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Article published In: Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 6:1 (2015) ► pp.89–116

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The grammar and pragmatics of N hin, N her (‘N thither, N hither’) in German

Published online: 10 March 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.6.1.05fin
In this paper, I investigate the German N hin, N her (‘N thither, N hither’) construction. I first provide a close description of its syntactic and semantic properties, arguing that N hin, N her is a grammatical construction. I then show that this construction is not entirely idiosyncratic, as there are specific pragmatic aspects contributing to its meaning and functional potential. These are the deictic adverbs hin and her, restrictions on the choice of nouns, and effects of syntactic disintegration. I argue that a purely semantic analysis of the construction as concessive or concessive conditional is insufficient, as it neglects pragmatic processes of contextual enrichment and implicature. Based on these assumptions, I provide a detailed analysis of the discursive and interactional functions of the construction, showing that it is a prime candidate for construing textual coherence and for subjectification and stance taking. Evidence comes from a corpus of newspaper examples
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