die ja

Access to Force from deep within DP
A discourse particle ‘embedded’ in AP
CLAUSE STRUCTURE AND UTTERANCE MEANING:
WORD ORDER, PARTICLES, EMPHASIS
Yvonne Viesel ([email protected])
http://ling.uni-konstanz.de/pages/StructureUtterance
Summary
German ja (‘yes’) as a discourse particle can be found in adnominal adjectival constructions, affirming, roughly, that a property, as described in AP, is present in the referent of the head noun and is relevant for the hearer to
evaluate what is at issue in the clause. ja at CP-level having been analyzed as contributing to the expressive (Kratzer 1999, 2004) or use-conditional (Gutzmann 2009) meaning of an utterance in the form of a CI or presupposition
(Kaufmann 2010; cf. Zimmermann 2011), empirical data suggests that ja in embedded contexts crucially relies on the presence of other, decidedly non-at-issue and therefore at least semantically unembedded structures.
ja generally
The structure of APs containing ja
‘Unembeddedness’ enforced
(1)
Regarding (2a) and its indefinite counterpart (2a'), Jacobs (1986:108) observes that an NP node
can absorb the semantic scope of the particle iff the latter is part of an ‘appositive attribute’,
which, contrary to a restrictive attribute, expresses its own assertive illocution.
Appositive relative clauses allow for discourse particles due to the illocutionary Force they
are expected to have if, following Potts (2005), they are CIs.
a. Diese Diskurspartikel erscheint ja meist auf CP-Ebene.
this discourse.particle appears JA mostly at CP-level
‘This discourse particle appears mostly at the level of CP.’
b. Warum ist diese Partikel (*ja) satztypsensitiv?
why
is this particle JA clause.type.sensitive
‘Why is this particle clause-type sensitive?’
 is licit in declarative root contexts,
 is immobile in its base position above VP/vP, preceded by obligatorily fronted indefinite
pronouns and, optionally, scrambled definite DPs (Bayer & Obenauer 2011:451),
 signals to the hearer that the proposition in its scope is given as a “background
assertion”, to be added to the Common Ground without discussion, in order to evaluate
further assertions on what is really the Question under Discussion (Hinterhölzl & Krifka
2013:12).
ja in APs
(2)
a. Diese ja schon oft erhobenen Vorwürfe hat er wiederholt.
(cf. Jacobs 1986:107)
these JA already often raised
reproaches has he repeated
‘He repeated these reproaches, which had been made frequently already.’
b. Denkt ihr an eure liebe
und auf euch ja (nicht) sehr stolze Oma?
think you of your beloved and of you JA (not) very proud granny
‘Do you think of your beloved granny, who is (not) very proud of you?’
 is independent from the Force properties of the CP embedding the containing DP,
 precedes degree and negational phrases, but may be preceded by adverbials and
(scrambled) adjectival arguments,
 operates locally and scopes over the predication of a property onto the entity denoted by
the head noun,
 signals to the hearer that this ‘reduced proposition’ is (to be taken as) “uncontroversial”
(Lindner 1991:174), but relevant for the evaluation of what is really at issue in the clause.
(2)
a'. * Ja schon oft erhobene Vorwürfe hat er wiederholt.
JA already often raised
reproaches has he repeated
‘He repeated reproaches which had been made frequently already.’
(cf. Jacobs 1986:107)
While Jacobs’ explanation may hold for some instances of ‘bare’ non-restrictive adjectives under
ja (4a), the 120 findings of AP-internal ja from a recent corpus search in the DWDS (‘Digital
Dictionary of the German Language’, cf. Klein & Geyken 2010) suggest that additional elements like
schon oft (‘already often’) in (2a') play a crucial role in licensing ja:
‘Appositive’ APs not as easily available with ja:
 The unembedded status of a bare non-restrictive adjective may be less obvious to many
speakers.
 An anonymous abstract reviewer expects the pertinent APs, “being a complement of, and
thus, in the scope of D” to rather behave like restrictive relative clauses.
 In German, there seems to be little difference structurally between the appositive,
restrictive, and even intensional adjectives in (5a-c).
(5)
Bare adjectives under ja are strongly dispreferred:
 Only four instances (3,3%) feature DPs with a single, simple AP consisting of ja and one
non-complex adjective (negated neither by nicht (‘not’) nor the negational prefix un-, no
further adverbial or degree modifiers).
 Among ten instances (8,3%) featuring the adjective bekannt (‘known’) non-restrictively, there
is only one simple AP of the form ja bekannt.
 ‘Exceptional’ cases like (4a) improve greatly with heavy, arguably iconic, stress on the
adjective (laaange).
 Out of the blue, most speaker reject constructions like (4b) in their simple form.
 Generally, APs under ja display varying degrees of greater complexity, featuring a wide
range of material such as (stacked) degree and different adverbial modifiers, adjectival
arguments, (lower) discourse particles, and (double) negation (4c-e).
(4)
In the presence of such items, the problem of restrictiveness /
embeddedness of the construction with ja loses its significance:
(6)
a. der ja lange Schritt zur Hürde
the JA long step
to.the hurdle
(cf. Hoke, Ralph & Otto Schmith. 1937. Grundlagen und Methodik der Leichtathletik, 70. Leipzig: Barth.)
b. mein ja brandneues / *(nicht / leider)
neues Auto
my
JA brand.new
not
unfortunately new
car
c. die ja *(sehr) nötige
Kritik
the JA very necessary criticism
General claim:
Discourse particles can only occur in appositive, i.e. non-restrictive, relative clauses, but
not in restrictive ones, due to the lack of an independent Force projection in the latter (Coniglio
2011; Hinterhölzl and Krifka 2013; Potts 2005).
(3)
a. Eine Kollegin, die (*ja) in Syracuse wohnt, wird kommen.
(cf. Kratzer 1999:5)
a
colleague who JA in Syracuse lives
will come
‘A colleague who lives in Syracuse will come.’
b. * Die Firma sucht einen Angestellten, der ja immer pünktlich ist.
the firm looks-for an
employee
who JA always punctual is
‘The firm is looking for an employee who is always on time.’
(cf. Zimmermann 2004:32)
d. der ja wohl sichere Erfolg
the JA WOHL certain success
e. in einer ja nicht ganz unheiklen Angelegenheit
in a
JA not
entirely non.delicate affair
(Berliner Tageblatt, 04.03.1904)
OPEN (e.g. tall)
LOWER CLOSED (e.g. rough)
Research questions
UPPER CLOSED (e.g. smooth)
1. What are the precise structural prerequisites for the grammatical employment of
ja in an AP?
2. How can ‘embedded’, AP-internal ja semantically operate on the illocutionary
level, the domain of speaker attitude (cf. Zimmermann 2011), independently from matrix
Force?
CLOSED (e.g. open)
 According to the following analysis, the answer to both questions is that ja in ‘embedded’
contexts depends on the declarative root properties of a containing conventional
implicature, which must be recognizable as such.
 The analysis solves many problems concerning the data on AP-internal ja and draws support
from the situation in related domains, namely relative clauses as well as DPs without
adnominal modification.
 In many cases, speakers indicate the ‘extra-ordinate’ status of (subparts of) APs
containing ja by creative, tell-tale punctuation (7).
(7)
The common denominator of the initially puzzling ‘extra’ elements in APs is explicit, almost
meta-linguistic, reference to properties, which prototypically involves the scalar nature of
most adjectives:
(Solt 2013: 10; cf. Kennedy and McNally 2005; Kennedy 2007; Rett 2007)
In, for instance, (4e), this means, bottom-up, that the speaker employs the negational affix un- to
denote the endpoint of the scale of delicacy, then points to this degree on the scale again by
using ganz (‘entirely’), only to negate it at last (nicht), thus pointing from zero to another degree
somewhere higher on the same scale.
 Note that speakers employ an impressive variety of grammatical tools (evaluative
adverbs, intonation, negation, ...) to make reference to properties, as discussed above,
 thereby not necessarily adding to descriptive precision,
 but introducing a ‘speaker commentary’ recognizable as such.
a. Die Firma sucht einen Angestellten, der angesichts der großenKonkurrenz ja
the firm
looks-for an
employee
who facing
the great competition JA
ausnahmslos immer pünktlich ist.
exception.less always punctual is
‘The firm is looking for an employee who, in the face of tough competition, is invariably
always on time.’
 restrictive relative clause
b. unser - nun ja leider
ehemaliger - Pfarrer Karl-Heinz Stoffels
our
now JA regrettably former
minister Karl-Heinz Stoffels
(www.unsichtbare-freunde.de/html/body_25__jahre_forderverein.html)
 intensional adjective
c. diese ja auch fast Auflösung der
Band
this JA also nearly dissolution the.GEN band
 ja in DP
(http://www
.arte.tv/de/ja-panik-sind-die-laessigsten-poptheoretiker-der-berliner-indieszene/7825136,CmC=7822214.html)
(Die Zeit, 13.03.1964)
Reference to properties
(der dir so gut gefällt)  appositive adjective
(who you like so much)’
(und nicht der rote)
 restrictive adjective
(and not the red one)’
 intensional adjective
 Employing ja in embedded contexts, speakers prefer to distinguish the containing structure
very clearly from the at-issue meaning dimension of an utterance via the insertion of
expressive items, ‘comments on (the applicability of) a proposition’ (cf. above).
(cf. Jahresberichte für Deutsche
Geschichte. 6. Jahrgang 1930-1932, 162. Brackmann, Albert & Fritz Hartung (eds.). Leipzig : Koehler.)
Background: Relative clauses
a. der grüne Frosch
‘the green frog
b. der grüne Frack
‘the green tail-coat
c. der falscheFreund
‘the false friend’
a. [die] von den
the by the
und 1945 ja
and 1945 JA
b. in seinem, ja
in his
JA
Deutschen wie von den Russen gleichermaßen (und zwischen 1939
Germans as by the Russiansequally
and between 1939
nicht zum ersten Mal) überfallene[...] Nation
(Die Zeit, 08/12/2004)
not
for-thefirst
time raided
nation
keineswegs wissenschaftlichen, Bewußtsein
in-no-way
scientific
consciousness
(Bloch, Ernst. 1955. Das Prinzip Hoffnung II, 199. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag.)
c. bei den - ja kleinen - Schwenkbewegungen der
Bremsarme
with the
JA small
swiveling.movements the.GEN brake.arms
(http://www.patent-de.com/19910321/DE3929869A1.html, 06/21/2014)
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