Juk and gi, and “particles” in contemporary Lithuanian: Explaining language-particular elements in a cross-linguistic context

In this paper, I propose to take a fresh look at the elements traditionally termed “particles” in descriptions of Lithuanian. I establish criteria that would allow one to come up with a meaningful classification of such elements, and argue for the descriptive language particular category of “sentence particles”. I then turn to the syntax and functions of juk and gi, two prominent elements of this category. In order to understand their functions...