Ways of grammaticalizing modal particles: a German-Italian comparative perspective

Abstract

By building upon recent research on German modal particles, the present paper intends to investigate the hypothesis that, like in German, modal particles in Italian only grammaticalized from certain classes of adverbs. It compares their origin in both languages and especially emphasizes syntactic similarities in the changes in the internal and external syntax of these elements. In particular, it is argued that modal particles are grammaticalized via the morphosyntactic weakening of strong adverbs and that they are derived from lower adverbs through specific syntactic constraints.