Swedish Modal Particles in a Contrastive Perspective.

Abstract A contrastive methodology is used for studying how certain functions tend to cooccur and for mapping the fuzzy boundaries between modal particles in Swedish. The particles are described as evidentials with meanings referring to the source of knowledge and to the type and strength of evidence. It is argued that all aspects of the meanings of the Swedish modal particles cannot be analysed as modal but that the particles also need to be explained in a general theory of human communication.