Modal particles in relative clauses:

a corpus study and an information structural account of halt and eben

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Sonja Müller
Bergische Universität Wuppertal

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Abstract

This talk is concerned with the occurrence of modal particles (mps) in relative clauses in German.

      In the descriptive literature on relative clauses, the occurrence of mps is often used as a test in order to prove that a structure is a non-restrictive relative clause (cf. e.g. Zifonun et al. 1997: 2007, Holler 2005: 30) (cf. (1)).

 

(1) Diejenigen, die (*ja/*doch) politisch interessiert sind, gehen auch zur Wahl.

                                                                                                                                                                  (Holler 2005: 30)

 

In the recent theoretical literature on mps and on adverbial clauses mps have been claimed to be a root phenomenon (cf. e.g. Coniglio 2011, Abraham 2012, Frey 2011/2012). Therefore, they should not occur in central adverbial clauses. The following division would thus be predicted: Mps should only be found in non-restrictive relative clauses.

      However, a corpus study (based on DECOW2012) (cf. Schäfer & Bildhauer 2012) which analyses the occurrence of halt and eben in relative clauses reveals that these assumptions cannot be upheld. (2) to (5) show some examples.

 

(2) Ich muss zu meiner Schande gestehen, dass Ich darüber kaum etwas weiß, nur das was man halt liest [...]                                                                                    (DECOW2012-C06X7M: 49949863)

                                                                                                                                                                                (restrictive)

(3) Ich pachte z.B. kein Fabrik-Gebäude und reklamier dann beim Verpächter, dass mir meine Post aus dem verrosteten Briefkasten geklaut wird, der halt neben der Eingangstür hängt ...                                                                                                                    (DECOW2012-C06X7M: 25072949)

                                                                                                                                                                    (non-restrictive)

(4) Nur doof, wenn man sich immer von Sachen bedient, die der Fan eben kennt.                                                                                                                                                            (DECOW2012-C06X7M: 305992539)

                                                                                                                                                                                (restrictive)

(5) Die Romulaner in TOS etwa waren absolut dreidimensionale Gegenspieler, die eben auf einer anderen Seite standen als Kirk, aber nichtsdestotrotz auf ihre Weise ehrenhaft. 

                                                                                                                                      (DECOW2012-C06X7M: 45833929)                                          (non-restrictive)

 

Based on inferential statistics – which also takes the general occurrence of restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses in the corpus into consideration (based on 1924 relative clauses) –, it can be shown that mps are not excluded from restrictive relative clauses. On the contrary, the data reveal a difference in distribution between the two particles analysed: Whereas eben prefers the non-restrictive relative clause, halt prefers the restrictive relative clause: halt (χ2(1, n = 119) = 4,9469, p < 0,05, V = 0,2), eben (χ2(1, n = 266) = 18,2376, p < 0,001, V = 0,26).

      The study, therefore, clearly shows that the occurrence of mps in relative clauses needs to be looked at in a much more differentiated way than it has been done so far. An explanation for this distribution is offered based on an interpretation of halt and eben which relies on halt being associated with rhematic information or assertive contents whereas eben is claimed to refer to thematic information and presupposed contents.

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Reference

Abraham, W. (2012), “Sprecherdeixis und Merkmaldistributionsdifferential deutscher Modalitätselemente”, Deutsche Sprache 40, 72–95.

Coniglio, M. (2011), Die Syntax der deutschen Modalpartikeln: Ihre Distribution und Lizenzierung in Haupt- und Nebensätzen. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.

Frey, W. (2011), “Peripheral adverbial clauses, their licensing and the prefield in German”, in: Breindl, E. & Ferraresi, G. & Volodina, A. (eds.), Satzverknüpfung – Zur Interaktion von Form, Bedeutung und Diskursfunktion. Berlin: de Gruyter, 41–77.

Frey, W. (2012), “On two types of adverbial clauses allowing root-phenomena”, in: Aelbrecht, L. & Haegeman, L. & Nye, R. (eds.), Main Clause Phenomena: New Horizons. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 405–429.

Holler, A. (2005), Weiterführende Relativsätze. Empirische und theoretische Aspekte. Berlin: Akademie Verlag

Schäfer, R. & Bildhauer, F. (2012) “Building large corpora from the web using a new efficient tool chain”, in: Calzolari, N. et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, 486–493, Accessible via: http://rolandschaefer.net/http://rolandschaefer.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/SchaeferBildhauer_LREC2012_BuildingLargeCorpora.pdf, last access: 05/11.2017.

Zifonun et al. (1997), Grammatik der deutschen Sprache. Band 1-3. Berlin: de Gruyter.