Syntax and Semantics of Causal denn in German

This paper presents a new analysis of denn (because) in German. In addition to causal links between propositions, denn can express the causation of epistemically judged propositions or of speech acts. Denn’s behavior is explained by two properties: On the semantics side, I show that denn is a conventional implicature item. Syntactically, denn is a coordinating conjunction of CPs. These facts explain two things. (1) Why denn can be used to express a wider range of causal relations than the related weil: denn can target the coerced variables over assertions as an argument, while these variables are too high for weil. (2) At the same time, the restrictions on the use of denn also follow from denn’s status as a coordinating conjunction and conventional implicature.