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The semantics and pragmatics of Norwegian sentence-internal jo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2019

Signe Rix Berthelin  and
Kaja Borthen
Signe Rix Berthelin*
Affiliation:
Department of Teacher Education, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Kalvskinnet, NO-7012 Trondheim, Norway
Kaja Borthen*
Affiliation:
Department of Language and Literature, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Dragvoll, NO-7049 Trondheim, Norway
*
Emails for correspondence: signe.rix.berthelin@ntnu.no and kaja.borthen@ntnu.no
Emails for correspondence: signe.rix.berthelin@ntnu.no and kaja.borthen@ntnu.no
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Abstract

The paper proposes a refined analysis of the semantics and pragmatics of the Norwegian non-truth-conditional adverb jo ‘after all, of course’. According to the literature, jo indicates that the proposition is ‘given’ in some sense or other. Based on new empirical investigations, we argue that the Relevance-theoretic notion mutual manifestness (Sperber & Wilson 1986/1995, Blass 2000) accurately captures the givenness aspect of jo, and we demonstrate through authentic examples what it means for a proposition to be mutually manifest. In addition to mutual manifestness, jo signals that the proposition is a premise for deriving a conclusion. The conclusion often – but not always – opposes someone’s view. We argue that the frequent opposition interpretations are a consequence of the nature of the procedures encoded by jo. In addition to clarifying the semantic and pragmatic properties of jo, the paper sheds light on the Relevance-theoretic notion procedural semantics as well as illustrating its usefulness in the study of pragmatic particles.

Keywords

discourse particlesepistemic vigilancemodal particlesmutual manifestnesspragmatic particlesprocedural semanticsRelevance Theory
Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , May 2019 , pp. 3 - 30
Copyright
© Nordic Association of Linguistics 2019 

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