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The German causal preposition durch ('by', 'through') poses a challenge to formal-semantic analyses applying strict compositionality. To deal with this challenge, a formalism which builds on recent important developments in Discourse Representation Theory is developed, including a more elaborate analysis of presuppositional phenomena as well as the integration into the theory of unification as a mode of composition. It is argued that that the observed unificational phenomena belong in the realm of pragmatics, providing an argument for presuppositional phenomena at a sentence- and word-internal level.
It is the aim of this paper to evaluate the various types of sentential complementation available in terms of complement control cross-linguistically. I will propose a lexical classification of control classes on the basis of the instantiated subordination patterns. I want to focus on an important distinction, namely that of structural vs. inherent control. Structural control is found with predicates that select a clausal complement whose structure requires argument identification and thus 'induces' control. Infinitival complements are prototypical cases for this kind of control because in most languages infinitival complements can only 'survive' in structures of control or raising. The interesting question is which predicates license structural control and which cross-linguistic differences emerge between potential licensors. Inherent control is found with predicates that require control readings independent of the instantiated structure of sentential complementation (e.g. a directive predicate such as zwingen 'force'). In addition, I will recapitulate and add arguments for the dual lexical-syntactic nature of complement control.
In this paper I argue that there are three distinct constructions in Modern German in which a 'topic constituent' is detached to the left: (left-)dislocated topic ('left dislocation'), (left-)attached topic ('mixed left dislocation'), and (left-)hanging topic ('hanging topic'). Presupposing the framework of Integrational Linguistics, I provide syntactic and semantic analyses for them. In particular, I propose that these constructions involve the syntactic function (syntactic) topic, which relates the topic constituent to the remaining part of the sentence. Dislocated and attached topic constituents function in addition as a strong or weak (syntactic) antecedent of some resumptive 'd-pronoun' form.
Dislocated topic, attached topic, and hanging topic are in turn contrasted with 'free topics'. Being sentential units of their own, the latter are syntactically unconnected to the following sentence. In particular, they are not topic constituents.
The focus of the present paper is on the difference between English and German learners‘ use of perfectivity and imperfectivity. The latter is expressed by means of suffixation (suffix -va-). In contrast, perfectivity is encoded either by suffixation (-nou-) or by prefixation (twenty different prefixes that mostly modify not only aspectual but also lexical properties of the verb).
In the native Czech data set, there is no significant difference between the number of imperfectively and perfectively marked verb forms. In the English data, imperfectively and perfectively marked verb forms are equally represented as well. However, German learners use significantly more perfective forms than English learners and Czech natives. When encoding perfectivity in Czech, German learners prefer to use prefixes to suffixes. Overall, English learners in comparison to German learners encode more perfectives by means of suffixation than prefixation.
These results suggest that German learners of Czech focus on prefixes expressing aspectual and lexical modification of the verb, while English learners rather pay attention to the aspectual opposition between perfective and imperfective. In a more abstract way, the German learner group focuses on the operations carried out on the left side from the verb stem while the English learner group concentrates on the operations performed on the right side qfrom the verb stem.
This sensitivity can be to certain degree motivated by the linguistic devices of the corresponding source languages: English learners of Czech use imperfectives mainly because English has marked fully grammatical form for the expression of imperfective aspect – the progressive -ing form. German learners, on the other hand, pay in Czech more attention to the prefixes, which like in German modify the lexical meaning of the verb. In this manner, Czech prefixes used for perfectivization function similar to the German verbal prefixes (such as ab-, ver-) modifying Aktionsart.
In this paper I investigate the usage of the adverb and particle 'so' in spontaneous speech (interviews) collected from 21 speakers of the urban multi-ethnolectal youth language Kiezdeutsch. Speakers from the neighborhoods Kreuzberg and Wedding in Berlin are ranging in age from 14 to 18. The 1454 tokens of so available in the corpus (about 5 hours of speech) were classified into 10 different categories; some were structurally defined while others were defined along dimensions of meaning. Our current results indicate that there are differential usages patterns depending on the speaker's gender and age for some of these categories. Further, it appears that some patterns that have been attributed grammatical meaning may not appear frequently enough to establish a separate meaningful grammatical category. Rather, most instances of this kind of use of so appear to have a hedging function, indicating speakers' non-commitance to a specific circumstance.
The unfolding discussion will focus on the internal representation of turbulent sounds in the phonology of German as well as pinpoint the special status of the prime defining the quality of turbulence. It will also be argued that this prime is capable of entering into special types of licensing relations, which results in specific phonetic manifestations of forms. We shall compare the effects of two processes attested in German: consonant degemination and spirantisation with a view to revealing the role of the turbulence-defining element in the two operations. Furthermore, our attention will be focused on the workings of the Obligatory Contour Principle which, as will be shown below, exerts decisive impact on prime interplay and consequently the phonetic realization of sounds and words. We shall see that segmental identity is contingent on the languagespecific interpretation of inter-element bonds.
Aware of the importance of prime autonomy in determining the manifestation of sounds, let us start with a brief outline of the fundamental segment structure principles offered by the theory of Phonological Government.
This article examines the motivation for phonological stop assibilations, e.g. /t/ is realized as [ts], [s] or [tʃ] before /i/, from the phonetic perspective. Hall & Hamann (2003) posit the following two implications: (a) Assibilation cannot be triggered by /i/ unless it is also triggered by /j/, and (b) Voiced stops cannot undergo assibilations unless voiceless ones do. In the following study we present the results of three acoustic experiments with native speakers of German and Polish which support implications (a) and (b). In our experiments we measured the friction phase after the /t d/ release before the onset of the following high front vocoid for four speakers of German and Polish. We found that the friction phase for /tj/ was significantly longer than that of /ti/, and that the friction phase of /t/ in the assibilation context is significantly longer than that of /d/.
The mother tongue at school
(2023)
This paper focuses on a key contradiction in nineteenth century nationalist ideology, namely the opposition between the emphasis on the sacred status of the mother tongue, on the one hand, and the use of universal mandatory schooling as a means of homogenization, on the other. The influential philologist Jacob Grimm insisted that only people whose mother tongue was German counted as members of the German nation; the mother tongue was the key criterion of authentic belonging. Yet Grimm also realized that mandatory schooling imposed a uniform language across a wide territory, wiping out local dialects and effectively giving shape to a more linguistically unified people. He thus witnessed how modern mass instruction forged a more standardized culture at the expense of the more natural-seeming transmission of language within families. In Grimm's writings on education, the valorization of the mother is continually disturbed by the presence of a surrogate figure, the school teacher.