Knowledge and Grounding: The syntax of discourse particles in Swiss German
Date
2023-12-20
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Abstract
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.
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Keywords
Syntax, Swiss German, Discourse Particles, Interactional Language
Citation
Shapkin, S. (2023). Knowledge and grounding: the syntax of discourse particles in Swiss German (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.