[Lingtyp] common background particles

[Vladimir Panov]

I thank everyone for the comments again!
I now have a lot of information to digest.

Best,
Vladimir

вт, 4 дек. 2018 г. в 17:03, Vladimir Panov <panovmeister at gmail.com>:

> Dear collegues,
>
> In some languages of Europe (e.g. Russian and German) there are special
> markers ("particles") that have among their core functions the one of
> "reminding" the hearer of some common background information that s/he is
> expected to share with the speaker.
>
> Russian:
> S1: Magazin zakryt.
>       shop      closed
>       The shop is closed
>
> S2: Konečno, segodnia *že*    voskresen'je
>       of.course  today      PRT  Sunday
>       Of course, (you know that) today is Sunday.
>
> In Russian, *že* has some other prominent functions as well. A very
> similar meaning is also provided by the sentence-initial *ved'* ("common
> ground" is its core meaning). For German, the particles *ja *and, to a
> certain extent, *doch* are often descirbed in similar terms. For both
> German and Russian, these particles have been extensively studied.
>
> Markers having this meaning as at least one of the prominent ones are
> found in many languages the Circum-Baltic region, Eastern and Northern
> Europe, Finno-Ugric languages of the European part of Russia. However, they
> seem to be rare or even absent in Romance languages (but are present in
> Latin), the rest of West Germanic languages and in the Balkans. Arguably,
> the overt marking of this meaning may be considered an areal feature of
> this particular macroregion.
>
> I would like to ask if anyone is aware of languages beyond Europe that
> have this type of markers. I am mostly interested in the rest of Eurasia,
> but not only.
>
> Thank you,
> Vladimir Panov
> (Vilnius University / Russian Academy of Sciences)
>
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