Browsing by Author "Shapkin, Shayne"

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    Calgary Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 33, Summer 2024
    (University of Calgary, 2024-08-08) Shapkin, Shayne; Ongay González, Francisco; Rogalski, Anika; Sheppard, Brooklyn; Goode, Ileia
    We, the editors of the Calgary Working Papers in Linguistics (CWPL) are pleased to present the thirty-third volume of the journal. With affiliation to the Division of Linguistics of the School of Languages, Linguistics, Literatures and Cultures (SLLLC) at the University of Calgary, the CWPL publishes works on linguistics and related disciplines by researchers affiliated with the University of Calgary, with a particular emphasis on student researchers.
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    Knowledge and Grounding: The syntax of discourse particles in Swiss German
    (2023-12-20) Shapkin, Shayne; Ritter, Elizabeth Ann; Skordos, Dimitrios; Heim, Johannes
    This thesis examines the properties and distributions of three Swiss German grounding particles – gäll, weisch and oder – as part of an exploration of two longstanding questions about the syntactic structure of interactional content. First, how, and in what order, does the syntax represent addressee- and speaker-oriented functional categories? Second, what kind of relationship does the syntactic layer that represents interactional content have with the layer that represents propositional content? In answer to the first question, I argue based on the Swiss German facts that the addressee-oriented functional category has a higher structural position than the speaker-oriented functional category. I also demonstrate that Swiss German grounding particles serve to encode interlocutors’ knowledge/ignorance of the truth of propositions. In answer to the second question, I show a) that the speaker-oriented functional category selects the clause type of the propositional structure, and b) that Swiss German relies on the content of the specifier of the highest propositional category (i.e., Spec, ForceP) to determine which propositional constituents are eligible for movement into the interactional layer. In this way, Swiss German Spec, ForceP serves as a gateway between the discourse-sensitive interactional layer and the content of the propositional structure.