Re: disfluencies/editing expressions

Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...>:

> On Fri, 3 Sep 2004 18:01:35 +0200, Carsten Becker
> <naranoieati@...> wrote:
>
> >Where we're on the topic of filling words and such, what
> >would German "ja" (yes) and "doch" (no English equivalent!)
> >in sentences like "Ich *kenne* dich doch!" or "*Dich* habe
> >ich ja schon lange nicht mehr gesehen!" be translated as in
> >English? "do VERB" resp. with "VERBsn't it?" and "VERBs
> >it?" maybe? Note that the use of these words is rather
> >colloquial.
>
> This class of words is a specific to German. A characteristic of these words
> is that they can't be translated. Other examples are _denn, schon, mal,
> wohl_. They're called _Abtönungspartikel_ because they're function is to
> gradate or colour or add a flavour to the meaning of the entire sentence as
> a whole. Their syntactical function is the sentence focus.
Specific to German? I don't see how they really differ from Swedish particles
like _ju_ and _väl_. Notice that _väl_ as particle is different from _väl_ as
an adverb _well_ - [vEl] vs [VE:l].

                                                      Andreas