Polaritätskontrast als Kategorie der Modalität im Deutschen und im deutsch-italienischen Vergleich

Abstract

This article investigates how polarity contrast – i.e., the highlighting of the truth value of a proposition – is expressed in German, and compares these strategies with those attested in Italian. An analysis of German Map Task dialogues shows that Verum focus, especially the prosodic emphasis on the finite verb in declaratives, is only one strategy of polarity contrast among several. German speakers also employ particles, focused negation, and various patterns to maintain or reverse the polarity value of a proposition. Comparing these findings with Italian data from the study by Andorno, Crocco (2018) reveals that Italian makes use of strategies of the same type but relies more heavily on syntactically non-integrated lexical items, while prosodic marking plays a marginal role. The study further interprets polarity contrast strategies within Abraham’s (2020) theory of modality, arguing for an expansion of his model to include syntactically disintegrated particles and prosodic strategies expressing complex modal evaluations. Along these lines the paper argues that while German tends to express modality within the sentence structure, Romance, here represented by Italian, tends to convey modality ‘outside’ the sentence structure through syntactically non-integrated items/isolated particles, which can be combined with phrases.