A QUD account of German 'doch'

Authors

  • Tania Rojas-Esponda

Abstract

This paper proposes an analysis of the unfocused and focused discourse particle uses of doch in terms of questions under discussion. The particle doch is analyzed as signaling that a question under discussion was previously closed (i.e. answered or invalidated). Unfocused doch is used to re-answer this previously closed QUD in the same way as before; focused doch is used to re-answer this previously closed QUD in a new way. This account works for both contrastive and non-contrastive uses of doch. Even though, unlike most previous accounts, the analysis is not built directly on the notion of contrast, the relevant intuitions can be recovered from the account via highlighting. The formalism further allows us to distinguish two distinct flavors of contrast, where they arise. One type of contrast arises through propositional contrast between the sentence containing doch and a highlighted alternative. The other type of contrast arises through the switching of the QUD-answer (focused doch).

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How to Cite

Rojas-Esponda, T. (2019). A QUD account of German ’doch’. Proceedings of Sinn Und Bedeutung, 18, 359–376. Retrieved from https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/sub/index.php/sub/article/view/322