Gutzmann, Daniel. 2009. Hybrid semantics for modal particles. Sprache und Datenverarbeitung 33 (1–2). 45–59.
Abstract
German modal particles show intriguing semantic and syntactic properties. To account for some of them – that they are non-truth-conditional, and that they can neither be coordinated nor focussed – I build on Kaplan’s (1999) insights, and sketch a view on semantics called Hybrid Semantics that refers to both truth and use conditions. To provide a formal implementation of the core ideas of Hybrid Semantics, I present LTU, a multidimensional type-driven logic. The tools of LTU are then employed to account for the three properties of modal particles.