Ein übereinzelsprachliches kontrastives Beschreibungsmodell für Partikelbedeutungen

Abstract

In this paper, a method for the semantic description of modal particles is presented. The method takes into account the context-sensitive meaning of this word class and offers an adequate basis for the purpose of language learning. Modal particles are analysed as grammatical markers of spoken dialogical language use. The model developed here can serve to describe the meaning of German modal particles as well as for contrastive semantic descriptions of particles. The contrastive application is demonstrated using the example of the language pair German-Croatian. First, an overview of the inventory and of the grammatical features of the word class of modal particles in German and of their Croatian equivalents is given. Then, existing methods of determining particle meanings are discussed. On the basis of the scheme for the description of particle meanings proposed by Diewald (1997, 2007), which relates to the Natural Semantic Metalanguage developed by Wierzbicka (e.g. 1996), a new universal model for the description of particle meanings is proposed. This new model is demonstrated with reference to the German modal particles doch, denn and ja and their Croatian equivalents pa, ma und a. Finally, some remarks on the use of the model for the purpose of learning German as a foreign language are made.