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