Swedish modal particles as markers of engagement

Evidence from distribution and frequency

Bibliographic Data

ID21462968
AuthorsHenrik Bergqvist (0000-0001-6114-5527, Department of Linguistics , Stockholm University , Universitetsvägen 10 C , Stockholm, 106 91 , Sweden, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume54
Issue2
Pages469-496
Publication date2020-09-25
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFolia Linguistica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0165-4004 • E-ISSN: 1614-7308
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/flin-2020-2047
OpenAlexW3091161300
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited33

The paper analyses the Swedish modal particles ju and väl as markers of engagement. This analysis finds support in the distribution and frequency of ju and väl in a corpus of spoken Swedish along with an examination of existing accounts concerning the semantics of the investigated forms. Engagement encodes differences in the distribution of knowledge and/or attention between the speaker and the addressee, where the basic semantic contrast consists of the speaker asserting an assumption about the addressee’s knowledge of/attention to an event as either shared, or non-shared with the speaker. Ju and väl are paradigmatically contrastive in signaling shared access to an event from the point of view of the speaker, or the addressee: ju signals shared access to an event and at the same time places the epistemic authority with the speaker, and väl signals shared access to an event, placing the epistemic authority with the addressee. Analytical support for ju and väl as markers of engagement comes from the distribution of both forms with first person ( jag ), second person ( du ), and generic ( man ) subject pronouns

Agreement · Linguistics · Modal · Physics · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Mathematics · Philosophy · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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