phonology 121, 122, 124, 127, 128, 135 pidgin 14 position – final 3, 5, 6–8, 10, 15, 20–24, 28, 30, 39– 55, 63, 77, 78, 83, 88, 97, 100, 104, 113, 126, 133, 141, 142, 149–154, 181–183, 187, 188, 192, 193, 204, 211, 221, 228, 230–232, 239, 287, 300, 306, 309, 318, 319, 323, 325, 342, 344, 352, 359, 362, 374, 375, 381 – initial 210, 237, 312, 318, 319, 341, 364, 376, 384, 409, 414, 418 – medial 81, 95 – non-final 236 – peripheral 17 – sentence-internal 26, 286 pathway 7, 21, 71, 133–135, 215 persistence 24, 197, 198, 206 pitch 11, 14, 15, 74, 83, 87, 91, 133, 241, 269, 272–274, 276, 277, 280, 291, 295, 299, 379 politeness 141, 154, 184, 197, 198, 214, 215, 243 post-field 6, 86, 87, 89, 249–254, 256– 259, 261–266, 268, 269, 271–273, 275–281 pragmatic 3, 5, 7–10, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 22– 28, 39, 41, 42, 44, 49, 53, 56, 63, 79, 81–83, 88, 89, 92, 98, 100, 116, 123, 127, 141–143, 150–155, 167, 172, 177, 181, 182, 193, 194, 197–199, 210, 211, 215, 216, 221–226, 236, 240, 242, 243, 249, 251–256, 260, 261, 264–266, 268, 270, 273, 275, 277, 281, 285, 288, 295– 298, 300, 359, 360, 362, 366, 368, 374, 385, 407 pragmaticalization 49, 111, 121, 197, 211, 216, 242 preposition 86, 315, 322 prepositional phrase 102, 230 procedural 4, 6, 16, 24–26, 77, 95, 121, 122, 127, 197, 209, 250, 254–257, 259–264, 267, 268, 270, 274–279, 281, 285, 296, 297, 300

Subject index

procedural cue 25, 259 projection 27, 29, 82, 224, 225, 334, 345, 346, 354, 367, 369, 376, 387, 411, 413, 414, 420 pronoun 86, 223, 232, 250, 256, 275, 286, 287, 333, 353, 361, 365, 376, 377, 385 propositional 5, 11, 22, 25, 78, 81, 86–89, 93, 94, 97, 98, 100, 102–104, 122, 146, 151–153, 172, 228, 243, 250–259, 263, 265, 267, 274, 281, 282, 296, 297 prosodic 5, 8–10, 16, 22, 25, 26, 41, 42, 65, 77, 79, 82, 84, 87, 91, 100, 102, 104, 111, 113–116, 121–124, 127–133, 135, 136, 252, 268, 270–273, 275, 288, 291, 292, 295, 296, 300, 340, 368, 369 prosody 11, 15, 18, 50, 130, 216, 229, 269, 299 protasis 23, 157, 158, 168–171, 174, 177, 250 Q-feature 28, 333–343, 346, 351, 353, 354 quantifier 29, 251, 274, 297, 334, 342, 367, 387–289, 391 quotative 9, 22–24, 142–154, 157–177, 181– 194 Relevance Theory 25, 26, 249, 254–259, 285, 296, 300 repair 47, 53, 66, 86, 226, 238, 242, 243 right periphery 5, 6, 25, 88, 167, 221–225, 228–231, 236–238, 240, 242–244 Russian 4, 10–12, 14, 19, 26, 77, 83, 285– 288, 293–300, 305, 306 salient 27, 39, 122, 170, 305, 307, 309, 315, 321 scalar 13, 89, 96, 97 sentence type 25, 28, 258, 260, 261, 281, 359, 364, 366, 377–379, 381, 384, 420 sociolinguistic 24, 197 softening 16, 23, 132, 141, 142, 145–148, 150–155 Spanish 12, 39, 413 spatial 26, 305, 306, 316, 321 specialization 24, 72, 197, 198, 204 speech 3, 5, 8, 13, 14, 20–22, 29, 30, 45, 47, 51, 83–86, 95, 99, 104, 145, 164, 172,

431

188, 191, 198, 208, 226, 268, 288–290, 300, 307, 329, 371 speech act 17, 86, 98, 158, 225, 252, 253, 258 stance 9, 16, 24, 41, 47, 78, 88, 116, 160, 181, 183, 185–188, 193, 265 subjectification 23, 120, 157, 158, 164, 167, 177, 209, 210, 242 subjective 12, 17, 18, 24, 26, 81, 98, 164, 167, 174, 197, 209, 210, 269, 305, 306, 311, 317 synchronic 16, 18, 24, 56, 141, 143, 154, 176, 177, 197, 198, 215 syntactic theory 6, 7, 82, 334 TCU 56, 82, 83, 85, 88, 90, 91, 99, 100 temporal 5, 12, 13, 26, 29, 47, 95, 122, 161– 163, 226, 250, 269, 287, 294, 295, 305, 306, 310, 311, 316, 317, 388, 389, 391, 393, 400 textual 11, 12, 50, 63, 81, 84, 99–104, 252 Thai 14, 18, 419 truth-conditional 24, 86, 197, 250, 251, 255, 258, 262, 281 turn 7, 9–11, 17, 20–22, 39, 45–47, 50–53, 55–60, 62–71, 80–82, 85, 89–91, 93– 95, 98, 99, 101, 104, 115, 122, 126, 128, 191, 210, 235, 243, 293 turn-ending 21, 55–58, 62, 70 turn-final 8, 21, 55–59, 62–67, 70, 99, 117, 126, 187, 188 turn-taking 6, 7, 16, 60, 103, 117, 123 turn-transition 70, 71, 90 uncertainty 20, 39, 43, 46–48, 53, 86, 145, 149, 150, 276 unit – intonation 63, 69, 77, 83, 84, 98, 105, 136, 268, 296 – lexical 77, 99 – prosodic 8–10, 116, 122, 124, 128, 129, 132, 135, 291 wh-feature 28, 333–335, 337, 340, 342, 344–355 wh-question 19, 27, 85, 333–341, 344, 348– 354

Author index Aijmer, Karin 5, 17, 50, 121 Auer, Peter 83–85, 88, 117, 118, 226 Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar 8, 114, 116, 121, 132, 133, 135, 136, 242 Beeching, Kate 215, 242 Biber, Douglas 8, 12, 41, 43, 112, 113 Biberauer, Theresa 410–412 Blakemore, Diane 4, 16, 121, 255, 296 Brinton, Laurel J. 113, 121, 134, 172 Brown, Penelope 46, 197, 198, 214, 215 Carston, Robyn 254, 256 Cheng, Lisa Lai-Shen 340, 343, 352 Cinque, Guglielno 29, 224, 239, 335, 352, 387, 388 Comrie, Bernard 14, 286 Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 8, 64, 66, 69, 70, 72, 84, 116, 121, 133, 135, 242 Degand, Liesbeth 5, 12, 16, 242 Dehé, Nicole 18, 87, 113, 123, 131 Del Gobbo, Francesca 4, 7, 19, 27, 28, 359, 383 Diewald, Gabriele 80–82, 101–103, 114, 121 Dik, Simon 79, 112, 113 Dixon, R. M. W. 113 Dryer, Matthew 14, 408, 409, 412 Du Bois, John W. 117, 118, 146 Ernst, Thomas 40, 387, 388 Fischer, Kerstin 5, 87, 103, 104, 249, 251, 305 Foolen, Ad 5, 8, 10, 13, 19, 20, 25, 77, 221, 230, 295, 296, 305 Ford, Cecilia 56, 71, 82, 83, 99, 122, 210 Fraser, Bruce 5, 8, 102, 114 Fretheim, Thorstein 5, 12, 15, 18–20, 25, 86, 236, 240, 249–252, 268, 269, 274, 280, 281, 296, 299, 300 Grice, H. Paul 149, 209, 259

Haegeman, Liliane 115, 207, 225, 231, 361, 364, 370, 374, 376 Haiman, John 119, 154, 166 Hancil, Sylvie 3, 7, 8, 19, 24, 77, 116, 131, 136, 141, 197, 232, 242 Hansen, Maj-Britt Mosegaard 13, 21, 81, 101, 103, 297 Haselow, Alexander 3, 8–14, 16–21, 77, 79, 84, 111, 210 Haugh, Michael 6, 236 Heine, Bernd 7, 8, 10, 19, 22, 79, 88, 111– 113, 115, 120, 121, 134, 135, 143, 172, 173, 182, 193 Holmberg, Anders 27, 407, 409–411 Hopper, Paul J. 24, 56, 72, 120, 142, 143, 150, 168, 170, 197–199, 216 Huddleston, Rodney 8, 41, 97, 420 Izutsu, Katsunobu 5, 10, 90, 131, 157, 160 Izutsu, Mitsuko 5, 10, 90, 131, 157, 160 Jefferson, Gail 10, 55, 56, 58, 60, 71, 82, 83, 99 Kayne, Richard 28, 333, 334, 368, 372, 411 Kaltenböck, Gunther 7, 8, 10, 19, 22, 79, 88, 111–114, 130, 134, 135 Kirsner, Robert S. 18, 227 Koivisto, Aino 10, 11, 19, 21, 55–57, 60, 71, 77 König, Ekkehard 13, 85, 231, 420, 421 Kuteva, Tania 7, 8, 10, 19, 22, 79, 88, 111, 120, 134, 172, 182 Lambrecht, Knud 113, 298 Langacker, Ronald 23, 143, 157, 158, 163, 164, 167, 177, 281, 282, 298 Levinson, Stephen C. 46, 57, 197, 198, 214, 215 Maynard, Senko 142, 163 Mulder, Jean 8–11, 16, 21, 22, 55, 56, 60, 62, 63, 70, 72, 82, 102, 111, 112, 114–116, 127, 131, 133, 134, 197, 215, 233, 242

Author index

Munaro, Nicola 4, 7, 19, 27, 28, 224, 359, 361, 369, 372 Paillard, Denis 8, 9, 14, 19, 26, 305 Poletto, Cecilia 4, 7, 19, 27, 28, 225, 239, 359, 361, 369 Pomerantz, Anita 67, 69, 214 Post, Margje 3, 12, 19, 26, 77, 83, 282, 285, 287, 288, 292, 293, 295, 298 Pullum, Geoffrey 8, 41, 97 Quirk, Randolph 8, 40, 42, 112 Rhee, Seongha 6, 10, 11, 15–17, 78, 120, 181 Rizzi, Luigi 334, 335, 345, 351, 413, 420, 421 Sacks, Harvey 20, 56, 60, 71, 82, 83, 99 Schegloff, Emanuel 56, 57, 60, 69–71, 82, 83, 85, 86, 99, 116, 118 Schiffrin, Deborah 5, 60, 63, 174 Shinzato, Rumiko 15, 19, 23, 77, 157, 166, 167 Soare, Gabriela 7, 19, 27, 28, 333, 335, 341 Sohn, Sung-Ock 6, 9, 15, 18, 19, 23, 77, 141, 157, 181–184, 190

433

Sperber, Dan 121, 254–258, 261, 262, 296 Takamine, Kaori 7, 8, 19, 27, 29, 387, 391, 398 Thompson, Sandra A. 8–11, 16, 18, 21, 22, 55, 56, 60, 62–64, 66, 69–72, 77, 82, 83, 99, 102, 111, 113–116, 118, 123, 127– 131, 133, 134, 143, 170, 197, 210, 215, 233, 242, 381, 382, 423 Traugott, Elizabeth Closs 5, 17, 23, 24, 56, 72, 96, 120, 142, 143, 150, 157, 158, 164, 167, 168, 173, 174, 177, 197, 198, 209, 210 Waltereit, Richard 12, 93, 121, 122, 210 Weydt, Harald 5, 306 Wichmann, Anne 87, 113 Williams, Cara Perry 197, 233, 242 Wilson, Deirdre 121, 254–258, 261, 262, 296 Wouden, Ton van der 10, 13, 19, 20, 25, 77, 221, 231, 235, 305 Zwicky, Arnold 242, 296