5 The Speech Act Connection: Particles of Direct Address

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the syntax of particles of direct address because they spell out the structure of the speech act (SA) phrase and provide a configuration for assessing the relation between VocPs and the utterance. It proposes a formal analysis for Romanian pragmatic particles, as items that spell-out SA heads. It then extends the analysis to Greek equivalent particles. In the analysis of particles, the chapter makes use of the terms hortatives and injunctives in order to indicate the semantic modality of the illocutionary force that is mapped to the speech act head. The theoretical stand the authors take is the extension of the left periphery of clauses above the level of discourse pragmatics, with a field that encodes the conversational pragmatics; that is, the illocutionary force that comes from injunctive and hortative modality is mapped to syntax in the SA head. Keywords: Greek equivalent particles; pragmatic function; Romanian pragmatic particles; Speech Act (SA) heads