Eintrag

Titel

So as a focus marker in German

Personen

Heike Wiese

Jahr

2011

Typ

Aufsatz

Periodikum

Linguistics
An interdisciplinary journal of the language sciences

ISSN

0024-3949

Seiten

991 - 1039

Band

49

Heft

5

Schlagwörter

Einzelanalyse
Fokus
Pragmatik

Objektwörter

so

Abstract

This paper discusses a hitherto undescribed usage of the particle 'so' as a dedicated focus marker in contemporary German. I discuss grammatical and pragmatic characteristics of this focus marker, supporting my account with natural linguistic data and with controlled experimental evidence showing that 'so' has a significant influence on speakers' understanding of what the focus expression in a sentence is. Against this background, I sketch a possible pragmaticalization path from referential usages of so via hedging to a semantically bleached focus marker, which, unlike particles such as auch 'also'/'too' or nur 'only', does not contribute any additional meaning.

https://grammis.ids-mannheim.de/bdg/72097