German and Dutch are well-known for their large inventories of discourse particles. These particles have been intensively studied, but their meanings are difficult to define or paraphrase. Those that occur in the “middlefield” (i.e., between the V2/Aux position and the position of clause-final verbs) have traditionally been referred to as Modalpartikeln ‘modal particles’ in German, although they do not express modality in the standard sense of that term.20 Some examples and a description from Zimmermann (2011: 2013) are presented in (23).
(23) a. Max ist ja auf See.
b. Max ist doch auf See.
c. Max ist wohl auf See.
‘Max is prtcl at sea.’
The sentences in (23a–c) do not differ in propositional content: they all have the same truth-conditions… A difference in the choice of the particle (ja, doch, wohl) leads to a difference in felicity conditions, however, such that each sentence will be appropriate in a different context. As a first approximation, (23a) indicates that the speaker takes the hearer to be aware of the fact that Max is at sea. In contrast, (23b) signals that the speaker takes the hearer not to be aware of this fact at the time of utterance. (23c), finally, indicates a degree of speaker uncertainty concerning the truth of the proposition expressed. In each case, the discourse particle does not contribute to the descriptive, or propositional, content of the utterance, but to its expressive content.
Most of the German modal particles are homophonous with a stressed variant belonging to one of the standard parts of speech. For example, stressed ja means ‘yes’ and stressed wohl means ‘probably’. However, when used as particles these words are unstressed and take on a variety of meanings, many of which are difficult to paraphrase or translate. Some of the variant meanings of ja and doch are illustrated in (24–25).
(24) a. Die Malerei war ja schon immer sein Hobby.
‘<As you know>, painting has always been his hobby.’
b. Dein Mantel ist ja ganz schmutzig.
‘<Hey> your coat is all dirty.’ (not previously known to hearer)
c. Fritz hat ja noch gar nicht bezahlt.
‘<Hey> Fred has not paid yet.’ (newly discovered by speaker)21
(25) a. A: Maria kommt mit. ‘Maria is coming with me.’
B: Sie ist doch verreist. ‘She has left, <hasn’t she>?’
b. Das ist doch der Hans! Was macht der hier?
‘That’s Hans over there <surprise>! What is he doing here?’
c. Ich war doch letztes Jahr schon dort.
‘<Did you forget?> I was here last year.’22
In the passage quoted above, Zimmermann (2011) states that these particles contribute to the expressive content of the utterance rather than its descriptive, or at-issue, content; they affect the felicity conditions of the utterance, but not its truth-conditions. So, for example, all of the sentences in (23) would be true if Max is in fact at sea at the time of speaking. Using the wrong particle would make the utterance infelicitous, but not false. Other authors have reached similar conclusions. Waltereit (2001) states:
[Modal particles] modify the preparatory conditions, as they evoke a speech situation in which the desired preparatory conditions are fulfilled… Preparatory conditions describe the way the speech act fits into the social relation of speaker and addressee, and they describe how their respective interests are concerned by the act.23
Karagjosova (2000)states that “[modal particles] indicate if and how incoming information in dialogue is processed by the interlocutors in terms of its consistency with the information or beliefs the interlocutors already have.” For example, modal particles may indicate whether a proposition has succeeded in becoming grounded, i.e., part of the shared assumptions (common ground) of the speaker and hearer. She continues:
[T]he meaning of [modal particles] seems not to be part of the proposition indeed and thus not part of the truth conditions of the sentence they occur in. … [W]e conclude that doch does not contribute to the sentence meaning but to the utterance meaning and represents thus semantically an utterance modifier rather than a sentence modifier.
The hypothesis that German modal particles function as utterance modifiers, and do not contribute to truth-conditional content, is supported by the fact that they cannot be negated, as seen in (26). Moreover, they cannot be questioned and cannot function as the answer to a question.24
(26) Hein ist ja nicht zuhause.
‘As you know, Hein is not at home.’ [Gutzmann 2015, sec. 7.2.2.2]
(cannot mean: ‘You do not know that Hein is not at home.’)
20 Palmer (1986: 45–46).
21 Examples from König 1991; König et al. 1990; Waltereit 2001.
22 Examples from Karagjosova (2000); Grosz (2010); http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/German_modal_particle.
23 cf. Searle (1969).
24 This point is mentioned in most descriptions of the German modal particles, including Bross (2012) and Gutzmann (2015).
