The Meaning of Focus Particles: A Comparative Perspective

Abstract

The Meaning of Focus ParticlesFocus particles (even, only, also, merely) play an important role in English in various syntactic and semantic domains such as coordination, focusing, emphatic reflexives, concessive constructions, and quantification.The syntactic properties of these expressions pose numerous problems for current syntactic frameworks and the highly context-dependent and subjective nature of their meaning presents a challenge for semantic theories.A ten-year study, this book presents a comprehensive analysis of the syntax, meaning and use of focus particles and related function words.It combines an indepth analysis of English with a comparative study of many other languages, in search of cross-linguistic typological generalizations.The book also provides a historical perspective on focus particles by examining their diachronic sources and the relevant process of grammaticalization.The original meanings of the lexical items from which particles are historically derived illuminate the current meaning and usage of these expressions in English and the comparable regularities and patterns of variation in other languages.The book will be of interest to a wide range of linguists.The meanings associated with focus particles in English combine both semantic and pragmatic aspects and so provide data of relevance to the current problem of locating the precise boundary between semantics and pragmatics.This will appeal to philosophers of language and semanticists of all persuasions.Specialists in English will find a new approach to the syntactic and semantic properties of a class of 'adverbs' whose analysis until now has been problematic.The comparative aspect is of great interest to language typologists, since this is the first time that a cross-linguistic typology of this pragmatic-semantic area has been proposed.For the historical linguist there are detailed discussions of grammaticalization processes, of correlations between historical sources and targets in focus particle development, and of the pragmatic-semantic interaction in historical change.