Search results for "German modal particles"
showing 2 items of 2 documents
DENN, EIGENTLICH, ÜBERHAUPT - THREE “PRAGMATIC PARTICLES” IN GERMAN
2015
A peculiarity of the German language is the extensive use of “pragmatic particles” in spoken language. These particles are generally called Abtönungspartikel (“modulating particles”) and are used to modulate the speaker’s attitude. They have an elusive meaning which is quite difficult for non-native speakers to discern, and they are a challenge to translate into Italian due to the lack of equivalents. Three particularly interesting particles are “denn”, “eigentlich” and “überhaupt”, which are typical of the speech act of asking questions. After a general introduction to the vast field of conversational particles (showing how differently German grammars treat this topic), the present contrib…
The translatability into Italian of the German stance marking modal particles wohl, eben and ja. Between epistemicity and evidentiality
2015
Contrary to Italian and many other languages, German has a linguistic means to mark the speaker’s stance: the so-called modal particles, such as wohl, eben and ja. This paper examines their occurrence in a German novel and their possible translations in its Italian version. It analyses their complex meaning arising from the intertwined relations between speaker – hearer – state of affairs as the three key entities of stance they mark and the textual or situational context, concluding that they have only covert epistemic and evidential features. This cross-linguistic analysis proves that it is impossible not only to translate them, but also to draw a clear borderline between epistemicity and…