1 Title: What are particles good for? Running head: What are particles good for? Author: Harald Weydt 0. Introduction Since the sixties, particles have aroused the interest of linguists far and wide. The various classifications into parts of speech or word classes that particles have undergone in the recent years will not be discussed here. Most of what will be discussed will be illustrated with German Abtönungspartikeln (~ modal particles?), and, for reasons of economy, with German aber, but it should be clear from the beginning that it will hold true for particles of other classes as well and not only for German but also for other languages. Instead of discussing particle classifications and the respective criteria1, I would like to raise the basic question of what are Abtönungspartikeln good for or why one uses Abtönungspartikeln. This question has not really been considered in this direct way and that is why I think it is particularly (!) suitable for a new look at an old subject. 1. Problems of definition When speaking of particles in a general way, we have good reasons to avoid a too restrictive definition. Instead, we will enumerate some denominations in German, 2 French, and English. They roughly circumscribe the range of the words that this article will be about and they will already reveal to a certain degree what the authors think they are good for.2 The particles that I am going to treat are called in German: Abtönungspartikeln, Modalpartikeln, Satzpartikeln, Gliederungssignale, illokutive Partikeln, diskursorientierende Partikeln, Einstellungspartikeln, diskursive Partikeln, Gesprächswörter. In French: modalisateurs, particules expressives, appréciatifs, argumentatifs, particules illocutoires, adverbes de phrase, connecteurs, mots de la communication, charnières du discours (de discours), particules énonciatives, marqueurs, adverbes explétifs. In English: pragmatic markers, discourse particles (as in this volume), discourse markers, interpersonal markers, argumentative markers, presentative particles, parentheticality markers, modal particles, adverbial connectives, connectives, modal discourse particles, elusive particles, particles of truth, contrastive and setevoking particles, sentence-structure particles, down toners. Some general remarks concerning the definition of particles: In principle, I consider the category particle to be a cross-linguistic one. Contrary to widespread ideas (Sasse (1993:682): “These subcategories are too languagespecific to justify cross-linguistic treatment”), particle is a category and has as such universal validity, just like other linguistic terms such as verb and noun. When defining noun we do not define the French noun or the Japanese one, but we have 3 an idea of noun and, in a second step, we look at a certain language, observing if there is a noun and if so, what qualities it has (does it inflect, does it mark the plural, does it bear articles, etc.) The same holds for particles.3 By particle I understand a word class. That means that only single words, not clauses, are considered to be particles. Word groups like I mean, you know, après tout, au fond, au total, c'est-à-dire, tout compte fait, je dirai que, sp. por este motivo, port. de maneira que, are not particles, in spite of the undisputed fact that they can occupy the place of a particle, replace it and be replaced by it. An analogy may help to point out what I mean, and justify my claim. If linguists speak of nouns, they only mean nouns and not elements which can stand in the place of a noun. So, that you come, is not a noun, even though it can stand for one. In the sentence I know the answer, the answer can be replaced by that you come, or by it. Neither that you come nor it, however, is nouns. A constitutive feature, however, for the definition of particles is that they do have (synsemantic) meaning. Nonetheless they do not refer to sections of the extralinguistic reality (they have no lexical meaning), nor do they position anything relative to the ego, the speaking person (they have no deictic meaning), and they do not have word class meaning (as pronouns do, which are the empty forms of nouns, adjectives or adverbs). Interjections, having no synsemantic meanings, are not particles. To sum up, particles are (single) words, which have no dissecting (lexical), deictic nor word class meaning, but they do have a semantic content which they deploy in connection with other elements of the utterance (for further details see Hentschel and Weydt (1989: 6)). 4 2. Functions: Why we use Abtönungspartikeln. I recall the results of an experiment presented in the preface of the Kleine deutsche Partikellehre (Weydt et al. 1983: chapter 0, 11–12). Two dialogues, held between two young people, were presented to our informants. The first, dialogue A, contained a relatively large number of Abtönungspartikeln. The second one, dialogue B, was identical to A except that all particles had been removed from it. It is still grammatically correct. A teacher could not find any grammatical mistakes. Here is a section of this dialogue: [...] [...] X: Ja, das gibt's doch gar nicht! Was X: Ja, das gibt's gar nicht! Was machst du machst Du denn hier! Ich denk' Du bist in hier? Ich denk' Du bist in England! England! Y: War ich auch, aber jetzt wohn' ich in Y: War ich auch, aber jetzt wohn' ich in Berlin. Bin gerade auf dem Rückweg. Berlin. Bin gerade auf dem Rückweg. X: Ist ja toll, ich fahr' nämlich auch nach X: Ist toll, ich fahr nämlich auch nach Berlin, aber nur übers Wochenende. Berlin, aber nur übers Wochenende. Y: Gut, dann können wir ja während der Y: Gut, dann können wir während der Fahrt ein bißchen über die alten Zeiten Fahrt ein bißchen über die alten Zeiten quatschen. quatschen. X: Ja eben, aber sag' mal, wo fährt denn der X: Ja, aber sag', wo fährt der 9.30 Uhr-Zug 9.30 Uhr-Zug eigentlich ab? ab? [...] [...] 5 Both dialogues were presented to informants who were asked to read them and judge them relative to a given matrix which contained the features natural, rejecting, warm, wooden, smooth, authentic, difficult to make contact with, friendly. The results are shown in figure 1. Dialog A 0 1 2 natürlich (natural) abweisend (rejecting) warm (warm) hölzern (wooden) flüssig (smooth) echt (authentic) 3 kontaktschwach freundlich (friendly) 3 4 5 6 5,7 1,7 4,4 Dialog B 0 1 2 3 4 2,8 3,3 2,7 1,4 5 5,0 6,0 5,7 2,7 2,7 2,4 4,0 5,7 3,7 4 Fig. 1: Comparison of dialogues: Average results of 82 German native speakers We have repeated the experiment often, with native German speakers as well as with non-native speakers of German, and every time the results were very similar. The differences in values assigned to the dialogues A and B must be explained by the difference in the presence or absence of particles. How should this be interpreted? One can see that the matrix contains two different qualities. The first is a complex value, which may be labeled ‘authenticity’. It answers the question Do Germans really speak like this? The respective values are: natürlich ('natural'), flüssig ('smooth'), echt ('authentic'). The answer for dialogue A is Yes. In such a situation, they do speak with and not without particles. Dialogue A is much more authentic than dialogue B. 6 6 The second value is a social one and shows up in the other features. It can be labeled ‘friendliness’. Compared to B, dialogue A is conceived of as friendly and warm, neither rejecting nor stiff, nor unsociable. A conclusion that could be drawn and a first answer to the title question could then be that the speakers use particles in their speech when and because they want to be friendly, and if they don't use them, their particleless speech is strange. (It will be the task of this article to ask whether this is an acceptable statement). However, this conclusion leads to a number of difficulties. The first is the phenomenon of over-summativity. The overall impact of particles does not coincide with the meaning of only one of them. Neither eigentlich nor doch, nor denn nor any of the other particles are friendly in and of themselves. If one does not want to give up this first conclusion, then one would have to try seriously to explain how particles which are not friendly bring about friendliness. The second problem is that while particles may have friendly effects, they frequently do not. They can appear in utterances meant to hurt the partner. Was hast Du denn jetzt schon wieder gemacht?! (What did you do this time?!) and Haben sie überhaupt einen Führerschein? (Do you even have a driver's license?) can be very aggressive. 3. The semantica of modal particles In order to find out how particles act in speech and to answer the title question of ‘what Abtönungspartikeln are good for’ it is useful to observe how the meanings of the particles function and how they act in conversation. 7 3.1. Six general theses on particle meaning 1. Every particle has a meaning. It is present in every occurrence. This thesis opposes the idea that particles are meaningless, at least in certain contexts (mots de remplissage, vides/explétifs, palabras vacías), or as a weaker claim, semantically reduced (bleached), just fulfilling expletive functions. In this view, particles have lost their semantic content and are only used in their context for euphonic reasons. If this statement is not just based on a terminological difference (that meaning is only used for 'lexical meaning'), then we must disagree with it. We know of no case, where a particle is used without its meaning, and we don’t think that one can be found. 2. It is not the function of particles to tone down the utterance in oral discourse. This claim corrects a frequent idea about particles, above all on German Abtönungspartikeln. For example James (1983), who calls eigentlich "one of the voluntary markers of imprecision". Similarly, Grevisse (1993: § 920) describes the function of particles like bien, donc, un peu, voir as ‘explétifs’: "Ils servent seulement à renforcer ou à atténuer l’expression. Certains participent aussi à la fonction phatique." It is very commonly said that particles fulfill the function of ‘down toners’5 and that they are used in a general way and without having a specific meaning, in order to make the utterance in which they occur imprecise and vague. This in turn is said to be one way a speaker can take the sharpness from utterances, in order to prevent a so called FTA (face threatening act), or at least to make it less threatening. In reality, however, eigentlich and the other 8 Abtönungspartikeln do not express weakening (or extenuation), but they have a precise meaning which is not extenuating. Eigentlich indicates that the utterance is true in a deeper sense. This holds for every single occurrence. This meaning does not in itself contain any extenuating, down-toning element. And no particle is in and of itself friendly (see 3.2). As we have seen in the earlier discussion, it is true that Abtönungspartikeln (and comparable elements in other languages) can make dialogues friendly, social, and natural, but not via down-toning. Particles show that the actual speaker takes into account his partner’s perspective on the subject, that he cooperates. This is why his speech is conceived as amiable. This effect can be achieved by various means and in any linguistic society. For more details see Hentschel and Weydt (1983), Weydt et al. (1983), and Weydt (forthcoming). 3. Particles, even if used as ‘Gliederungssignale’ (discourse markers?), conserve their primary meaning. The term Gliederungssignal was created by Gülich (1970). It referred to particles (such as French et, alors, mais, puis, enfin) in the wider sense which take on specific functions in spoken dialogues or in spoken speech. In Gülich’s conception, Gliederungssignale form a homogeoneous word class in the grammar of spoken language, as opposed to traditional grammar, which, she writes, represents above all the system of the written language. In the grammar of the written, but not of the spoken language, the particles belong to different word classes. Among the Gliederungssignale one finds syntagms consisting of more than one traditional word, like vous savez, n’est-ce pas, tu comprends, et bien, you know, I mean which we have already excluded form our definition of particles and one word Gliederungssignale as for instance et, alors, mais, puis, quoi, hein, enfin. 9 A widespread opinion says that it is their task, to structure the dialogue (Gülich 1970: 270) and to help the hearer interpret the other’s turn. When these words are Gliederungssignale, they lose their original meaning. Mais, when used as Gliederungssignal (or, more exactly, as an opening-up signal, ‘Eröffnungssignal’), no longer expresses, following Gülich´s contrast, puis and alors do not contain temporal relationships (Gülich 1970: 297). We disagree with this theory. In deference to the space it would require to argue against it in detail, let it suffice to say briefly that that we could not find any example where a particle is a Gliederungssignal, instead of conserving its original meaning. There is no alternative of Gliederungssignal or particle with original (primary) meaning. Instead, a certain particle can fulfill the function of a Gliederungssignal because of the fact that it maintains its original meaning. It is able to structure the dialogue, as it means something. Let’s take again the example of the French conjunction mais. According to Gülich (1970: 77), (the same holds true for English but, German aber and probably for Dutch maar), used as Gliederungssignal no longer carries any adversative meaning. ”...hat es seine ursprüngliche lexikalische Bedeutung in vielen Fällen aufgegeben zugunsten seiner Eröffnungsfunktion”. If its only function were to open up a turn, it could be replaced, without changing the context conditions, by any other opening up signal. This, however, is not the case. Mais can only occur in cases which are compatible with its original, constant meaning. It demands a context which fits its meaning, and that explains why we can predict the context conditions for every occurrence. 10 4. Every particle can be assigned a constant basic meaning, which appears in every occurrence of that particle. This meaning may be conceived of as a set of semantic features. In the process of discovering the meaning of the particle, the semanticist first establishes a hypothesis about the meaning of the particle and then he tries to corroborate it, exposing it to as many occurrences of the particle as possible. According to this thesis (4.), no particle can occur in a usage which is incompatible with its meaning. Otherwise the semantic description is falsified. As soon as a usage appears which is not covered by the hypothesis, this hypothesis must be given up or it must be modified in such a way that a new hypothesis covers every known occurrences, including the non-complying case. The opposite is not necessary: One does not demand that this particle be really used to express a certain state of affairs, in agreement with the meaning of the particle. Again consider French mais. The basic meaning of mais, as well as of Dutch maar, of English but, of German aber, is this pattern: 'It would be wrong to continue the preceding thought in the expected direction. One has to change the direction of the thought.' The idea may be illustrated by figure 2. b a a aa ‘mais’ (aber, but) Fig 2: The semantic structure of mais (aber, but) b‘ 11 Explanation: The pattern may be condensed into the formula: 'against the expectation'. This explains the usage of mais as an adversative, coordinating conjunction. Il est grand, mais faible, He is big, but weak. Er ist groß, aber schwach. Hej is groot maar dapper. There are many more examples in Foolen (1993). The speaker assumes that the hearer concludes that in general, the one who is big is also strong. By using mais he warns the hearer not to think in the anticipated direction. - Thesis 4 admits restrictions of usage. In some languages, the respective particle may appear in the imperative: In a scene, where a victim of an accident lies on the ground covered with blood, one of the bystanders may say in French, Mais occupez-vous de cet homme!, which is not possible in German: *Aber helfen Sie dem Mann. The underlying idea which justifies the usage of mais is: ‘You don't seem inclined to help. However, you should help’. On the other hand, there are restrictions of but and mais in their respective languages which do not exist in German. In German one can combine aber with oder ('or'), which is not possible in English or French. Sie brauchen jetzt neue Reifen, oder aber sie geben die Reise auf. *Il vous faut de nouveaux pneus, ou mais vous abandonnez le voyage. *You need new tires, or but you give up going on your trip. The basic meaning also explains the usage of aber as Abtönungspartikel in German and of maar in Dutch, and as Gliederungspartikel: but structures while signaling a contrast to the expectation. When checking if all the empirically appearing occurrences of a particle are compatible with the hypothesis about its meaning, one has to consider carefully the reasons for the apparent semantic deviance. Sometimes one can find reasons which seem to present counter-evidence to the assumed meaning. One of these is irony. Aber, used as Abtönungspartikel in an affirmative clause, expresses not only 12 surprise, but a surprise that the content of the sentence is given excessively. The speaker it astonished, not about the fact, the that, but about its extent, the how much. An apparent counter example could be seen in the following case: A sees a small man and says: Guck mal, der ist aber groß! (‘Look, that man is aber tall!’). The use of aber can be explained by irony, where the designated reality is the contrary of what is said. 5. The basic meaning can be diversified according to its context. More sophisticated meanings remain compatible with the basic meaning. In actual use, one finds more semantic rules than are contained in the common overall meaning of the respective particle. Again the example of German aber. The overall meaning is, as pointed out 'against expectation'. A closer look and the opposition with vielleicht reveal a more subtle semantic structure. It is compatible with but richer than the overall meaning: a) The astonishment concerns the how much of the surprising fact, not the that of the fact. b) aber is used in order to express surprise only if the hearer knows the fact. It accompanies a comment about a known fact or a shared knowledge. It does not tell the fact itself, but presupposes that it is known to both of the interlocutors. An example will help to make this subtle detail clear. Hans tells his friend about his last holidays in the mountains and mentions the fantastic view from the terrace of his hotel. He may then say: Da hatten wir vielleicht eine schöne Aussicht! ('There we had vielleicht a beautiful view!'), but he cannot say: *Da hatten wir aber eine schöne Aussicht! ('There we had aber a beautiful view!') because of the fact that his partner does not see the view himself. If, however, he shows a photo of the view, 13 the other can say: Da hattet ihr aber eine schöne Aussicht! ('There you had aber a beautiful view!'), due to the fact that they both see it at that moment. The description, therefore, must be given on two levels. The overall meaning, which holds for all occurrences, is relatively abstract. It explains the coherence of all uses and guarantees its identity. The specific meaning is richer and deploys more subtle semantic rules which control differentiated usages. The specific rules often appear in the lexicon as numbered variants. 6 6. It is necessary to distinguish these basic meanings of participles from their pragmatic ‘meanings’. Basic meanings of particles and pragmatic effects that can be brought about by using particles have to be distinguished from each other. One example is the friendliness that may accompany the use of particles. Another effect is a compliment which is expressed by particles. Du kannst aber kochen! ('(How) you can aber cook!') expresses the surprise about how (good) the host can cook and can express a compliment. Du kannst ja kochen! (' You can ja cook!'), would indicate that the guest had had a very low expectation, which is hardly a basis for a compliment. 3.2. The content of particle meanings. 3.2.1. How to present the meanings? Before discussing in more detail a few particle meanings, I shall allow myself some general comments on the presentability of particle semantics. I support the idea that 14 so-called different meanings can be reduced to a single semantic nucleus. This monosemantic approach is discussed in various places, from Weydt (1969) on, and it has been well shown, for example, in Foolen’s book (1993). An additional problem, however, is how to express this meaning, how to describe it in an understandable form. When looking for a way to present of the semantic definition, it would be ideal to find a form which is easily comprehensible, ideally in such a way that it can be understood by lay people, such as teachers and students of German (English, Dutch) as a second language. Widely used ways of presentation, so far, are either notations in symbolic logic or paraphrases. Logical notation has the disadvantage of causing additional work. First, one has to discover the semantics and, then, in a second step, one has to translate it into the respective logical language. The paraphrasing of particle meaning is a comment on the level of metalanguage. But, as such, it does not preserve the original impact. Being linguistic descriptions, the sentences which express the particle meaning do not serve the purpose of intersubjective communication,. The meaning of the German particle denn can be correctly paraphrased by ‘(I ask this), because the situation makes me think that you know the answer’. In normal contexts a w-question with denn sounds more amiable than without a particle or, for example, with the particle eigentlich. Wie heißt du denn? is a bit more friendly than Wie heißt du eigentlich? and much more friendly than Wie heißt du? This impact can be explained on the basis of its meaning. The semantic paraphrase, however, does not have the same effect. Ich frage Dich, wie du heißt, weil etwas in der Situation mich motiviert, die Frage zu stellen ('I’m 15 asking you your name because something within the situation motivates me to ask this question') is just awkward and not amiable at all. 3.2.2. Some examples The following examples attempt to demonstrate the overall meaning and show that they do not contain friendly elements within themselves. They may help to make better explain the monosemantic approach. (1) denn (~ 'for', 'then') Denn appears as a coordinative causal conjunction (e.g.: Er aß ein Wurstbrot, denn er war sehr hungrig. ('He ate a sandwich for he was very hungry') and as a stressed or unstressed Abtönungspartikel in w-questions (Wie hEIßt Du denn? (unstressed denn) ('What is your name?'), Wie heißt Du dEnn? (stressed denn), the latter being used if the name previously given was wrong. It also appears in yes-no-questions (Warst Du denn noch nie wirklich verliebt?, 'Were you really never in love?' (expressing surprise)). All these usages of denn may be reduced to one single semantic nucleus, illustrated by figure 3. Fig. 3: Illustration of the meaning structure of denn Denn indicates that the content of the sentence in which it appears points back to something that can be found in the preceding context (for a more detailed 16 explanation see Weydt and Hentschel (1983) and Hentschel and Weydt (1983)). (2) auch (~'also', 'too') Auch appears in sentences such as: Günter will nächste Woche auch in Ferien fahren ('Günter also wants to go on vacation next week'), and as an Abtönungspartikel in rhetorical questions (Warum auch?, may be translated by 'Why should I?'). The function of auch is to join two ideas, a and b, in such a way that they are no longer seen as isolated but are subsumed under a common denominator ("c.d." in figure 4). One of the two elements may be implicit (symbolized by parentheses) and must be reconstructed from the context. Fig. 4 may help to make the function clear. Fig. 4: Illustration of the semantic structure of auch. (3) eh / ohnehin / sowieso (~ 'anyway') eh / ohnehin / sowieso are cognitive synonyms and differ only in speech register. Ex.: A: Wir können nächste Woche nicht an den Strand fahren. B: Macht nichts, ich muss sowieso / ohnehin / eh fürs Examen arbeiten. ('A: We cannot go to the beach next week. B: That does not matter, I have sowieso/ (~’anyway’) to work for my examen.') 17 Fig. 5 may explain the semantic structure: a b (a‘) Fig. 5: Illustration of the meaning structure of eh (ohnehin, sowieso). There are two potential reasons, a and a', for b (not going to the beach). a' is not the decisive one, because a alone causes b (' that you want to cancel the trip is not the important point, but the fact that I have no time'). (4) jedenfalls (~'in any event') Example: Ich weiß nicht, ob Maria intelligent ist, jedenfalls habe ich noch nichts Kluges von ihr gehört. ('I don't know if Maria is intelligent, jedenfalls (in any event) so far I have not heard anything intelligent from her') Jedenfalls can be explained by figure 6: 18 Fig.6 : Illustration of the semantic structure of jedenfalls. It reads as follows: there is a relatively far-reaching claim. The dotted circle symbolizes it here. The speaker can not fully affirm it (here: he cannot deny Maria's intelligence). But he can guarantee a weaker claim which is part of it (the fact that he never had a corroboration of her intelligence), symbolized by the full circle. Both claims stand in an inclusive opposition. (5) immerhin: (~ ‘after all’) Immerhin appears in affirmative sentences. Example: Hans hat ziemlich viele Fehler in der Übersetzung, aber immerhin hat er das Examen bestanden. ('Hans made quite a few mistakes in his translation, but he immerhin passed the test'). The particle positions the content of the sentence in which it stands between two expectations. A first high expectation (a) is not met and as a consequence, one might form a very low expectation (b). Compared to this second expectation, the reality of the actual occurrence is still higher. 19 high initial expectation reality low initial expectation Fig. 7: Illustration of the meaning structure of immerhin. 3.3 Why we use Abtönungspartikeln Let's return to the question posited in section 2 of how an amiable effect is brought about. You see that dialogue A is full of elements which position the utterance in the context. We have indictors like: – -‘I say this and I know that you know the answer. It’s precisely your preceding utterance which made me ask you this’: denn. – ‘I say this, knowing that you know it already, and that you agree’: ja (summary of shared idea). – ‘I say this and I am surprised about the extension of the fact which is expressed in the sentence’: aber. – ‘Saying this I presume that you will be surprised about what I’m saying because it is new for you’: vielleicht. 20 These particles have in common that they create a network of relationships between the actual hearer and the actual speaker. They transform the dialogue into a common speech, make it become more than a simple sequence of: I say - you say. The actual speaker, A, expresses that he not only makes his contribution in an authentic way, but models it in such a way that it takes into account the other's, B's, perspective. Instead of making an independent statement, he continues B’s idea. He is aware of what B thinks and believes, and he bases his contribution on B’s assumed state of mind. Therefore, the dialogue, instead of being an exchange of independent turns, let alone of mutual feedings with bits of information (I give you some information, and then you give me some information, etc.) becomes a cooperative process of both interlocutors. Each in turn expresses by use of Abtönungspartikeln that she/he respects and/or considers the other's view; each utterance is based on the preceding one. In a certain sense, the dialogue, even in its individual steps, is a common work, a creation of both partners. When such a dialogue occurs, it conveys to the partners a feeling of profound satisfaction. The feeling exists, even if they disagree in content, because they realize that the one understands (or at least tries to understand) the other. They cooperate in the effort to understand each other and try to make each other understood. It is this very feeling which is an important factor in bringing about the features of friendliness and amiability. In summary: Abtönungspartikeln and related linguistic elements are used as specific instruments for the partners' cooperation. They help them to make the actual intention of an utterance clear and to assign it its function in the developing 21 interplay. Speakers who express by using particles that they earnestly try to cooperate, are conceived of as friendly, sociable, amiable and able to make contact. 4. Broader perspective 4.1 Politeness versus friendliness Friendliness and sociability are not to be identified as equal to politeness. Though dialogue A is friendlier than dialogue B, it can hardly be said to be politer. In our explanation of verbal friendliness, we don’t use the patterns of FTA’s and of FTA avoiding, which are common in politeness research. There is no danger of FTA in the speakers’ utterances and the particles don’t serve the purpose of neutralizing FTAs. An interpretation of particle effects, based on FTA conception, would miss the essential point.7 4.2 The question of equivalence and language comparison There are languages which have a large inventory of Abtönungspartikeln and their speakers use them frequently (languages like German, Dutch, White Mountain Apache, Guaraní, Toura, Kera) and others which don’t (like English and the Romance languages). No one, however, would claim that only Germans, Dutch, Touras, Kera, and Guaraní-speakers are able to be friendly and amiable when 22 speaking and conversing with each other. This raises an interesting new problem for comparative linguistics, namely how to deal with the tertium comparationis friendliness in language comparison. If someone has to judge a translation of a literary work, where, for example in the German original a friendly speaker shows his good intentions by using Abtönungspartikeln, then he has to ask how the same effect is brought about in the target language. It may be reached by means which are specific for that particular language. Without going into details, let me just mention two specific means in other languages which are candidates for this purpose.8 In French (the hexagonal variation, not the Canadian), using a form of reference to the partner is much more common than in other languages. It is rather unpersonal and unfriendly to say: Au revoir ('Good bye'), instead of Au revoir, Madame. One may even omit Au revoir or Bonjour and just greet: Madame! or Monsieur. French mothers correct their children ironically repeating the phrase: Au revoir qui? ('Good bye, who?'). The social process is essentially the same. By using the partner's name or title, the speaker shows that he takes his specific presence into account. In Spanish, the threefold pronoun system esto, eso, aquello which expresses if the thing belongs to the own sphere, to the partner's or to neither of them may serve the same purpose. 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Ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung, J. Jacobs et al. (eds.), 646-686. Berlin etc.: de Gruyter. Weydt, H. 1969 Abtönungspartikel. Die deutschen Modalwörter und ihre französischen Entsprechungen. Bad Homburg vor der Höhe: Gehlen. Weydt, H. 1983 “Aber, mais und but.” In Partikeln und Interaktion, H. Weydt (ed.), 148-159. Weydt, H. 1984 “Techniques of request: In quest of its universality”. In The Tenth LACUS 26 Forum 1983, A. Manning, P. Martin, K. McCalla (eds.), 333-341. Columbia: Hornbeam Press. Weydt, H. 1993 “Was ist ein gutes Gespräch?” In Dialoganalyse, IV. Referate der 4. Arbeitstagung. Basel 1992, H. Löffler (ed.), 3-19. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Weydt, H. 2001 “Partikelforschung/Particules et modalité” In Lexikon der Romanistischen Linguistik, G. Holtus et al. (eds.), 782-801. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Weydt, H. (forthcoming) "(Warum) spricht man mit Partikeln überhaupt höflich?". In Partikeln und Höflichkeit, G. Held (ed.). Weydt, H. et al. 1983 Kleine deutsche Partikellehre. Stuttgart: Klett. Weydt, H. (ed.) 1983 Partikeln und Interaktion. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Weydt, H. (ed.) 1989 Sprechen mit Partikeln. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. 27 Weydt, H. and Hentschel, E. 1981 “Ein Experiment zur Entwicklung der verbalen Interaktionsfähigkeit bei Kindern”. Zeitsschrift für germanistische Linguistik 326-331. Weydt, H. and Hentschel, E. 1983 “Kleines Abtönungswörterbuch”. In Partikeln und Interaktion, H. Weydt (ed.), 3-24. 1 For the criteria and problems of classification see Hentschel and Weydt (2002). 2 For a cross linguistic definition of "particle" see Hentschel and Weydt (1995) and Weydt (2001). 3 For a discussion of this problem and the potential criteria of definition see Weydt (2001: 2.1 “Zum Problem der Einzelsprachlichkeit des Begriffs Partikel”). 4 translation: kontaktschwach - 'difficult to make contact with' 5 I don’t know where the origin of the term ‘down toner’ as a linguistic term lies. It may be a calque, a loan translation, of the German Ab-tönung (ab = down, Tönung = toner). If that were the case, it would be a rather bad translation, German abhere, not having the meaning of ‘down’, tönen not of ‘to tone’. The expression abtönen was taken from the art of painting, where abtönende Farben means ‘shadowing colors’. These paints lend the painting a certain nuance. 6 As an example see Métrich (1993: 398 ff). 7 The fact that particles often appear without polite effects is pointed out in Berger (1998) and Hentschel (forthcoming). 8 A third is analyzed in Hentschel (1991).