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Article published In: Linguistics in the Netherlands 2022
Edited by Jorrig Vogels and Sterre Leufkens
[Linguistics in the Netherlands 39] 2022
► pp. 158–173

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Addition, restriction, iteration

Focus particles in Dutch conditionals

 | Universiteit Leiden
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Leiden University.

Published online: 4 November 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.00067.reu
Abstract
Conditional clauses in Dutch can be accompanied by focus particles, as in zelfs als ‘even if’ and alleen als ‘only if’. The literature focuses on these additive and restrictive particles, because they may influence the truth-conditional meaning of the sentence, which is uncommon for particles. Most of these studies are not based on empirical language data, or draw largely from formal written texts in English. This study investigates which focus particles occur in Dutch conditionals, and to which extent their uses are associated with spoken and written modes and with formal and informal registers. It is shown that restrictive and additive particles are most frequent in formal written texts, and that a third type of particle exists, which adds iterative meaning to the conditional, as in telkens als ‘everytime if [when]’. The results show this type of particles to be associated with informal spoken texts.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Focus particles in conditionals
    • 2.1Positional variability
    • 2.2Semantic scope
    • 2.3Conclusion
  • 3.Types of focus particles in conditionals
    • 3.1Additive focus particles
    • 3.2Restrictive focus particles
    • 3.3Iterative focus particles
    • 3.4Conclusion
  • 4.Data and method
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Distribution of types of focus particles in Dutch conditionals
    • 5.2Contributions to the meaning of conditionals
    • 5.3Conclusion
  • 6.Conclusion and discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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