Non-Standard Dutch ‘allee/allez’ as a discourse particle

Piet van de Craen: Non-Standard Dutch ‘allee/allez’ as a discourse particle

"Allee/allez" is used frequently as a discourse marker in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. Examples are

(1) Allee, ik ben weg
(Well, I’m off)

(2) Allee, dat kan toch niet!
(This is quite impossible, isn’t it?)

(3) Ik denk, allee, dat is mijn mening hé
(I think, well, this is my opinion, you know)

Surprisingly enough this marker has not been described yet. In this contribution ‘allee/allez’ is described according to its syntactic place and properties. It is also shown that the descriptions in Dutch dictionaries - if they mention ‘allee/allez’ at all - are quite inadequate.

Finally, some semantic properties of ‘allee/allez’ are discussed and comparisons to standard Dutch markers, such as ‘nou’ are made.

Vrije Universiteit Brussel