A wh discourse particle: Dutch hoezo
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v9i1.5683Keywords:
why-questions, wh-questions, content questions, discourse particles, because-clauses, reasons, DutchAbstract
This paper provides an analysis of a special kind of why-questions in Dutch, formed with the wh-word hoezo (lit. ‘how so’). We propose that hoezo signals the speaker’s resistance to updating the discourse model, by asking the interlocutor to provide a reason for their preceding discourse move. Hoezo shares properties with both discourse particles (its not-at-issue content expresses the speaker’s attitude towards the current state of the discourse), and question words (it asks the interlocutor to provide a reason). Unlike waarom (the regular word for ‘why’), hoezo is not subject to wh-movement and does not bind a variable.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Hotze Rullmann, Sander Nederveen

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Published by the LSA with permission of the author(s) under a CC BY 4.0 license.