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In:Discourse Particles: Syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and historical aspects
Edited by Xabier Artiagoitia, Arantzazu Elordieta and Sergio Monforte
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 276] 2022
► pp. 157–178

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Chapter 6
Anchoring primary and secondary interjections to the context

 | Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
Published online: 17 May 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/la.276.06mun
Abstract
On the basis of empirical evidence from various Italian dialects, I argue that primary and secondary interjections lexicalize different functional heads which are computed syntactically at the edge of the clause. Secondary interjections should be clearly distinguished from primary ones; only secondary interjections lexicalizing a SpeechAct° head represent autonomous speech acts and are prosodically and syntactically independent from the co-occurring clause, which they can attract to their specifier position, raising eventually to the adjacent head Speaker° in order to achieve the necessary spatio-temporal contextual anchoring. Primary interjections, which can co-occur with secondary ones and surface clause-initially, lexicalize arguably the highest functional head Speaker°, interacting in interesting ways with lower projections and with the overt realization of the complementizer in Force.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Discourse-linked secondary interjections
    • 2.1Emilian dialects
    • 2.2Venetan dialects
  • 3.A hybrid class of secondary interjections
    • 3.1Emilian dialects
    • 3.2Venetan dialects
  • 4.Non-integrated secondary interjections and contextual anchoring
    • 4.1Venetan dialects
    • 4.2On contextual anchoring
  • 5.On the contextual anchoring of primary interjections
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (29)
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