CP-internal discourse particles and the split ForceP hypothesis

Publication date: Available online 22 October 2019Source: LinguaAuthor(s): Atsushi DohiAbstractThis paper examines some discourse particles in Italian and Japanese that occur directly in the CP zone. First, a recent proposal to split up ForceP into two projections based on observations of a group of discourse particles often referred to as modal particles is summarized. Then, it is argued that a sentence-initial particle tanto in Italian has quite similar characteristics to modal particles and therefore should be analyzed similarly to them. In particular, an account that presupposes covert movement of modal particles is adapted and applied to tanto. Subsequently, it is shown that some Japanese final particles, such as ne, yo and wa, also largely share properties with modal particles, but differ in that they are not sensitive to clause type. In addition, it is shown that sentence-initial usage of ne and yo is distinct from sentence-final usage.Finally, it is argued that the cross-linguistic variation found between CP-internal discourse particles in Italian and Japanese can be captured by presupposing a split-ForceP.
Source: Lingua - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research