LFU:online

The students are able to reproduce deepended knowledge of a special area of German linguistics and can work scientifically and independently on a certain topic.

In this proseminar, we discuss the German particles. German has for long been considered as a language rich in particles, and this “particle richness“ is what we will be looking at.

In a first step the large field of German particles is introduced. Afterwards, a particle category that takes a central position in German linguistics and is allegedly typically German will be given a closer look: the so-called modal or downtoning particles (‘Modal-/Abtönungspartikeln’, i.e. bloß, denn, doch, eben, eigentlich, einfach, halt, ja, mal, nur, schon etc.). The focus will be on matters of external and internal definition (category features and delineation) as well as on problems related to the description of the meanings of individual particles. Thus, the pro-seminar is not oriented to one particular level of description (morphology, syntax, semantics/pragmatics etc.), but rather takes into account elements from each of these levels in order to get to a global view of a particular linguistic phenomenon that is omnipresent in German (modal particles).

PowerPoint-lecture enlivened by discussions, oral presentations by students

active participation, oral presentation, written pro-seminar paper

Müller, Sonja. 2014. Modalpartikeln. Heidelberg: Winter. (= KEGLI 17)

Further references will be announced in class.