Catalan focus markers as discourse particles

In this paper, we investigate focus markers in Catalan that can take on discourse-particle readings.We focus on two Catalan elements that have not been studied from a formal linguistics perspective so far: the focus adverb precisament ‘precisely’ and the focus particle també ‘also’. We demonstrate that these elements feature interpretations that we identify as a type of meaning familiar from discourse particles in languages other than Catalan. After having outlined the basic distribution and interpretative effects of these particles, we analyze the semantics and pragmatics of precisament and també within a probabilistic argumentative framework, and we then conclude the paper by comparing the observations and analyses we have pointed out for Catalan to other languages that feature a discourse-particle reading of similar focus markers.Andreas Trotzke gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Beatriu de Pinós program (Generalitat de Catalunya/Secretariat for Universities and Research of the Ministry of Economy and Knowledge; grant no. 2017- BP00031). Laia Mayol has been supported by the project QUDLE (PGC2018-094029-A-I00) funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCI)/Spanish Research Agency (AEI) and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER, EU)