Sociolinguistic variation in German. The case of the modal particles halt and eben

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003379706-10
8 Sociolinguistic variation
inGerman
The case of the modal particles
halt and eben
Oliver Bunk, Antje Sauermann,
and Fynn Raphael Dobler
8.1 Introduction
Modal particles (MPs) are lexical items “indicating to the hearer the mood
or attitude of the speaker towards a proposition” (Bross, 2012:183).1
The example in (1) illustrates the use of the two MPs halt and eben
that are explored in this chapter.
(1) Das Auto ist halt/eben die Straße entlang gefahren.
the car is MP the street along driven
‘The car just drove down the street’
Previous studies have highlighted the complex interplay of grammatical,
functional, and sociolinguistic factors involved in the use of MPs
(e.g., Thurmair, 1989; Dittmar, 2000), indicating that MPs are highly
dynamic elements that can provide insight into linguistic variation and
change in German. Because these MPs are often considered synonyms, and
the premise of variationist sociolinguistics is that variation is not free, halt
and eben, by virtue of their status as synonyms, may be influenced by
various linguistic, social, regional, and stylistic factors. Hence, these MPs
oer an opportunity to study the factors influencing language variation
and change. To date, most studies of MPs have focused on monolingual
speakers and have rarely systematically investigated the use of MPs across
different speaker groups. Since multilinguals have been shown to spotlight
innovative, noncanonical linguistic patterns (see Wiese etal., 2022a).,
analyzing the language of both monolingual and multilingual speakers
can help unravel the complex distributional patterns of halt and eben
Using variationist sociolinguistic methods, this chapter aims to uncover
patterns of variation and change and shed light on how language, spe‑
cifically MPs, can be influenced by traditional (e.g., age, gender) and non‑
traditional external factors (e.g., macro societal context, speaker groups).
authors' manuscript; final version in: Stratton, J.A.,
& K. V. Beaman (Eds.): Expanding Variationist
Sociolinguistic Research in Varieties of German.
New York: Routledge, 181-202.

182 Oliver Bunk et al.
While the eects of gender and age have been explored to some extent in
work on varieties of German (e.g., Leemann etal., 2019; Stratton, 2020,
2022), traditional variationist research rarely explores the impact of the
wider sociolinguistic context, specifically, the influence of the macro soci‑
etal context, such as language attitudes and ideologies toward multilingual‑
ism. These dierent macro contexts have been shown to influence language
structure, leading to dierent types of contact varieties in multilingual
contexts (Wiese, 2020b). Thus, examining the use of MPs by multilingual
speakers aids in our understanding of the mechanisms of language varia‑
tion and change. Against this background, this chapter examines the fac‑
tors influencing the use of MPs in varieties of German spoken in Germany,
the United States (US), and Namibia. While all three countries have wide‑
spread societal multilingualism, they dier in language status and ideol‑
ogy. In Germany, German is the majority language, while, in Namibia
and the US, German is a minority language. In Namibia, multilingualism
is considered the norm, and German is widely used, including in German
newspapers, German radio programs, and German‑speaking schools. In
contrast, the US is a multilingual country with prevailing monoglossic ide‑
ologies in which various heritage varieties of German (e.g., Pennsylvania
German, Louden, 2016; Texas German, Boas, 2009; Wisconsin German,
Salmons, 2005) are used. Similar to the US, Germany is characterized by
widespread monoglossic ideologies.
To examine the social, syntactic, and functional patterns of the MPs halt
and eben we first examine the relevant grammatical and functional proper‑
ties of halt and eben, along with the sociolinguistic factors influencing their
use (Section 8.2). Next, we present a corpus‑based sociolinguistic study of
halt and eben (Section 8.3) before summarizing our findings (Section 8.4).
8.2 Research background
8.2.1 Grammatical and functional properties
Halt and eben are MPs characterized by various linguistic properties
(e.g., Imo, 2016:108, Thurmair, 2020:241–242): they are uninflected,
unaccented, and optional. They form no constituent on their own, have
scopus over the whole sentence, can be combined, and are multifunctional.
They also often have homonymous counterparts in other word categories.
Halt and eben are typically considered synonyms, sharing several linguis‑
tic properties (e.g., Hentschel, 1986; Authenrieth, 2002; Diewald, 2007).
They occur predominantly in specific sentence types, i.e., V2main clauses,
V1 and V2 imperatives (Coniglio, 2011:26), and both can mark a proposi‑
tion as definite and irrevocable (e.g., Hentschel, 1986:171), highlighting
irreversibility and resignation (e.g., Helbig, 1988).

Sociolinguistic variation in German: the case of halt
and
eben 183
On closer inspection, however, halt and eben appear to show minor
dierences in their meanings which may call into question their status as
synonyms. Thurmair (1989:120–125) states that halt signals the plausibil‑
ity of an explanation or reason, while simultaneously opening for alterna‑
tives and making an utterance less categorical and dogmatic. Eben marks
a causal relation to the previous utterance and indicates that there is no
plausible argument or explanation other than the one given. According
to Thielmann (2015), halt signals that the speaker refers to certain con‑
stellations in a world they have no control over. While eben signals that
the speaker refers to subjective knowledge previously introduced into the
discourse, halt refers to independent, general knowledge accessible to all
interlocutors (Blühdorn, 2019:300–302).
From the above, we see that eben and halt may exhibit dierences in
meaning and use. However, in certain contexts, it is also clear that halt
and eben can have the same function. For the purposes of this study, we
treat these two MPs as part of the same semantic field and hence are lin‑
guistic variables under the notion of “weak complementary” (Sanko &
Thibault, 1981, see Stratton, 2022 for a discussion), allowing for an inves‑
tigation in the variationist sociolinguistics framework.
Traditionally, MPs are associated with the so‑called Mittelfeld ‘middle
field’, which is part of the “Typological Field Model” of German word
order (Drach, 1963).2 Drach’s model is restricted to capturing V2 phenom‑
ena, which is why various modifications of the model have been suggested
in the literature. One of the most influential versions of the Topological
Field Model was developed in Höhle (1986) and consists of the Vorfeld
‘prefield’, l inke Satzklammer ‘left sentence bracket’, Mittelfeld ‘middle
field’, rechte Satzklammer ‘right sentence bracket’, and Nachfeld ‘postfield’
(Höhle, 1986; Drach, 1963). Specific constituents and a certain number of
constituents can occupy the fields, but most fields may also be empty. The
Mittelfeld, for example, can host an unlimited number of constituents and
other material, such as MPs. The order of constituents in the Mittelfeld
is a complex interplay of several constraints, one of which is information
structure. MPs, for example, have been reported to function as barriers
between given and new information (see Thurmair, 1989) and to interact
with focus (Moroni, 2010). Table8.1 illustrates the position halt and eben
in the Topological Field Model.
Most studies argue that MPs are restricted to the Mittelfeld (e.g.,
Gutzmann & Turgay, 2015), which has also been reported for eben, while
halt may be unique among MPs as its syntactic position is more flexible.
Imo (2008) argues that halt can occur in the Vorfeld and Nachfeld, func‑
tioning as an MP. Thurmair (2020) argues that halt can only occur in the
Nachfeld, where it functions as a discourse particle rather than an MP.
Hence, as an MP it is restricted to the Mittelfeld, as any other MP, whereas

184 Oliver Bunk et al.
its new functions in the periphery may result from grammaticalization or
pragmaticalization (see Diewald, 1997; Authenrieth, 2002).
The aforementioned studies have brought to light important structural
and functional properties of MPs. They further show that MPs are a heter‑
ogeneous group of forms diering in meaning, position, and function, with
mechanisms such as grammaticalization and pragmaticalization in play at
dierent stages. Notably, the studies predominantly focus on monolingual
speakers. Systematically including multilingual speakers, however, may
help unravel the complex behavior of MPs and highlight patterns regard‑
ing their use and development. Previous research shows that multilingual
speakers can spotlight current linguistic developments and sometimes show
the direction of language variation and change more clearly (Wiese etal.,
2022a). A case in point is V3 sentences in German. In V3 sentences, the
verb non‑canonically appears in the third position in declarative clauses,
instead of the second, giving rise to an adverbial– subject –finite verb
order (e.g., danach wir gehen ins Kino versus danach gehen wir ins Kino
‘afterwards we are going to the cinema’). This pattern has been described
to appear in both multilingual (Wiese, 2006) and monolingual settings
(Wiese, 2013; Schalowski, 2017; Bunk, 2020). However, bilinguals have
been found to use V3more frequently (e.g., Wiese etal., 2022a), picking up
language internal tendencies and applying them more productively. In this
vein, multilingual language use might provide insights into the grammati‑
cal and functional similarities and dierences between halt and eben and
might further highlight current developments concerning language vari‑
ation and change, such as dierent stages on a grammaticalization path
where halt and eben may be heading (see Authenrieth, 2002, on the gram‑
maticalization of MPs). These stages might reflect dierent associations of
position and function, i.e., items that grammaticalize might be associated
with specific positions in the clause. As the studies above suggest, a promis‑
ing means to investigate these mechanisms is in the occurrences at the sen‑
tence peripheries. Halt unlike eben occurs in these positions, which might
Table8.1 German declarative clause with halt and eben in the Mittelfeld, described
in the Topological Field Model
Vorfeld
‘prefield’
Linke
Satzklammer
‘left verb bracket’
Mittelfeld
‘middlefield’
Rechte
Satzklammer
‘right verb bracket’
Nachfeld
‘postfield’
Das Auto ist halt/eben die
Straße
entlang gefahren
The car is MP/MP the
street
along driven

Sociolinguistic variation in German: the case of halt
and
eben 185
be linked to its development into a discourse particle (Thurmair, 2020).
Inaddition to the grammatical and functional dierences between halt and
eben, the use of both particles may also be influenced by sociolinguistic
factors, as the next section describes.
8.2.2 Sociolinguistic properties of halt and eben
Previous accounts suggest that speakers in northern Germany dier from
those in the south of Germany in their use of halt and eben (Hentschel,
1986; Thurmair, 1989; Dittmar, 2000; Elspaß, 2005). According to
Hentschel (1986), speakers from southern Germany perceive halt as weich
‘soft’ and warm ‘warm’, whereas eben is considered hart ‘hard’ and kalt
‘cold’. Hentschel (1986), however, points out that the evaluations of these
southern German speakers were similar among the speakers whereas
the evaluations of the northern German speakers were more divergent.
Additionally, in northern Germany, halt is not considered kalt ‘cold’ but
wertneutral ‘more neutral’ without emotional value. Figure8.1 illustrates
the distribution of halt and eben according to the Atlas der Deutschen
Alltagssprache (Elspaß & Möller, 2003.).
Figure8.1 Geographic distribution of halt and eben (Elspaß & Möller, 2003.)
<https://www.atlas-alltagssprache.de/halt-eben/?ch ild=runde.>. The sec‑
ond most frequently reported variants are shown with smaller symbols.

186 Oliver Bunk et al.
The map suggests that halt predominates in the south, with exceptions
in east Belgium, Luxembourg, and northern Alsace (see Elspaß & Möller,
2003.). However, in northern Germany, both particles are reported to
occur, with some areas preferring halt over eben. Elspaß (2005:6–17) finds
that in southern Germany, both halt and eben are used, with halt being
more dominant. In northern Germany, however, halt was not documented
until the 1970s and 1980s, when it spread from the south into the north‑
west. At that time, it was still absent in the territories of the former German
Democratic Republic (see Elspaß, 2005:17–18). Although no surveys were
carried out in the 1980s, based on data by Dittmar (2000), Elspaß (2005)
suggests further spread of halt to east Germany, where eben was used more
frequently by all speakers in former west and east Berlin. Nevertheless,
halt was also frequently used by speakers from former east Berlin. In par‑
ticular, six speakers in Dittmar’s (2000) study, who were either under 30
or worked in former west Berlin or west Germany, used halt particularly
often (Dittmar, 2000:224). Dittmar (2000) considers several sociolinguis‑
tic factors such as age and gender; however, he does not include macro
contextual factors, such as multilingualism and attitudes and ideologies
toward multilingualism.
Why did halt spread from the south across Germany in the first place?
Based on Hentschel’s (1986) findings, Dittmar (2000:226) claims that halt
marks a situation as friendly, subjective, and informal, and can also be
used in formal situations to indicate friendliness. Some speakers associate
the use of halt with modernity and a specific lifestyle, i.e., sozial aufwärts
strebende Hedonisten im Spätkapitalismus ‘hedonists aiming at a social
upward movement in late capitalism’ (see Dittmar, 2000:226). In this
sense, halt might index an alignment with a new lifestyle after the reuni‑
fication of east and west Germany and the orientation toward an upward
movement in the social hierarchy.
In sum, studies suggest that semantic, grammatical, and
sociolinguistic fac‑ tors affect the use of halt and eben (e.g., Thurmair,
1989; Dittmar, 2000, 2015). Both particles are near‑synonyms: that is,
both are used as markers of evidentiality, but, as discussed above, they
can differ slightly in their specific meanings in some contexts. Their
canonical position is the Mit‑ telfeld, though halt also appears at
sentence peripheries, where it might function as a discourse particle,
losing its function as an MP. From a dia‑ lectological perspective, halt is
traditionally associated with the southern German‑speaking areas in
Europe, whereas eben has been traditionally associated with the
northern German‑speaking parts of Germany, where it is gradually being
replaced by halt.
As highly dynamic particles, halt and eben allow for the investiga‑
tion of language variation and change in German multilingual speakers.
To our knowledge, only one study has investigated the use of halt and

Sociolinguistic variation in German: the case of halt
and
eben 187
eben in a situation of language contact. Analyzing the German of the
German‑speaking minority in Namibia, Wiese and Bracke (2021) inves‑
tigated the occurrence of the two particles in dierent communicative
contexts. They found that halt is more frequent in formal than informal
contexts and suggest that halt might be used to mark a lack of control over
a certain situation (cf. Thielmann, 2015).
These findings are relevant for the present study for two reasons. First,
Wiese and Bracke’s (2021) study illustrates that the use and function of
halt do not depend solely on the formality of the context but also on the
content. Second, the study provides some initial insights into the develop‑
ment of halt and eben with a macro context outside of Germany.
8.3 Present study
8.3.1 Halt and eben in language contact
The present study focuses on linguistic (i.e., language‑internal) and social
(i.e., language‑external) factors influencing the use of halt and eben. The
internal factors considered in this study are syntactic distribution (occur‑
rence in the Vorfeld, Mittelfeld, or Nachfeld) and function (modal parti‑
cle versus discourse particle) of both particles. Following previous studies
(e.g., Thurmair, 1989; Gutzmann & Turgay, 2015), we assume that the
Mittelfeld is the only canonical position for MPs. To examine the eect
of sociolinguistic factors on the influence of these syntactic positions and
functions, we also consider the factors age (adult versus adolescent), gen‑
der (male versus female), and style, operationalized as communicative situ‑
ation (formal versus informal). We define communicative situation based
on the relationship of the addressee/interlocutors, e.g., formal versus infor‑
mal spoken situations (see Wiese, 2020a). In addition, we include multi‑
lingualism (monolingual versus multilingual speakers) and societal macro
context (monoglossic ideology versus multilingualism). Since multilingual
speakers are “familiar with more diverse repertoires and higher degrees of
linguistic variation” (Wiese & Rehbein, 2016:57), they may apply mecha‑
nisms of variation and change more productively (see Wiese& Rehbein,
2016, Wiese etal., 2021a). The macro societal context may play an essen‑
tial role in the use of MPs since macro contexts where multilingualism
is embraced as the norm provide greater flexibility in terms of variation
and linguistic practices (such as code‑switching and language mixing, see
Wiese etal., 2022b; Sauermann etal., accepted). While such contexts may
promote variation (e.g., in terms of noncanonical positioning and new
functions), contexts with monoglossic ideologies limit the opportunities
for variation. Our study includes three contexts allowing for a systematic
analysis of these sociolinguistic factors: Germany, the US, and Namibia.

188 Oliver Bunk et al.
Namibia is a highly multilingual country with a widespread positive
societal attitude toward multilingualism. Although Germany and the US
are also multilingual countries, monoglossic ideologies prevail. In both the
US and Namibia, German functions as a minority language. However, the
countries dier regarding the role of German in the speech communities.
Namibia has a vital German‑speaking speech community, with German
used not only in the family context but also in the media and education
(e.g., Shah & Zappen‑Thomson, 2018; Wiese & Bracke, 2021), whereas,
in the US, German is on the decline and plays only a marginal role in eve‑
ryday life and society.
8.3.2 The data
The data for this study come from three corpora: the Kiezdeutschkorpus
(KiDKo; Wiese etal., 2010), the Deutsch in Namibia corpus (DNam;
Zimmer et al., 2020), and the Research Unit Emerging Grammars cor‑
pus (RUEG; Wiese etal., 2021). The DNam and RUEG corpora use the
“Language Situations” method3 (Wiese, 2020a) to systematically manipu‑
late the formality of the communicative situation during elicitation, while
keeping the topic constant. With this method, participants are presented
with a picture story (DNam) or a video clip (RUEG) of a fictional car
accident and are asked to describe the situation to either a police ocer
(formal context) or their best friend (informal context).
The DNam corpus consists of spoken language recordings by 110mem‑
bers (ages 6–75) of the German‑speaking community in Namibia.4
Data were collected in and around Windhoek, Swakopmund, Otavi,
Otjiwarongo, Omaruru, and Witvlei. In addition to these Language Situa‑
tions, the corpus also includes data from free conversations among groups
of two to five speakers who knew each other, as well as semi‑structured
sociolinguistic interviews with two to three speakers. Within the context
of this study, we consider the interviews as formal (due to the presence of
a researcher) and the free conversations as informal (due to the absence of
a researcher).
The RUEG corpus comprises data from the Language Situations method
with mono‑ and multilingual speakers (ages 13–37) in dierent lan‑
guages and language contact constellations.5 Data collection took place
in Germany, Greece, Russia, Turkey, and the US. For this study, we used
the German sub‑corpus, which includes data from mono‑ and multilingual
speakers of German. Specifically, it includes data recorded in Germany
(Berlin) from 64monolingual speakers of German and 166multilingual
speakers of German with the heritage languages Greek, Russian or Turkish.
Additionally, it includes data recorded in the US (Boston, Madison, Saint
Paul, and Minneapolis) from 34 multilingual speakers with German as

Sociolinguistic variation in German: the case of halt
and
eben 189
aheritage language. While the US speakers of German likely dier in terms
of which variety of heritage German they speak, addressing these dier‑
ences is beyond the scope of this study. However, we acknowledge that
dierent varieties of heritage German might dier in their use of MPs.
Finally, KiDKo contains spontaneous spoken language recordings by
6monolingual students, ages 14–17 (KiDKo/Mo) and 17multilingual stu‑
dents, ages 14–17 (KiDKo/Mu) from two high schools in Berlin. The data
consist of spontaneous and informal conversations between specific speak‑
ers and their peers.6 Table 8.2 shows the numbers of speakers involved
in the dierent corpora. We provide separate numbers for older adults
(DNam) because they are considered separately in the subsequent analyses:
All corpora were queried for occurrences of halt and eben, with the tokens
hand‑annotated to remove repetitive repairs and phrasal co‑occurrences of
halt and eben (da waren halt eben zwei Autos ‘there were MP MP two
cars’). We did not remove instances of non‑reduplicated multiple occur‑
rences of either modal particle (e.g., äh die sind halt beide ausgestiegen
und haben sich halt–haben den Schaden begutachtet ‘ah, they both MP
got out of the car and MP evaluated damage’). Table8.3 reports the total
number of words by corpus and communicative situation. Note that only
DNam contains data for all four communicative situations.
8.4 Results
8.4.1 Eects of age, gender, and macro societal context
Figure8.2 shows the normalized frequency of halt and eben in the corpora
split by communicative situation.
Table8.2 Numbers of speakers producing halt/eben in the Kiezdeutschkorpus,
RUEG corpus, and DNam corpus
RUEG DNam KiDKo
Age
Gender
Adolescent
(14–17)
Adult
(18–35)
Adolescent
(14–17)
Adult
(18–35)
Adult (+)
(36–75)
Adolescents
(14–17)
Male 17 20 17 8 7 12
Female 28 48 29 4 9 1
Note: Only genders reported by the participants were noted.
Table8.3 Word count by corpus and communicative situation
Corpus Free
conversation
Interview Formal
LangSit
Informal
LangSit
Corpus Free conversation Interview Formal LangSit Informal LangSit
KiDKo 178,031 0 0 0
DNam 107,352 55,534 23,606 25,270
RUEG 0 0 42,478 35,581

190 Oliver Bunk et al.
The bars show the occurrences per 100,000 words, and the numbers in
the first row show the absolute frequency of each particle. The informal
communicative situation comprises the informal language situations and
free conversations, and the formal situation entails the formal language
situations and the interviews. In the RUEG corpus, we only considered
data from multilingual and monolingual speakers in Germany and not the
US because the multilingual speakers in the US produced only one token in
total. Figure8.2 indicates a low frequency of both particles in KiDKo, and
a higher overall frequency of halt compared to eben in all three corpora.
Crucially, the data show an interaction between context and corpus, i.e.,
halt occurs less frequently in informal compared to formal contexts in the
DNam corpus, whereas the reversed pattern occurs in the RUEG corpus.
The subsequent analyses aim to identify the factors determining the
choice to use halt over eben, or vice versa, i.e., for contexts in which
either of the particles was produced. We calculated a linear‑mixed eects
model (Baayen etal., 2008) using the lme4 function (version 1.1.33, Bates,
Mächler, Bolker & Walker, 2015) within the R environment (v. 4.3.0,
RCore Team, 2023) with the occurrence of eben (compared to halt) as the
predicted variable. We included as fixed factors: societal context (multilin‑
gual (DNam) versus Germany (RUEG & KidKo)), age group (14–35years
versus 36–74 years), communicative situation (formal versus informal),
multilingualism (monolingual versus bilingual speakers), gender (female
versus male). Treatment contrast was used for variable codings, with the
Figure8.2 Occurrences of per 100,000 words (y‑axis) and absolute frequency
(below the bars) of halt and eben (bar shade) in three corpora by com‑
municative situation (formal versus informal).

⌃ ⌃
⌃
⌃
⌃
Sociolinguistic variation in German: the case of halt
and
eben 191
first mentioned level of each fi xed factor (multilingual, 14–35 year‑olds,
formal, monolinguals, females) defined as the baseline. Positive estimates
indicate an increase in the probability of occurrences of eben. We added
interactions as fixed eects and speaker as a random eect. We initially fit
a maximally complex model with all factors and interactions and trimmed
the model in a systematic, step‑by‑step process: after fitting an alternate
model with one less factor or interaction than the previous model, we
used the anova function to assess which model better fit the data. We then
removed or reduced complex interactions (e.g., multilingualism x age
group x gender would be reduced to multilingualism x age group + gender).
The final, best‑fit model (formula: eben ~ So ciety*Situation*Age
Group+(1|Speaker), control = glmerControl(optimizer = “bobyqa”),
family=“binomial”) demonstrated significant eects of societal context
(
β
 = 5.062, SE = 1.824, z = 2.776, p < 0.01), age group (
β
= 19.034,
SE=3.864, z = 4.926, p < 0.0001), and a marginal eect of communicative
situation (
β
= 2.347, SE = 1.215, z = 1.932, p = 0.0534). These eects were
modulated by significant interactions between societal context and com‑
municative situation (
β
= −10.129, SE = 2.411, z = −4.201, p < 0.0001)
and context and age group (
β
= −3.464, SE = 1.589, z = −2.181, p < 0.05).
The eects are illustrated in Figure8.3, showing the relative frequency of
halt versus eben (with respect to each other) separated by corpora (left,
middle and right panel), communicative situation (left versus right bars)
and age group (upper versus lower panel).
Figure8.3 Percentage of particles halt and eben (bar shading) in the corpora (left
versus middle versus right panel) separated by age group (upper versus
lower panel) and communicative situation (left versus right bars).

192 Oliver Bunk et al.
Considering the younger speakers (upper panel), the dierences between
DNam corpus and the KiDKo and RUEG corpora illustrate the eect of
societal context: halt is produced more often by speakers in Namibia than
in Germany. Moreover, there is a strong interaction between societal con‑
text and communicative situation: while the communicative situation does
not influence production rates in Namibia, it does in Germany, where halt
was more frequent in informal than in formal situations. We also find an
age eect (upper versus lower panel) in the DNam corpus, the only corpus
where data from the older speaker groups are available. Overall, younger
speakers produce higher proportions of halt than older speakers. While the
communicative situation does not influence their production rates, this dif‑
fers from the pattern of the older speakers, who produce less halt in formal
than informal contexts.
Overall, the results show that (a) halt is more frequent than eben in all
groups, (b) halt is not used in formal registers, (c) eben is associated with
formal language in Germany and with older speakers in Namibia, and (d)
younger speakers in Namibia use halt more frequently independent of the
situational context. These findings suggest that language‑external factors
influence the frequency of halt and eben. In the following, we investigate
language‑internal factors, i.e., the syntactic distribution and function of
halt and eben.
8.4.2 Syntactic distribution and function
For our investigation, we annotated the occurrence of halt and eben
according to their position in the Topological Model (see Section 8.2) and
compared the frequencies of occurrences across speaker groups (heritage
versus majority speakers) and communicative situation (formal versus
informal). In the second step, we examined the MPs in the Vorfeld and
Nachfeld and analyzed their use. As the token counts are sparse, we pro‑
vide qualitative analyses.
Our data indicate that the vast majority of halt (88.4% in total, see
Table 8.4) occurred in its canonical position, i.e., the Mittelfeld. Still,
halt occurred in both the left and the right periphery (1.9% and 2.9%,
respectively). Eben was absent in these positions, indicating a dierence
in the syntactic behavior of the two particles, halt being more flexible in
terms of its placement within the clause than eben. Table 8.4 illustrates
the frequencies across the three corpora (VF = Vorfeld, MF = Mittelfeld,
NF= Nachfeld). The category “other” includes ambiguous occurrences,
i.e., cases that (a) lack clear indications for the beginning and the end of
the MF through the presence of finite and non‑finite verbs or verbal parts
in the left and right sentence bracket (see Section 8.2.1), (b) were phrasal,
or (c) were isolated. These instances were excluded from further analyses.

We find a major dierence in the relative frequencies between KiDKo
and the other corpora: fewer occurrences in the Mittelfeld in KiDKo might
be due to more occurrences in the category “other”, which may result
from methodological dierences in the data elicitation. While KiDKo rep‑
resents spontaneous speech among friends, the other corpora include data
using the LangSit method, i.e., they were asked to describe a car accident.
Spontaneous speech include dialogues which might exhibit more of the
phenomena we summarized as “other”. Table8.4 also indicates that all
speakers, except for the monolingual speaker in the RUEG corpus, use halt
in the Vor‑ and the Nachfeld.
All 21 instances of halt in the Vorfeld were produced by young speak‑
ers (ages 14–24), with only one speaker being monolingual. One of the
multilingual speakers produced halt in the Vorfeld six times. This speaker
was Namibian, and out of all the productions of halt in the Vorfeld in
Namibian German, this speaker was responsible for almost half the cases
(6 out of 13). Examples for halt in the Vorfeld are reported in (2).
(2) (a) halt meine eltern sind mitgeflogn
(DNAM_S_00004)
MP my parents are with.flew
‘My parents were flying with them.’
(b) halt macht sich fast an jeden ran ja
(KiDKo, Mo05WD)
MP makes herself almost on everyone on yes
‘She tries to hit on almost everyone.’
In line with Imo (2008), we consider these cases to be instances of halt in
the Vorfeld and not “performance errors” (see Thurmair, 2020:250), as we
did not find any signs of restructuring and speech errors such as pauses.
Sociolinguistic variation in German: the case of halt
and
eben 193
Table8.4 Distribution of halt across corpora
Multilingual
DNam
Bilingual
RUEG‑de
Monolingual
RUEG‑de
Multilingual
KiDKo
Monolingual
KiDKo
Totals
n%n%n%n%n % n %
VF 13 2 4 1.6 0 0.0 2 4 2 10.5 21 1.9
MF 576 88.2 233 94.3 129 94.9 29 58 10 52.6 977 88.4
NF 20 3.1 7 2.8 1 0.7 3 6 1 5.3 32 2.9
Other 44 6.7 3 1.2 6 4.4 16 32 6 31.6 75 6.8
Total 653 247 136 50 19 1,105

194 Oliver Bunk et al.
In the Nachfeld, we found 32 cases of halt. Thirty‑one of those utterances
were produced by multilingual speakers from Namibia and Germany. We
did not find speakers producing this structure particularly often. Examples
of halt in the Nachfeld are reported in (3):
(3) (a) und dann kam ein junger mann heraus un hat ihr
and then came a young man out and had her
aufgeholfn halt aus dem amarok
helped MP out the amarok
‘And then a young man came and helped her, (he came) out of
the amarok.’
(DNAM_S_00002)
(b) … was auch selbstverständlich ist wegen ähm
… which also self.explanatory is because uhm
wegem halt dem Ball
because MP the ball
‘... which is also self explanatory because uhm because (of) the
ball.’
(DEbi61FT)
(c) Wir wollten halt auch ein richtig gutes
We wanted MP also a really good
Glätteisen kaufen und deswegen
hair.straightener buy and therefore
haben wir dann zusammengelegt halt
have we then pooled MP
‘We just wanted to buy a really nice hair straightener and there‑
fore we pooled our money.’
(MuH1WD)
Concerning function, we found that halt (a) signals information accessible
to all interlocutors, (b) states that a proposition is definite, evident, and
irrevocable, and (c) highlights that the speakers have no control over a spe‑
cific situation. Examples illustrating this interpretation are reported in (4).
(4) (a) ich dachte jetzt macht jeder so richtig
I thought now makes everyone like really
krass Stress weil na ja äh
bad stress because well yes um
Autounfall halt ist halt kacke so …
car.accident MP is MP shitty so …
(DEbi69FR)

Sociolinguistic variation in German: the case of halt
and
eben 195
‘I thought everybody is going to make a huge fuss because well
a car accident is kind of shitty.’
(b) der ist nicht sehr schnell gefahrn aber halt da
he is not very fast driven but MP there
war ne frau vor dem
was a woman before him
‘Well he didn’t drive very fast but there was a woman in front
of him.’
(DNAM_S_00014)
In (4a), the speaker describes the car accident before summarizing that
acar accident is a “shitty” situation. The first halt refers to the car accident
and its association with negative consequences for the people involved,
a notion most people would agree with. Hence, it represents evident
information. In (4b), the speaker describes the situation, adding new
information–indicated by the indefinite pronoun ne (clipped form of eine
‘a’)–that the speaker was not able to influence.
In the present dataset, i.e., the corpora considered in this study, halt
fluctuates between these two meanings and, in many cases, is ambiguous.
Hence, the meanings resembled the canonical meanings in the Mittelfeld,
indicating its function as an MP. However, Thurmair (2020) argues that
this use in (4b) is not a prototypical function of an MP but a weakened
version. It operates as a meta‑communicative device referring to the propo‑
sition and/or illocutionary act (Thurmair, 2020:263). Moreover, Thurmair
(2020) suggests that, even though this weakened function of halt occurs in
the Mittelfeld, it is more pronounced in the Nachfeld. In the Nachfeld, halt
marks the proposition as “unspectacular” and as “a side note,” indicating
that the utterance is less relevant. Concurrently, it no longer implies plau‑
sibility and irrevocableness of the proposition. Thus, halt develops into a
discourse particle in the Nachfeld and signals (a) additional side notes and
(b) the end of an utterance, losing its association as an MP.
We did not find clear instances where halt functions as a discourse parti‑
cle with the function described by Thurmair (2020) in the Vorfeld. Rather,
it seems to keep its function as an MP, indicating a lack of power over the
situation and evident information. According Imo (2008), use of halt in the
Vorfeld has the same function as in the Mittelfeld but it is more salient and
similar to a discourse marker. However, as it still creates an implicit prag‑
matic pretext, it still functions as an MP. In examples (2) and (4b), however,
it seems that halt also highlights important or new information in con‑
trast to the downtoning halt in the Nachfeld and the evaluative halt in the
Mittelfeld. Thus, even though halt might not (yet) be a discourse marker in
the Vorfeld, it still might pick up the discourse and information structuring

196 Oliver Bunk et al.
potential of the Vorfeld. As the data are sparse, this interpretation needs
further investigation to allow for further conclusions.
In the Nachfeld, we found clearer cases of halt used as a discourse
particle. A case in point is (3a) above. The speaker explains that the
driver stepped out of his vehicle to help the woman who lost her belong‑
ings. As an afterthought, the speaker added the exact make of the car
(amarok ‘a Volkswagen SUV’). This information was not needed to fol‑
low the story but provided additional, albeit less important side informa‑
tion. At the same time, halt was used as an MP in the Nachfeld. In (3c)
above, the speakers discussed that it is important to buy a high‑quality hair
straightener that was rather expensive. To reduce costs for each person,
they explained that they pooled their money. In this case, halt keeps its MP
function, signaling plausible context information.
In sum, our data provide evidence that halt is an MP found in the
Mittelfeld, Vorfeld, and Nachfeld and can also function as a discourse par‑
ticle in the Nachfeld, and potentially in the Vorfeld as well. Hence, our
findings are only partly in line with Imo (2008) and Thurmair (2020).
Most notably, these noncanonical positions and functions were most pro‑
nounced in the multilingual speakers in our corpora, which we will take a
closer look at in the next section.
8.5 Discussion and conclusion
This chapter analyzed the use of the modal particles halt and eben across
dierent speaker groups and communicative situations. We investigated how
the factors age, gender, communicative situation, macro societal contexts,
and multilingualism influence the use of the MPs. In line with previous stud‑
ies, our findings suggest that halt is used more frequently than eben across all
speaker groups. However, we found that the macro societal context aects
their use. Both particles were absent in the minority German community in
the US, a country with a strong monolingual habitus and English as the major‑
ity language; the monolingual habitus places English over German, leading
to a decline in the use of German. This configuration allows for language‑
specific influences, i.e., a st rong im pact of En glish, a la nguage wi th a less
pervasive use of particles that fulfill similar function l ike M Ps i n G erman
(e.g., Waltereit, 2001; Aijmer, 2009 for a discussion of the existence of MPs
in English). In contrast, MPs are used frequently in Namibia, where German
is a minority and English is an ocial language. However, societal attitudes
in Namibia tend to embrace multilingualism as normal, invigorating a vital
speech community with German actively in use. As a result, both halt and
eben are used throughout in the Namibian German speech community.
In addition to societal attitudes, language prestige may also play a role in
the use of MPs. In the US, Standard English is privileged as the dominant
hegemonic language over other languages and varieties as a result of the

Sociolinguistic variation in German: the case of halt
and
eben 197
English‑only policy in the 19th and early 20th century, which contributed
the conceptualization of English as an essential part of US identity (Wiley,
2000). Such language hierarchies can lead to a strong influence of English
on minority languages, which also aects the lexicon. In the case of
German, we speculate that this could have led to the loss of halt and eben.
In contrast, in the German‑speaking community in Namibia, German is
perceived as a prestige language. Although there is some influence of the
more prestigious European languages English and Afrikaans in contrast
to local languages (see Shah, 2007), the lack of monolingual ideologies in
Namibia does not lead to a strong influence of one of these languages on
German. Hence, societal macro context and prestige might interact.
Interestingly, our data revealed dierences in the use of the MPs in
Germany and Namibia that are aected by several factors: societal context,
age group, and communicative situation. Although eben was rarely used,
we found evidence to suggest that its use is associated with formal situa‑
tions in Germany and older speakers in Namibia, while younger speakers
in Namibia rarely use eben regardless of the formality of the communica‑
tive situation. The fact that eben occurs in formal situations but less in
informal situations by speakers in Germany and older speakers in Namibia
is puzzling at first glance since this contradicts previous studies highlight‑
ing the replacement of eben by halt, at least in northern Germany. How‑
ever, the communicative situation seems to be an important aspect. Eben
prevails in formal registers and is absent in informal registers. The reason
for this might lie in covert and overt prestige of the MPs. Elspaß (2005)
argues that features from northern Germany are usually associated with
more standard‑like prestigious language. Thus, they are used in contexts
in which standard language and standard language ideologies are strong,
i.e., more formal contexts. Nonstandard features are associated more with
southern Germany and contexts in which varieties other than standard
German are used, i.e., more informal situations. The dierent associations
of eben with northern Germany and halt with southern Germany might
explain the use of eben in formal registers, as a feature of standard lan‑
guage, usually associated with formal situations. From this explanation,
we would conclude that halt should be more frequent in informal than for‑
mal situations. However, speakers do not associate halt with either of these
situations. Rather, halt seems to function as a default MP marking eviden‑
tiality. Assuming that halt benefits from a general spread to the north, it
received valorization in all situations investigated in this study.
The association of eben with formal contexts appears to be absent in
younger speakers in Namibia, who rarely use eben. Halt is more frequent
in formal situations, indicating it might be the more valorized variant in
general, making eben dispensable. Prestige and standard language ideology
might be particularly pronounced among speakers of Namibian German,
as they use standard German as a stepping stone to German education and

198 Oliver Bunk et al.
university. Hence, using the most valorized variant might be beneficial to
young Namibian German speakers. This interpretation complements previ‑
ous studies showing (a) that register marking in Namibian German speakers
reflects the social meaning associated with dierent variants (local Namibian
German versus standard Germany German variant) (e.g.,Wiese& Bracke,
2021; Wiese etal., 2022b; Sauermann etal., accepted) and (b) the presence
of a strong underlying standard language ideology in Namibian German
speakers (see Leugner, 2023). In addition, the case of the use of halt and eben
in Namibian German appears to illustrate apparent‑time change that we
observe in the dierent uses of both MPs by the older and younger speakers.
However, our data also indicate that grammatical flexibility is influenced
by multilingualism. Considering syntax and function, we saw that many
multilingual speakers used halt in noncanonical positions, i.e., the sentence
periphery. While half the occurrences in the Vorfeld were produced by one
speakers, various speakers used halt in the Nachfeld. Only two monolin‑
gual speakers used halt in a noncanonical position, both of whom were
younger. In the peripheries, we showed that halt might function as an MP
but might also take on the function of a discourse particle. Multilingual
speakers more frequently use these functions in noncanonical positions
than monolinguals, which has been observed in previous studies on linguis‑
tic patterns in language contact (e.g., Wiese, 2009; Wiese etal., 2022a). In
the case of Namibian German, this tendency might be further supported by
a widespread positive attitude toward multilingualism, allowing for more
noncanonical variation and the productive use of noncanonical patterns.
In sum, the data reported in this study imply a relationship between the
macro societal context, multilingualism, and linguistic behavior. Thus, in
line with Stratton (2022), when it comes to lexical and discourse prag‑
matic features, the data point to a greater role of the social rather than
geographic factors. This does not, however, appear to be generalizable for
other domains such as morphosyntax (e.g., Vergeiner etal., 2024, chapter
2 in this volume). In this chapter, we focused on only two specific MPs,
for which multilingual speakers illustrate ongoing tendencies of language
variation and change. Other phenomena, such as bare noun phrases (see
Wiese etal., 2022a; Bunk etal., to appear), also demonstrate the eect that
dierent ideologies toward multilingualism, language status, and speech
community have on linguistic practices and patterns.
Notes
1 The research for this paper was funded by the DFG (Research Unit FOR 2537
P8, 313607803; SFB 1412 C07, 4165913‑34). For helpful comments and sug‑
gestions, we thank the editors of this volume and two anonymous reviewers.
For all remaining errors and shortcomings we of course take full responsibility.

Sociolinguistic variation in German: the case of halt
and
eben 199
2 Thurmair (1989:26) highlights that MPs can only occur in the prefield together
with an interrogative (see Bayer & Obenauer, 2011 for a disuccion of such
cases from a generative perspective) but never n their own.
3 The method yields controlled, yet naturalistic productions across dierent
communication situations. Speakers are asked to describe a car accent familiar
to them from a video clip or photo story. They are then tasked to describe the
accident to (a) the police or a teacher and (b) a friend in written and spoken
form. This way speakers produce four dierent texts, representing informal
and formal, spoken and written language.
4 https://hu.berlin/dnam.
5 hu‑berlin.de/RUEG‑corpus.
6 www.kiezdeutschkorpus.de.
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