Discourse particles

t luki Sodan ja rauhan Mari-ko 1

Q

c. J¹K

o =λw[read(WP)(t)(w)]

J¹K

f ={λw[read(WP)(t)(w)]}

d. (λ-abstraction overt) J²K

o =λw[read(WP)(Mari)(w)]

J²K

f ={λw[read(WP)(Mari)(w)],λw[read(WP)(Joni)(w)], ...} e. J³K

o ={λw[read(WP)(Mari)(w)],λw[read(WP)(Joni)(w)], ...} J³K

f ={{λw[read(WP)(Mari)(w)],λw[read(WP)(Joni)(w)], ...}}

Based on the data above, I conclude that in–kO-questions, the denotation of the question is de-termined by the expression that is F-marked. This expression may or may not carry–kO: this property depends rather on whether there is another overt head or phrase above it. The fact that the "questioned" expression and the–kO-carrying expression may be different – as in (82) – in-dicates that in non-wh-interrogatives, –kOis the surface realisation of a well-behaved second position clitic. The data presented above, and in particular the example in (84), are hard to ac-count for in a system where–kOis required directly to merge with the F-marked constituent that is responsible for the question denotation (Holmberg, 2014, 2015).

2.3.3.5 Discourse particles

There are a number of discourse particles in Finnish (Karttunen, 1975a,b; Nevis, 1985, a.o.). Nevis (1985) provides an insightful summary of the core group of discourse particles, and shows that in terms of their grammatical status, discourse particles may be analysed as clitics (Zwicky and Pullum, 1983, 1984). This means that Finnish discourse clitics show properties of both affixes and of words. In what follows, I will first present the different discourse particles based on Nevis’s (1985) summary. I then discuss the general morphosyntax of discourse particles, and introduce two arguments that Nevis discusses supporting the classification of discourse particles as clitics.

I begin with the so-called second position clitics–hAn,–pAs, and-kO, which attach at the end of the first constituent of the sentence (or, in some cases, within the first constituent) (Nevis, 1985).–hAnfunctions as a mark of appealing (86a), mitigating (86b-c), or explaining something that was said before (86d) (Penttilä, 1957, p. 120). It may also mark amelioration or "softening"

2.3. Finnish

(86e), contradiction (86f ), and new discovery (86g) (Karttunen, 1975a).³⁴ (86) Different uses of–hAn

a. Ole-t-han

‘You are yourself of the same opinion, you know’

b. Mitä-hän

‘What’s being done there, I wonder?’

c. O-n-ko-han

‘Is there any truth in something like that, I wonder?’

d. Hän

‘(S)he knows me; (s)he is my teacher, after all’

e. Puhu-han

‘Talk to father about it, why don’t you’

f. Hän

‘Finland is a small country, by golly. (I just found it on the map.)’

Both Karttunen (1975a) and Hakulinen (1976) provide a general meaning for–hAnin an attempt to capture all its uses. Karttunen proposes that the general function of–hAnis to mark the au-thority of the speaker, i.e. that–hAnsignals that the speaker is in a position to say something to the addressee, that position being due to different factors (and giving rise to different readings).

Hakulinen, on the other hand, argues that when attached to a verb,–hAn"softens" questions, assertions, and commands; when attached to the first constituent of a sentence, it marks old in-formation of current relevance, objections, and newly occurred thoughts.

The second discourse particle that we will discuss,–pA, is often analysed as a marker of

em-34In this section, I summarise thefunctionsthat have been attributed to the discourse clitics in the literature. These functions are descriptive in nature; they only describe the effect that their presence has. There is very little formal research on discourse particles in general (however, see Karttunen and Karttunen, 1976 and section 3.2.1) for the ad-ditives–kinand–kAAn).

phasis (87a). Hakulinen (1984a) shows that–pAalso marks contrastiveness (87b), and softens orders (87c). To this list, Karttunen (1975b) adds marking certainty (87d), immediate observa-tion (87e), appeal to common knowledge in rhetorical quesobserva-tions (87f ), wishing (87g), concessivity (87h), and contradiction (87i). This particle will relevant when we discuss the possibility of ex-pressing agreement and disagreement with another discourse participant using bound additives in sections 4.2 and 4.3.

(87) Different uses of–pA a. O-n-pa

‘It sure is hot here!’

b. Minä-pä

‘It was I who went there’

c. Tule-pa

2.3. Finnish

Finally, the third second position clitic is the question particle–kO(Holmberg, 2014) (see also section 2.3.3.4). As we have seen in previous sections,–kOis always involved in the syntax of polar interrogatives, attaching in the most typical case to the finite verb that is sentence-initial (88a). However,–kOmay also attach to a "topicalised" constituent (88b) (Nevis, 1985, p. 10) – i.e. to what I referred to as narrow focus clefting in section 2.3.3.4 – or even to awh-word in a wh-question, especially when combined with the discourse particle–hAn:

(88) a. Luk-i-ko

read-PAST.3SG-Q

Mari Mari.NOM

tämä-n this-ACC

kirja-n?

book-SG.ACC

‘Did Mari read this book?’

b. Tämä-n-kö this-ACC-Q

kirja-n book-ACC

Mari Mari.NOM

luk-i?

read-PAST.3SG

‘Was it this book that Mari read?’

c. Minkä-kö-hän which.ACC-Q-HAN

kirja-n book-ACC

Mari Mari.NOM

luk-i?

read-PAST.3SG

‘Which book did Mari read (I wonder)?’

The bound additives–kinand–kAAnare also included in the class of discourse particles (Nevis, 1985). They differ from the rest of the clitics in that they are not restricted to appearing in second position. In addition, the particle–sis also sometimes classified as a discourse particle. It has a more restricted distribution, however, which is why Nevis (1985) does not classify it as a clitic but as an affix.–scan be generally analysed as a marker of informality (Karttunen, 1975a,b; Hakulinen and Karlsson, 1979).

Morphosyntactically, all discourse particles – regardless of whether they are second position clitics or not – attach after all case-endings and inflectional endings, as shown in (89).

(89) Position of discourse clitics within a word a. oliive-i-sta-ko

olive-PL-ELA-Q

‘of the olives?’

b. naura-isi-vat-ko laugh-COND-3PL-Q

‘would they laugh?’

As (88c) shows, it is also possible for more than one discourse clitic to attach to the same host.

Some clitic combinations are possible only in one order (i.e. they are not reversible), and some combinations are ruled out altogether. Of the first type, let us mention–pAand–s(–pA-sbut *–

s-pA), and of the second type,–kin/–kAAnand–s(*–s-kinand *–kin-s). In addition, some clitic

combinations are reversible, with no immediate consequence for the meaning. This is the case for the combinations of–kin(and–kAAn) and the question particle–kO(90) or the discourse particle–hAn(91):

(90) Relative order of–kOand–kin a. oliive-j-a-ko-kin

olive-PL-PAR-Q-ADD

‘olives, too?’

b. oliive-j-a-kin-ko olive-PL-PAR-ADD-Q

‘olives, too?’

(91) Relative order of–hAnand–kin a. oliive-j-a-han-kin

olive-PL-PAR-HAN-ADD

‘olives, too, as you know’

b. oliive-j-a-kin-han olive-PL-PAR-ADD-HAN

‘olives, too, as you know’

To end this section, I will briefly discuss the status of discourse particles as clitics. Nevis (1985, p.

26) uses the tests proposed by Zwicky and Pullum (1984) to argue that discourse particles have properties of both words and of affixes. This is typical of clitics. Instead of presenting the whole list of arguments, I will now discuss two of the tests and the results. Given that the topic of this dissertation is additivity, I will only discuss the tests from the perspective of the additive–kin.

However, the presented arguments also apply to the question particle–kO.

First, –kin and other discourse particles are word-like (and not affix-like) in that they are subject to external sandhi phonological rules. Nevis (1985) discusses two such sandhi rules in Finnish: word-initial gemination, andt-assimilation. We will discuss the former here.

In Finnish, word-initial gemination takes place between independent words, but not between a stem and an affix. This phonological process affects words that end with a certain morpheme or morpheme type – e.g. the imperative morpheme – and requires the initial consonant of the following word to be geminated. Often, the application of the gemination rule is indicated with a superscriptedXat the end of the word. For example,tule^Xtänne‘come-IMPhere’ is pronounced as[tulet:ænne]. Many words that are written with a final ‘e’ in Modern Finnish contain an^X, and thus the gemination process is also visible in many compound words, such ashernekeitto‘pea soup’, pronounced[hernek:eitto]. Now, if–kin(or–kAAn) appears at the end ofherne^X, the initial

2.4. Summary

consonant of the additive is geminated, producinghernekin‘pea, too’[herne:kin_]. Hence, the results of the external sandhi test suggest that discourse particles are not affixes, but words.

(92) External sandhi test: discourse particles are words

a. herne-keitto‘pea soup’, pronounced with initial gemination of/k_/:[hernek:eitto] b. herne-kin‘pea, too’, pronounced with initial gemination of/k_/:[herne:kin_]

However, Nevis also shows that another phonological – or more precisely, prosodic – test sug-gests that discourse particles are affixes, not words. This test concerns the application of vowel harmony. In Finnish, all word stems are vowel-harmonic, and only contain front or back vowels (with the exception of/i_/and/e_/, which may combine with both front and back vowels). Any case and inflectional suffixes that attach to a stem must be harmonic with the stem: hence, the inessive case marker–ssAsurfaces as[ssa_](written as–ssa) or[ssæ_](written as–ssä) depending on the stem it attaches to. Crucially, vowel harmony does not reach beyond word boundaries, and it therefore does not apply to e.g. compounds. As the realisation of the additive–kAAnis vowel-harmonic (as is the realisation of–hAn,–kO, and–pA), the vowel harmony test suggests that discourse particles are affixes, not words.

(93) Vowel harmony test: discourse particles are affixes

a. talo-ssa‘in the house’,peili-ssä‘in the mirror’:–ssAis vowel-harmonic

b. talo-kaan‘the house, either’,peili-kään‘the mirror, either’:–kAAnis vowel-harmonic In conclusion, Finnish discourse particles are clitics that can be further divided into two groups depending on whether they are second position clitics – as is the case with–hAn,–pA, and–kO – or not – as is the case with the additive–kinand–kAAn. In general, discourse particles fulfil a myriad of functions that are essentially non-truth-conditional. In the remainder of this disser-tation, the discourse clitic–kOwill pop up regularly in the analysis of the different uses of the bound additives and discourse clitics–kinand–kAAn. The rest of the discourse clitics will not be discussed further.

2.4 Summary

The purpose of this chapter was to set the stage for the rest of the dissertation in terms of theoret-ical background. The chapter was organised into three main sections dealing with matters con-cerning the syntax-semantics interface (section 2.1), the semantics-pragmatics interface (section 2.2), and specific properties of Finnish, the language from which all new data in this dissertation is from (section 2.3). Within these sections, a relatively important amount of time was spent dis-cussing the syntax and semantics of focus and interrogativity, two closely related domains that

involve alternatives. Alternatives and focus also play a leading role in the next chapter, in which I present a review of the literature on additivity.

Additivity

This chapter serves as an in-depth introduction and literature review on the topic of additivity.

I begin with a brief presentation of the main issues that arise in the investigation of additivity.

I then review previous analyses of additivity in three groups: analyses based on an existential presupposition, analyses based on an anaphoric presupposition, and analyses that specifically concern additivity in Finnish. A summary section concludes the chapter.

3.1 Review of the main issues concerning additivity

In this section, I present eight general issues that are discussed in the literature on additivity.

While the focus of these sections is on introducing the issues, some theoretical solutions and approaches are also mentioned in the context of each issue or topic. The brief presentations within this section serve as a backdrop for the more detailed presentation of different formal approaches to additivity from section 3.2 onwards.

Dans le document The syntax and semantics of additivity in Finnish (Page 76-84)