The German particle 'denn' in a Scoreboard model of discourse

Abstract

We develop a Scoreboard-based analysis of the German discourse particle denn occurring in questions. There are three main outcomes of this exercise: First, we propose that the function of denn naturally fits the central ideas of the Scoreboard model: denn indicates that acceptance of the previous discourse move (which may be implicit) is being put on hold until some issue arising from it has been clarified. Second, we show that the formal implementation requires treating all components of a context structure as stacks rather than sets. Third, we argue that the notion of highlighting, which had a prominent place in a previous analysis, is not needed to capture the meaning and distribution of denn