The Real, the Apparent, and What is <i>eigentlich</i>

Abstract

In this paper, I will propose a uniform analysis for adjectival and&#x0D; certain instances of adverbial eigentlich. The analysis rests&#x0D; on the assumption that eigentlich contrasts the nominal&#x0D; content of a concept C with a contextually given notion of&#x0D; phenomenological evidence for C-hood. eigentlich&#x0D; offers the semantic frame to refer to two ways of C-hood which&#x0D; are usually supplied by context. In the adjectival use, the discourse&#x0D; content should provide an N exemplar in the true sense (an&#x0D; eigentliches N) along with an apparent N, thereby&#x0D; proving the two notions to be different. In the adverbial use, the&#x0D; message conveyed is usually that the actual world nominally&#x0D; satisfies some proposition p (eigentlich, p) while&#x0D; the actual world looks as if a contrasting proposition&#x0D; q were the case. The analysis improves on earlier accounts in&#x0D; German descriptive linguistics in that it offers a fully compositional&#x0D; account of the semantic and pragmatic contribution of&#x0D; eigentlich in a wide variety of constructions, including&#x0D; focus, contrastive topic and questions. The analysis proposes a&#x0D; delineation of eigentlich as an emotive marker which differs&#x0D; from the content use in prosody, syntax, focus sensitivity and meaning.

Discourse marking and the subtle art of mind-reading: The case of Dutch eigenlijk

“…Furthermore, it is not always clear what the default conclusion or expectation of p that is cancelled by eigentlich should be. This is also noted by Eckardt (2009); we will discuss her analysis of eigentlich below.…”

“…Eckardt argues that the pensive use does not involve phenomenologically conflicting propositions and is therefore different from the aforementioned uses of eigentlich. Eckardt's (2009) account of eigentlich seems to capture the meaning of the adjectival use of eigentlich as well as some, but not all of its adverbial uses. Unfortunately, compared to Schmitz (2008), in the analysis of Eckardt the directionality from the apparent to the real world is lost, and with it the connection between the use of eigentlich/eigenlijk and expectations of discourse participants.…”

“…In (6), Mrs. Schmitz is the boss in the nominal sense but, Mrs. Meier fulfills a all the tasks phenomenologically tied to the notion of being a boss, and she is the eigentliche Chefin. Eckardt (2009) argues that eigentlich is systematically used to point out that there is a difference between N-by-name and N-by-typicalproperty and they have different extensions. Eckardt (2009) argues that the adverbial use can be explained by raising the meaning of the adjective to the propositional level.…”

“…Eckardt (2009) argues that eigentlich is systematically used to point out that there is a difference between N-by-name and N-by-typicalproperty and they have different extensions. Eckardt (2009) argues that the adverbial use can be explained by raising the meaning of the adjective to the propositional level. The adverb eigentlich takes scope over a proposition p. Two propositions can be derived from p: Nom(p) (those worlds where p holds true) and Pha ¨n(p) (conjunction of propositions {Q 1 , Q 2 , .…”

“…According to Eckardt (2009), the speaker of (8) indicates that Peter is a nice guy and that she came to this conclusion after some thinking about Peter's character. Eckardt argues that the pensive use does not involve phenomenologically conflicting propositions and is therefore different from the aforementioned uses of eigentlich.…”