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This article analyses the German discourse particle wohl 'I suppose', 'presumably' as a syntactic and semantic modifier of the sentence types declarative and interrogative. It is shown that wohl does not contribute to the propositional, i.e. descriptive content of an utterance. Nor does it trigger an implicature. The proposed analysis captures the semantic behaviour of wohl by assuming that it moves to SpecForceP at LF, from where it can modify the sentence type operators in Force0 in compositional fashion. Semantically, a modification with wohl results in a weaker commitment to the proposition expressed in declaratives and in a request for a weaker commitment concerning the questioned proposition in interrogatives. Cross-linguistic evidence for a left-peripheral position of wohl (at LF) comes from languages in which the counterpart of wohl occurs in the clausal periphery overtly. Overall, the analysis sheds more light on the semantic properties of the left periphery, in particular of the functional projection ForceP.
The paper investigates the origins of the German/Dutch particle toch/doch) in the hope of shedding light on a puzzle with respect to doch/toch and to shed some light on two theoretical issues. The puzzle is the nearly opposite meaning of the stressed and unstressed versions of the particle which cannot be accounted for in standard theories of the meaning of stress. One theoretical issue concerns the meaning of stress: whether it is possible to reduce the semantic contribution of a stressed item to the meaning of the item and the meaning of stress. The second issue is whether the complex use of a particle like doch/toch can be seen as an instance of spread or whether it has to be seen as having a core meaning which is differentiated by pragmatics operating in different contexts.
We use the etymology of doch and doch as to+u+h (that+ question marker+ emphatic marker) to argue for an origin as a question tag checking a hearer opinion. Stress on the tag indicates an opposite opinion (of the common ground or the speaker) and this sets apart two groups of uses spreading in different directions. This solves the puzzle, indicates that the assumption of spread is useful and offers a subtle correction of the interpretation of stress. While stress always means contrast with a contrasting item, if the particle use is due to spread, it is not guaranteed that the unstressed particle has a corresponding use (or inversely).
Die vorliegende Untersuchung behandelt ein spezifisches Problem aus dem Bereich des Bruchunterrichts, nämlich das Problem der Bezeichnungsweise sogenannter „gemischter Zahlen“. Wir werden – nach der Klärung der Terminologie – zunächst die relevanten Daten vorstellen, die wir den Bruchalben von Schüler(innen) einer 6.Klasse entnommen haben (Abschnitt 3). Nach der Darstellung des Fehlerphänomens werden wir dann die kognitiven Fehlerursachen analysieren:2 Die aufgefundenen Normabweichungen werden als Folge eines spezifischen „Interpretationsproblems“ diskutiert, das wir mithilfe linguistischer Analysen auf verbalsprachliche Parallelen der betreffenden Bruchzahlbezeichnungen mit Anzahlangaben zurückführen (Abschnitt 4); auf dieser Basis skizzieren wir Vorschläge für den Mathematikunterricht, die zur Bewältigung des diskutierten Problems beitragen sollen (Abschnitt 5).
In linguistics and the philosophy of language, the mass/count distinction has traditionally been regarded as a bi-partition on the nominal domain, where typical instances are nouns like "beef" (mass) vs."cow" (count). In the present paper, we argue that this partition reveals a system that is based on both syntactic features and conceptual features, and present experimental evidence suggesting that the discrimination of the two kinds of features has a psychological reality.
This paper discusses constructions like “We’ll have two beers and a coffee.” that are typically used for beverage orders in restaurant contexts. We compare the behaviour of nouns in these constructions in three Germanic languages, English, Icelandic, and German, and take a closer look at the correlation of the morpho-syntactic and semantic-conceptual changes involved here. We show that even within such a closely related linguistic sample, one finds three different grammatical options for the expression of the same conceptual transition. Our findings suggest an analysis of coercion as a genuinely semantic phenomenon, a phenomenon that is located on a level of semantic representations that serves as an interface between the conceptual and the grammatical system and takes into account inter- and intralinguistic variations.
What role does language play in the development of numerical cognition? In the present paper I argue that the evolution of symbolic thinking (as a basis for language) laid the grounds for the emergence of a systematic concept of number. This concept is grounded in the notion of an infinite sequence and encompasses number assignments that can focus on cardinal aspects ("three pencils"), ordinal aspects ("the third runner"), and even nominal aspects ("bus #3"). I show that these number assignments are based on a specific association of relational structures, and that it is the human language faculty that provides a cognitive paradigm for such an association, suggesting that language played a pivotal role in the evolution of systematic numerical cognition.
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.
I give a unified account of numeral classifiers as lexical items that are reduced to the function of individuation in cardinal counting constructions with transnumeral nouns. I argue that individuation is a lexical-semantic phenomenon that triggers a focus shift from a whole set to its individual elements, but does not affect the conceptual representation. The semantic reduction of numeral classifiers to individuation functions is, on the one hand, reflected by a morpho-syntactic reduction; numeral classifiers do not project to full NPs, but occur as headadjuncts in QPs. On the other hand, it leads to a loss of conceptual features. As a result, nouns that are used as numeral classifiers are conceptually divorced from their NP counterparts. They integrate the nominal concept not as part of their interpretation, but via agreement features that govern the distribution of nouns in classifierconstructions. I show that the selection of conceptual features relevant for the distribution of numeral classifiers and nouns is lexically, not conceptually governed, supporting a model that distinguishes lexical-semantic and conceptual aspects in the generation of meaning.
Der Beitrag behandelt diminuierte Partikeln, etwa „Hallöchen“, „Tschüssi“ oder „Jaui“. Die Diminuierung von Partikeln durch -chen und -i ist ein produktives und häufig auftretendes Phänomen im Deutschen, wird in grammatischen Beschreibungen jedoch weitgehend vernachlässigt; diese konzentrieren sich in erster Linie auf nominale Kontexte der Diminuierung. Betrachtet man jedoch die vollständige Distribution von -chen und -i, so ergibt sich ein interessantes Problem für die morphologische Beschreibung, da sie auf einen hybriden Status der Suffixe zwischen Kopf und Modifikator hinweist. Ich diskutiere die Implikationen dieses Befundes für die Charakterisierung des morphologischen Systems und zeige, dass ein verbindendendes Moment der Distribution auf der morphopragmatischen Ebene liegt, nämlich in der Expressivität von Diminutivsuffixen. Im Fall diminuierter Partikeln geht dies so weit, dass der Bedeutungsbeitrag ein rein pragmatischer ist, auf Kosten der semantischen Komponente. Ich zeige, dass die Diminuierung von Grußpartikeln wie „Tschüssi“ zudem wesentlich durch einen metrischen Aspekt motiviert ist, nämlich die Anpassung an das in Grüßen vorherrschende trochäische Muster, das durch die Diminutivsuffigierung ermöglicht wird, und argumentiere, dass diese metrische Anpassung durch den Status von Grüßen als sozialen Ritualen ausgelöst wird. Partikeldiminuierung weist damit auf ein komplexes Zusammenspiel grammatischer, pragmatischer und genereller kognitiver Aspekte hin.