Diskurspartikeln. Inkrementelle Interpretation im Kontext
Principal investigator: Cornelia Ebert (from April 2013), Klaus von Heusinger (till March 2013)
Researchers: Elena Karagjosova (currently on parental leave), Todor Koev
Former researchers: Sofiana Chiriacescu (1/2011-12/2012), Annika Deichsel, Duygu Özge (1/2012-12/2012),
Student researchers: David Bausch, Qingfeng Schwaderer
The project examines those discourse properties which control the interpretation of discourse particles. This is shown using the distribution and interpretation of discourse particles in the so-called Nacherstposition in German. Nacherstposition is the position immediately following the first constituent in a matrix clause. It is generally assumed that the presence of discourse particles in this position is, amongst others, accompanied by a topic shift effect. We intend to develop a semantic and pragmatic model for the interpretation of particles in Nacherstposition, thereby analysing the interpretation of discourse particles as a process of incremental specification in context emanating from underspecified representations. The analysis is meant to be contrastive and will be extended to other languages such as Dutch, Hungarian, English, Romanian, Bulgarian, and Russian.