The Role of German Particles in Questions

本项目研究德语中的语篇助词（DiPs）（如“denn”、“bloss”、“schon”）如何修饰问句的言外行为。结合形式工具和心理/神经语言学研究，它努力识别并从构图上推导出控制这种修饰的句法、语义和语用约束，并探索问题中话语粒子加工和许可的认知机制。基于项目第一阶段的发现，这一目标被明确地分为三个目标。首先，第一阶段建立了各种dip许可违规的相关关系，第二阶段旨在详细评估这些相关关系背后的心理语言过程，并将其整合到句子理解文献中。在两个系列的实验中，我们将(1)从虚幻许可过程中分离严格语言过程的贡献，并将(2)区分语义和语用加工途径。所有实验将监测dip和负极性项目（npi）的处理，以便在语法、语义和语用的接口上进行直接比较和更好地理解远距离许可过程。第二，虽然第一阶段集中在附属于言语脊梁的原位语篇粒子，但第二阶段将我们的研究扩展到与wh短语组成的非原位粒子。在语用上，非原位粒子强制带有强调的底音。这就提出了一个有趣的问题，即强调的形式特征及其与wh短语的组成。语义上，非原位粒子比原位粒子具有更大的范围自由。确定粒子的范围如何与多少个短语的范围相互作用，为当前的竞争方法提供了新的试验场。第三，我们将把高端的神经语言学数据分析方法应用于P1和P6中收集的现有数据和新数据。第一阶段集中在传统的神经语言学数据分析方法上，第二阶段将系统地研究特定时间频带的振荡脑动力学，以探索问题处理背后的认知机制。

This project investigates how discourse particles (DiPs) in German (e.g., 'denn', 'bloss', 'schon') modify the illocutionary act carried out by a question. Combining formal tools and psycho/neurolinguistic research, it strives to identify and compositionally derive the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic constraints that govern this modification and to explore the cognitive mechanisms that underlie the processing and licensing of discourse particles in questions. Building on findings from the first phase of the project, this goal is articulated in three objectives.First, while the first phase established correlates of various DiP-licensing violations, the second phase aims for a detailed assessment of the psycholinguistic processes underlying these correlates, and for their integration into the sentence comprehension literature. In two series of experiments, we will (1) disentangle the contribution of strictly linguistic processes from illusory licensing processes, and will (2) distinguish semantic and pragmatic processing pathways. All experiments will monitor the processing of DiPs and negative polarity items (NPIs) to allow a direct comparison and a better understanding of long-distance licensing processes at the interface of syntax, semantics and pragmatics.Second, while the first phase concentrated on in situ discourse particles attached to the verbal spine, the second phase extends our investigations to ex situ particles forming a constituent with the wh-phrase. Pragmatically, ex situ but not in situ particles mandatorily carry an emphatic undertone. This raises interesting issues concerning the formal characterization of emphasis and its composition with wh-phrases. Semantically, ex situ particles have more scope freedom than in situ particles. Determining how the scope of the particles interacts with that of how many-phrases provides novel testing ground for current competing approaches.Third, we are going to apply high-end methods for the analysis of neurolinguistic data to existing and new data collected in P1 and P6. While the first phase concentrated on traditional methods of neurolinguistic data analyses, the oscillatory brain dynamics in specific time-frequency bands will be systematically studied during the second phase to explore the cognitive mechanisms that underlie the processing of questions.