Re: disfluencies/editing expressions

On Fri, 3 Sep 2004 21:39:30 +0200, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:

>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].
No idea. I've just been repeating what I've learned. I shouldn't have said
that this feature isn't found in any language but German, but rather that
the major European languages lack it (hope you don't get too offended if I
don't Scandinavian languages). In one place I read that Guarani has similar
words. Maybe none of the numerous Germanists who researched these particles
knew Swedish.

gry@s:
j. 'mach' wust

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