Abstract
The goal of this paper is to argue for a novel approach to the semantics of discourse particles. It presents a research programme, which aims at deriving a very specific unified semantic analysis of these particles that nevertheless manages to capture a wide range of uses of the particles. The paper claims that discourse particles can relate these (p-)utterances to felicity conditions of other utterances (their respective a-utterances). It commences with some background assumptions on discourse particles in general. Then, the paper illustrates the proposed approach to these particles in detail for the particle doch . Further, it shows that the findings for doch carry over to the notoriously difficult discourse particle schon (without attempting an exhaustive analysis of schon ). It also discusses ?minimal pairs? of doch - and schon -utterances (which only differ in that they comprise either doch or schon , respectively). Finally, the paper offers an outlook to further research. Keywords:(p-) utterances; a-utterances; discourse particles; doch ; felicity conditions; schon
Published Version
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