When adding a little is adding too much: how discourse particles force immediate reanalysis and increase processing costs in under-specific contexts

Abstract Highly frequent discourse particles (DPs) express speaker attitudes and guide utterance interpretation, but we still lack a satisfactory explanation of how DPs are actually processed. Some results show facilitation, while others show processing costs. Previous studies have aimed to elicit core meanings of DPs embedded in highly plausible contexts, in contrast to more unlikely contexts that force two quite different interpretations. The present study uses a novel eye-tracking experiment where DPs instead are presented in low-constraint contexts. The plausible interpretations consist of two ends of a natural scale: the state change of color that fades or becomes dirty (black to gray or white to gray). This design renders a more direct reflection of how DPs alter context interpretation. Results show that DPs induce immediate reanalysis, and this reanalysis differs in magnitude depending on the kind of DP used. We suggest that the processing of DPs involve three dimensions: i) linguistic intuition about the DP, ii) assumptions about speaker meaning and iii) contextual considerations. The results are interpreted through the communicative principle of language, under-specificity and the maxim of quantity. We also suggest that diverging results from previous studies in the field can be explained using the same analytical lens.