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In:Modes of Modality: Modality, typology, and universal grammar
Edited by Elisabeth Leiss and Werner Abraham
[Studies in Language Companion Series 149] 2014
► pp. 263–290

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Modal particles in rationale clauses and related constructions

 | Universität Tübingen
Published online: 24 January 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.149.09gro
This paper discusses the connection between sentential modality (e.g. the modality introduced by a modal auxiliary such as may or must) and the force of an utterance. This connection is explored with a focus on the German particles ruhig/bloß/JA, which typically occur in modalized declaratives and in imperatives, indicating a connection between the two types of utterances. This paper poses the question of how to account for such particles in rationale clauses, which cannot be trivially analyzed as modalized declaratives or imperatives. I pursue a uniform analysis of ruhig/bloß/JA as ‘modal modifiers’ (in the spirit of Grosz 2010, 2011), which increase the strength of a modal utterance; I argue that rationale clauses (on a par with imperatives) contain a covert modal that is best characterized as an existential modal with a modal choice function, in the spirit of Rullmann et al. (2008).
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