As already noted, the terms adverb and particle are used to refer to differ- ent categories of words in Anglophone and Polish grammars. In stand- ard English grammar presentation, the term particle is used to refer to uninflected words (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 280). Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 280) define it as “a one-word phrase functioning as the complement of the verb”. Their list of particles includes prepositions, as in “She brought down the bed”, adjectives complementing verbs, as in “They cut short their holiday”, and some verbs, as in “She let go his hand.” (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 280). However, the term is also used in discourse studies to refer to items performing various textual and inter- personal functions, i.e. discourse particles. Discourse particles are defined in different ways by different scholars, and the terminological confusion is considerable in this area. They are alternatively referred to as discourse markers, pragmatic markers and pragmatic particles (for an overview of terms see e.g. Brinton 1996; Andersen 2000; Aijmer 2002; Beeching 2002; Aijmer and Simon-Vandenbergen 2006, 2009; Fischer 2006a, 2006b, 2014; Weydt 2006; Fraser 1990, 1996, 1999; Degand et al. 2013b; Rozum- ko 2016b). Some scholars argue for the need to draw distinctions between the terms, particularly between discourse markers and discourse particles (cf. Fischer 2006a), while others use them interchangeably.
In Polish linguistics ways of defining particles have changed a number of times (for an overview see Grochowski 1986a; Grochowski et al. 2014). Bańko (2012: 118) observes that Polish grammars originally used the term to refer to all uninflected word classes, i.e. adverbs, prepositions, conjunc- tions and interjections. In the 19th century, the category was redefined to
include a small group of lexemes which did not show the properties of any of the traditional word classes, such as czy ‘if, whether’, niech (roughly: ‘let’, as in: Let there be light), nie ‘no’. At that time, the category was understood in a similar way as it is now presented in standard English grammars, such as Huddleston and Pullum (2002). In later accounts it gradually absorbed numerous lexemes which were difficult to classify, mostly adverbs and conjunctions which did not possess the prototypical features of the catego- ries they had been earlier assigned to, until the class expanded so consid- erably, that some authors described it as a rubbish sack (Jodłowski 1971; see also Grochowski et al. 2014). Grochowski (1986a) lists the following terms which were used by different Polish scholars to refer to the items in question: ‘additional intellectual markers’ (Pol. dodatkowe wyznaczniki intelektualne – Klemensiewicz 1963; Misz 1968), ‘modifiers of entire sen- tences’ (Pol. modyfikatory całych zdań – Grzegorczykowa 1975), ‘mod- ulators’ (Pol. modulanty – Jodłowski 1976), ‘metatextual and modal ad- verbs’ (Pol. przysłówki metatekstowe i modalne – Rachwałowa 1983). A number of linguists considered the ability of particles to modify nouns as the property which distinguished them from adverbs (Grochowski 1997; Laskowski 1998; Wróbel 2001). The number of terms used and their di- versity indicate the problems which Polish linguists faced in their attempts to delineate and name the category. In the 1990s, the category of particles was redefined again, to refer to a distinct word class comprising items of a metatextual character (Wajszczuk 2005; Grochowski et al. 2014), such as stance markers, textual markers, and emphasizers. The new definition of particles is now used in most Polish studies of modal markers. Some of its members are considered to be homonymic with members of other classes, such as adverbs. As observed by Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (2007: 142), the relation of homonymy is usually postulated for words whose forms are “identical for historical reasons, but whose meanings are etymologically unrelated”. In the current word-class classification in Polish, such histori- cal relations are not taken into consideration. The approach is synchronic. The metatextual uses of items which also function as adverbs of manner are classified independently. Thus, widocznie ‘visibly/in a visible way’ is classified as a manner adverb, and is said to be homonymic with the par- ticle widocznie ‘apparently’ (Grochowski et al. 2014: 59). The historical relation which exists between the two meanings is thus obscured.
3.5.1. Discourse particles vs. modal particles
Discourse particles (or discourse markers) are usually identified on the basis of “purely functional” (Fischer 2006b: 5) or functional-pragmatic criteria (Mosegaard Hansen 1998). Schiffrin (1987: 35) defines discourse markers as items which “bracket” such “units of talk” as sentences, prop- ositions, speech acts, and tone units. Such items are said to be “intona- tionally, syntactically, and semantically independent from the surround- ing discourse” (Travis 2006: 219). Discourse markers are a heterogeneous group. According to Lewis (2006: 44), they comprise “subtypes of sentence adverbials, parentheticals, conjunctions, or transparent predicates”, such as: “[w]ell, I mean, so, in fact, though, of course, anyway, actually, on the other hand”. It seems to be generally agreed that the main role of discourse particles is to guide the addressee through discourse by showing connec- tions between utterances and by acting as prompters and fillers (Jucker and Ziv 1998). However, some scholars aditionally associate them with the expression of epistemic stance (Ochs 1996), and with interpersonal functions (Schiffrin 1987). In fact, some discourse markers are multifunc- tional (cf. e.g. Fischer 2000), and combine their interpersonal functions with textual ones.
In addition to discourse particles, scholars distinguish the catego- ry of modal particles. It was traditionally identified in languages such as German, Danish and French, where it can be distinguished on syntactic grounds, the most important criterion being their use in clause-internal positions (cf. Hansen 1998). In German particles have also been treated as a word class, comprising single-word units “just like other linguistic terms such as verb and noun” (Weydt 2006: 206), an approach which resembles the Polish tradition of describing particles (though the classification cri- teria are different in the two languages, cf. Weydt 2006; Grochowski et al. 2014). Since English does not have a corresponding class of markers used in clause-internal positions, it was said not to have any modal particles (cf. Traugott 2007; Aijmer 2013). However, recent studies of English mod- al markers, beginning with Aijmer (1997), treat modal markers as a func- tional category, “a subclass of pragmatic markers” (Aijmer 2009: 111), a term which Aijmer treats as equivalent to discourse markers. In this view, discourse particles (or discourse markers) signal connections between ut-
terances, while modal particles offer metapragmatical comment on the content of the proposition, and perform interpersonal and interactional functions, such as indicating the common ground between the speaker and the addressee (e.g. Aijmer 2013). Aijmer argues that the functional category of modal particles comprises modal adverbs, e.g. of course (Ai- jmer 2013; Simon-Vandenbergen and Aijmer 2007), as well as non-adver- bial epistemic expressions, e.g. I think (Aijmer 1997). Generally, modal particles are said to express epistemic modality and “the speaker’s attitude to the proposition” (Hasselgård 2006: 95), but the specific ways in which the term is used differ among discourse scholars (cf. Degand et al. 2013b; Diewald 2013; Schoonjans 2013), and the related discourse categories seem to “shade into one another” (Foolen 1996 online).
3.5.2. Modal adverbs vs. modal particles
The distinction between modal adverbs and modal particles has been made in a number of recent studies of epistemic adverbs. It is general- ly associated with the degree of grammaticalization of the two sets (cf. e.g. Traugott 1995b; Traugott and Dasher 2002), but views concerning the boundaries between the categories differ among researchers. Hoye (1997) links modal particles with the category of subjuncts, as identified by Quirk et al. (1985). He writes: “It would not be implausible to redefine subjuncts expressing modality as ‘modal particles’, subdivided into the following categories: evidential particles (clearly, obviously); hearsay particles (ap- parently); reinforcement or emphasizing particles (certainly, surely, well); and focus particles (only, simply)” (Hoye 1997: 212). Subjuncts typically relate to individual sentence elements and appear in the sentence medial position. It thus seems that Hoye (1997) is influenced by the way particles are defined in languages such as German, where the sentence medial po- sition is one of their major distinguishing properties (see section 3.5.1). Semantically, in Hoye’s (1997: 212) view, “modal particles express abstract sense relations rather than literal meanings”. His opinion probably results from the fact that modal subjuncts are frequently employed as empha- sizers. Modal adverbs, he argues, “more clearly [than particles] express lexical meanings in their characterization of the speaker’s orientation, comment-wise or content-wise, towards his utterance” (Hoye 1997: 209- 210). However, while postulating the distinction between modal adverbs
and modal particles, he also notes that the same items perform different functions, and some adverbs can be used as modifiers of verbs as well as sentence adverbs. Ultimately, Hoye suggests that: “it may be more appro- priate to consider modal particles as a special subset of modal adverbs rather than as an entirely separate word class and to define them accord- ing to their use rather than in terms of any meanings they might possibly convey” (Hoye 1997: 212).
Wierzbicka (2006) distinguishes modal adverbs from modal particles on the basis of their pragmatic properties. In her account modal particles are interactional, dialogical and addressee-oriented, while epistemic ad- verbs are monological, speaker-oriented and do not encourage interac- tion. She writes:
Particles build bridges between the speaker and the addressee and often ex- ercise more or less subtle pressure on one’s interlocutor (as, for example,
surely does in English). The epistemic adverbs serve a different, “hands-off”,
kind of interaction. By pointedly emphasizing that “I want to say what I think”, they indicate that the speaker has no wish to “impose” his or her point of view on the addressee. This attitude of “non-imposing” is not part of the meaning of epistemic adverbs, but it can well be their pragmatic effect and, indeed, part of the modern Anglo speaker’s motivation for using them. (Wierzbicka 2006: 287)
Wierzbicka’s examples of modal particles include indeed, maybe, sure- ly, perhaps, and of course (Wierzbicka 2006: 287). Her list of epistemic adverbs comprises items such as probably, presumably, obviously, argua- bly, certainly, and undoubtedly. Because of the interactional character of modal particles, they can be used to elicit a response from the address- ee, e.g. Perhaps he did it himself? (Wierzbicka 2006: 249). The ability to occur in questions is, Wierzbicka argues, one of the most characteristic properties distinguishing them from modal adverbs. The inability of epis- temic adverbs to occur in questions has been noted in other studies, e.g. Bellert (1977), and Nuyts (2001a). However, questions of the type quot- ed by Wierzbicka for perhaps are also possible for some of the items she classifies as epistemic adverbs, e.g. presumably, as illustrated in (1), while obviously can be used as a question tag in a similar way as surely (cf. also Rozumko 2016c), as in (2).
(2) But … but you don’t agree with them, obviously? (BNC, HHA 2243).
Examples such as (1) and (2) demonstrate that the ability (or its lack) to be used in questions is not a distinctive property of items such as per- haps and surely, and cannot be used as a reliable criterion to distinguish them from modal adverbs. The problematic character of the distinction is also revealed in Wierzbicka’s (2006: 285) analysis of the uses of certainly. She classifies certainly as an epistemic adverb, but she also notes that in the sentence initial position, “certainly is used to agree, or to partially agree, with what has been said before”, and thus, “is not an epistemic adverb at all” (Wierzbicka 2006: 285). It thus appears that a clear-cut distinction between the categories is not easy to draw. As noted by Wiemer (2010: 90), no “fail-safe difference” between them seems to exist. Wierzbicka (2006) separates epistemic adverbs from modal particles with the inten- tion to demonstrate that in comparison with other languages, the English class of epistemic adverbs is exceptionally rich. She argues: “Blurring the boundary between epistemic adverbs like undoubtedly and evidently and words like surely or perhaps obscures the existence of an extended class of epistemic adverbs in modern English” (Wierzbicka 2006: 248). Items such as perhaps and maybe, are, in her view, more language universal, as they have been shown to have equivalents in numerous languages (Wierz- bicka 2006: 250). The analysis of data from Polish conducted in Chapters 4-10 confirms the suggested lack of cross-linguistic parallels in the case of some epistemic adverbs. However, it shows that the category of modal adverbs in Polish is also quite rich. I will, therefore, return to Wierzbicka’s account in Chapter 11.
In this work I follow Aijmer (e.g. 1997, 2009) in treating modal parti- cles as a functional category. As I demonstrate further in this book, most epistemic adverbs have some interactional uses; they differ in the extent to which their interactional potential is utilized. Simon-Vandenbergen and Aijmer (2007: 64) note that many of the divisions proposed for epistemic adverbs work well for “prototypical cases”, while “from the heteroglossic perspective … it makes more sense to see these distinctions as reflect- ing aspects or dimensions of meaning that can be combined in single instances rather than as categories in which individual adverbs need to
be accommodated” (Simon-Vandenbergen and Aijmer 2007: 64). I think this observation is also applicable to the distinction between epistemic adverbs and modal particles, which is why the two types are not separated in this study.