Modalpartikeln als multimodale Konstruktionen. Eine korpusbasierte Kookkurrenzanalyse von Modalpartikeln und Gestik im Deutschen.

Core of this project is a multimodal description of three clusters of German modal particles (MPs) which are defined onomasiologically: 1° particles which link a question to its context (typically denn and eigentlich), 2° particles which indicate that the content of the utterance should already be known by the hearer (typically ja and doch), and 3° particles which mark the content of the utterance as obvious (typically eben, einfach, and halt). At the multimodal level, particular attention is paid to the co-occurrence of these MPs with gestures, the focus being on gestures which themselves convey MP meanings. Starting from a number of case studies, a detailed analysis of these co-occurrence patterns is offered, including a discussion of the factors which may influence their distribution. Finally, the question is raised whether these co-occurrence patterns can be analyzed as multimodal constructions in the sense of Construction Grammar. Although this cannot be taken for granted, it is shown in the dissertation that a number of potential objections cannot be considered as true counterarguments, and that therefore, an analysis in terms of Construction Grammar is justified.

Publication year:2014

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