alles as a modal particle?

[brendanm]

Hello
I'm wondering what it the meaning of "alles" when it is randomly added to a sentence, but doesn't seem to have a meaning, for example:

was reimt sich alles auf Spaghetti
wer spielt alles am samstag in der 2. liga,
was gibt es alles für kunstrichtung
was ist alles in der corona spritze drin

It seems to be like a modal particle, like doch, wohl, gar, ja, etc, but I don't remember studying alles in this context,

Can anyone explain please?
Thanks,
Brendan

[kevin]

Not an easy one, but after thinking a bit about it, I don't think it's a modal particle, but rather the normal word. My main reason for this is that you can use adjectives in pretty much the same way:

Was hast du denn da schönes?
Was gibt es heute leckeres zum Essen?

So literally, with this "alles" you're asking the other person to name things that all rhyme with "Spaghetti" etc. I'm not entirely sure what it means pragmatically, though. Maybe just that you're interested in more than one answer, or in some cases even a complete list?

[Car]

I'm not sure either, but it definitely means you want a more detailed answer.

[Linguaphile]

Hello
I'm wondering what it the meaning of "alles" when it is randomly added to a sentence, but doesn't seem to have a meaning, for example:

was reimt sich alles auf Spaghetti
wer spielt alles am samstag in der 2. liga,
was gibt es alles für kunstrichtung
was ist alles in der corona spritze drin

Not an easy one, but after thinking a bit about it, I don't think it's a modal particle, but rather the normal word. My main reason for this is that you can use adjectives in pretty much the same way:

Was hast du denn da schönes?
Was gibt es heute leckeres zum Essen?

So literally, with this "alles" you're asking the other person to name things that all rhyme with "Spaghetti" etc. I'm not entirely sure what it means pragmatically, though. Maybe just that you're interested in more than one answer, or in some cases even a complete list?

I'm with Kevin. Isn't it similar to what we do with "all" in English in informal speech?

What all rhymes with spaghetti?
Who all plays on Saturday in the 2nd league?
What all kinds of art are there?
What all is in the covid vaccine?

Like Kevin said, indicates that you are expecting more than one answer or a list. "What all rhymes with spaghetti?" shows that you're hoping for a list of all the words the person can come up with, whereas "what rhymes with spaghetti?" might result in just one answer even if the person answering could think of more.
Isn't it the same with "was reimt sich alles auf Spaghetti" versus "was reimt sich auf Spaghetti"?