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„Ich mach dich Messer“ ist eine jugendsprachliche Wendung, die als ritualisierte Drohung im Sinne von „Ich greife dich mit einem Messer an.“ zu verstehen ist. Diese Wendung, bei der sowohl die semantische Bleichung („semantic bleaching“) des Verbs als auch das Fehlen des Determinierers in der NP auffällt, verweist auf Merkmale morpho-syntaktischer Reduktion, wie man sie häufig in Kontaktsprachen findet. Wie ich zeigen werde, handelt es sich hierbei jedoch nicht um eine bloße sprachliche Simplifizierung, sondern um ein komplexes und produktives grammatisches Phänomen: In „Ich mach dich Messer“ manifestiert sich ein spezifisches Zusammenwirken syntaktischer und semantischer Phänomene, das ich im folgenden als sprachliche Arbeitsteilung nach dem Muster von Funktionsverbgefügen beschreiben werde.
Die folgende Untersuchung wird Parallelen in der semantisch-konzeptuellen Struktur von Nominalgruppen und Sätzen aufzeigen und so unabhängige, semantische Argumente für den „sentential aspect“ von Nominalgruppen liefern, wie er bereits von Abney (1987) auf syntaktischer Seite motiviert wurde. Ich werde im ersten Teil die semantische und syntaktische Struktur von Sätzen skizzieren und hierbei insbesondere die zentralen semantisch-konzeptuellen Operationen identifizieren, die die Generierung von CPs begleiten. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden im zweiten Teil die zentralen übereinzelsprachlichen Merkmale von Nominalgruppen diskutiert und durch semantisch-konzeptuelle (sowie - in einer Skizze - syntaktische) Repräsentationen erfasst. Das Modell zur Struktur von Nominalgruppen wird in Bezug zu den zuvor skizzierten Annahmen über Sätze gestellt. Es wird sich hierbei zeigen, dass bei der Generierung von DPs die gleichen semantisch- konzeptuellen Operationen wirksam werden, wie sie für CPs festgehalten wurden. Ein zentraler Punkt der Diskussion wird das Problem der semantischen Kompositionalität sein. Im Rahmen eines Zwei-Ebenen-Modells der Semantik soll mithilfe semantischer Repräsentationen zugleich die Korrelation sprachlicher und konzeptueller Strukturen erfasst werden.
I discuss the status of WH-words for interrogative interpretations, and show that the derivation of constituent questions evolves from a specific interplay of syntactic and semantic representations with pragmatics. I argue that WH-pronouns are not ‘interrogative’. Rather, they are underspecified elements; due to this underspecification, WH-words can form a constitutive part not only of interrogative, but also of exclamative and declarative clauses. WH-words introduce a variable of a particular conceptual domain into the semantic representation. Accordingly, they have to be specified for interpretation. Different WH-contexts give rise to different interpretations. In a cross-linguistic overview, I discuss the characteristic elements contributing to the derivation of interrogatives. I argue that specific particles or their phonologically empty counterparts in the head of CP contribute the interrogative aspect. The speech act of ‘asking’ is then carried out via an intonational contour that identifies a question. By default, this intonational contour operates on interrogative sentences; however, other sentence formats – in particular, those of declarative sentences – are possible as well. The distinction of (a) grammatical (syntactic, semantic and phonological) sentence formats for interrogative and declarative sentences, and (b) intonational contours serving the discrimination of speech acts like questions and assertions, can be related to psychological and neurological evidence.
Cross-linguistically, numerals differ from other linguistic expressions in various aspects of their grammatical behavior and their acquisition. What is so special about them? I will show that a closer look at the status of numbers and numerals not only gives an answer to this question, but can also shed some light onto the syntax-semantics interface. Taking into account philosophical approaches from the foundations of mathematics, I will set forth a definition of number as a function that can be fulfilled by certain sequences. This will lead us (i) to dispense with abstract entities “numbers“ and (ii) to regard numeral sequences as sets that can function as numbers. I will show that this OCCAMiam view captures the peculiar features of numeral sequences as a reflex of their “number function”. On the other hand, the integration of number words into complex syntactic structures leads to a morpho-syntactic behavior of cardinals, ordinals and numerals in “#”-constructions that comes close to that of different word classes, depending on parallels in their semantic-conceptual structure.
Background: Multimorbidity is a phenomenon with high burden and high prevalence in the elderly. Our previous research has shown that multimorbidity can be divided into the multimorbidity patterns of 1) anxiety, depression, somatoform disorders (ADS) and pain, and 2) cardiovascular and metabolic disorders. However, it is not yet known, how these patterns are influenced by patient characteristics. The objective of this paper is to analyze the association of socio-demographic variables, and especially socio-economic status with multimorbidity in general and with each multimorbidity pattern.
Methods: The MultiCare Cohort Study is a multicentre, prospective, observational cohort study of 3.189 multimorbid patients aged 65+ randomly selected from 158 GP practices. Data were collected in GP interviews and comprehensive patient interviews. Missing values have been imputed by hot deck imputation based on Gower distance in morbidity and other variables. The association of patient characteristics with the number of chronic conditions is analysed by multilevel mixed-effects linear regression analyses.
Results: Multimorbidity in general is associated with age (+0.07 chronic conditions per year), gender (-0.27 conditions for female), education (-0.26 conditions for medium and -0.29 conditions for high level vs. low level) and income (-0.27 conditions per logarithmic unit). The pattern of cardiovascular and metabolic disorders shows comparable associations with a higher coefficient for gender (-1.29 conditions for female), while multimorbidity within the pattern of ADS and pain correlates with gender (+0.79 conditions for female), but not with age or socioeconomic status.
Conclusions: Our study confirms that the morbidity load of multimorbid patients is associated with age, gender and the socioeconomic status of the patients, but there were no effects of living arrangements and marital status. We could also show that the influence of patient characteristics is dependent on the multimorbidity pattern concerned, i.e. there seem to be at least two types of elderly multimorbid patients. First, there are patients with mainly cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, who are more often male, have an older age and a lower socio-economic status. Second, there are patients mainly with ADS and pain-related morbidity, who are more often female and equally distributed across age and socio-economic groups.
Background Multimorbidity is a highly frequent condition in older people, but well designed longitudinal studies on the impact of multimorbidity on patients and the health care system have been remarkably scarce in numbers until today. Little is known about the long term impact of multimorbidity on the patients' life expectancy, functional status and quality of life as well as health care utilization over time. As a consequence, there is little help for GPs in adjusting care for these patients, even though studies suggest that adhering to present clinical practice guidelines in the care of patients with multimorbidity may have adverse effects. Methods The study is designed as a multicentre prospective, observational cohort study of 3.050 patients aged 65 to 85 at baseline with at least three different diagnoses out of a list of 29 illnesses and syndromes. The patients will be recruited in approx. 120 to 150 GP surgeries in 8 study centres distributed across Germany. Information about the patients' morbidity will be collected mainly in GP interviews and from chart reviews. Functional status, resources/risk factors, health care utilization and additional morbidity data will be assessed in patient interviews, in which a multitude of well established standardized questionnaires and tests will be performed. Discussion The main aim of the cohort study is to monitor the course of the illness process and to analyse for which reasons medical conditions are stable, deteriorating or only temporarily present. First, clusters of combinations of diseases/disorders (multimorbidity patterns) with a comparable impact (e.g. on quality of life and/or functional status) will be identified. Then the development of these clusters over time will be analysed, especially with regard to prognostic variables and the somatic, psychological and social consequences as well as the utilization of health care resources. The results will allow the development of an instrument for prediction of the deterioration of the illness process and point at possibilities of prevention. The practical consequences of the study results for primary care will be analysed in expert focus groups in order to develop strategies for the inclusion of the aspects of multimorbidity in primary care guidelines.
Humans possess a number concept that differs from its predecessors in animal cognition in two crucial respects: (1) it is based on a numerical sequence whose elements are not confined to quantitative contexts, but can indicate cardinal/quantitative as well as ordinal and even nominal properties of empirical objects (e.g. ‘five buses’: cardinal; ‘the fifth bus’: ordinal; ‘the #5 bus’: nominal), and (2) it can involve recursion and, via recursion, discrete infinity. In contrast to that, the predecessors of numerical cognition that we find in animals and human infants rely on finite and iconic representations that are limited to cardinality and do not support a unified concept of number. In this paper, I argue that the way such a unified number concept could evolve in humans is via verbal sequences that are employed as numerical tools, that is, sequences of words whose elements are associated with empirical objects in number assignments. In particular, I show that a certain kind of number words, namely the counting sequences of natural languages, can be characterised as a central instance of verbal numerical tools. I describe a possible scenario for the emergence of such verbal numerical tools in human history that starts from iconic roots and that suggests that in a process of co-evolution, the gradual emergence of counting sequences and the development of an increasingly comprehensive number concept supported each other. On this account, it is language that opened the way for numerical cognition, suggesting that it is no accident that the same species that possesses the language faculty as a unique trait, should also be the one that developed a systematic concept of number.
Sprachvermögen und Zahlbegriff : zur Rolle der Sprache für die Entwicklung numerischer Kognition
(2004)
In welchem Zusammenhang stehen Sprache und Zahl als kognitive Domänen? Welche Rolle spielt das menschliche Sprachvermögen für die Entwicklung des Zahlbegriffs? In den letzten Jahrzehnten haben verschiedene Disziplinen aus dem Gebiet der Kognitionswissenschaft – darunter Psycholinguistik, Entwicklungspsychologie, Ethologie und kognitive Neurowissenschaft – wesentlich zu unserem Verständnis der Beziehung zwischen Sprache und numerischer Kognition beigetragen. Die unterschiedlichen Ergebnisse liefern Evidenz für eng verknüpfte ebenso wie für autonome Bereiche in den beiden Domänen.
Ich werde im folgenden einige Überlegungen zur konzeptuellen und semantischen Struktur von Numeralkonstruktionen im Deutschen anstellen, in deren Rahmen ich sowohl die Repräsentation von Zahlen und die Modellierung von Numeralkonstruktionen diskutieren als auch einige Aspekte der Schnittstelle Syntax-Semantik erhellen will. Ich führe meine Untersuchung im Rahmen des „Zwei-Ebenen-Modells“ der Semantik durch (vgl. Bierwisch 1983;1987;1988; Lang 1987; Zimmermann 1987; 1992), nehme also neben dem semantischen System SEM ein autonomes konzeptuelles System CS an, das „die mentale Form dessen, was durch sprachliche Äußerungen wiedergegeben wird, [determiniert]“ (Bierwisch 1987:6).
In the present paper, I will discuss the semantic structure of nouns and nominal number markers. In particular, I will discuss the question if it is possible to account for the syntactic and semantic formation of nominals in a parallel way, that is I will try to give a compositional account of nominal semantics. The framework that I will use is "twolevel semantics". The semantic representations and their type-theoretical basis will account for general cross-linguistic characteristics of nouns and nominal number and will show interdependencies between noun classes, number marking and cardinal constructions. While the analysis will give a unified account of bare nouns (like dog / water), it will distinguish between the different kinds of nominal terms (like a dog / dogs / water). Following the proposal, the semantic operations underlying the formation of the SR are basically the same for DPs as for CPs. Hence, from such an analysis, independent semantic arguments can be derived for a structural parallelism of nominals and sentences - that is, for the "sentential aspect" of noun phrases. I will first give a sketch of the theoretical background. I will then discuss the cross-linguistic combinatorial potential of nominal constructions, that is, the potential of nouns and number markers to combine with other elements and form complex expressions. This will lead to a general type-theoretical classification for the elements in question. In the next step, I will model the referential potential of nominal constructions. Together with the combinatorial potential, this will give us semantic representations for the basic elements involved in nominal constructions. In an overview, I will summarize our modeling of nouns and nominal number. I will then discuss in an outlook the "sentential aspect" of noun phrases.