Linguistik
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The bulk of this dissertation is an analysis of grammatical relations (including syntactic, pragmatic, and semantic relations) in Modern Mandarin Chinese. In Chapter I the background, functional framework, and concepts used in the dissertation are introduced. In Chapter II it is shown that Chinese has not grammaticalized the syntactic functions 'subject' and 'object', and has no syntactic function-changing passive construction. In Chapter III the nature of word order and its relationship to information structure in Chinese is examined. It is argued that word order in Chinese does not mark 'definite' and 'indefinite' NPs, as is commonly assumed, but marks information structure. A number of marked focus structure constructions are also discussed. In Chapter IV the discussion is of the structure of Chinese discourse, developed from an analysis of the nature of discourse referent tracking. It is shown that recovery of anaphora is not based on syntactic functions, but is based on real world knowledge (semantics and pragmatics) and discourse structure. Chapter V gives the conclusions, followed by a discussion of some of the diachronic considerations that arose in the course of this investigation. It is suggested that within Sino-Tibetan, Chinese should be seen as an innovator in terms of word order, and that grammatical relations in Proto-Sino-Tibetan should be seen to be pragmatically based rather than syntactically based.
Why should we engage in language universals research and language typology? What do we want to explain? It is a fact that, although languages differ significantly and considerably. indeed, no one would deny, that they have something in common; how else could they be labelled 'language'? - There is obviously unity among them, no matter how vaguely felt and for what reasons: Scientific, practical, moral, etc. Neither diversity per se nor unity per se is what we want to explain. There is no reason whatsoever to consider either one of them as primary, and the other as derived. What we do want to explain is "equivalence in difference" – cf. our motto – which manifests itself, among others, in the translatability from one language to another, the learnability of any language, language change – which all presuppose that speakers intuitively find their way from diversity to unity. This is a highly salient property which deserves to be brought into our consciousness. Generally then, our basic goal is to explain the way in which language-specific facts are connected with a unitarian concept of language – "die Sprache" – "le langage".
The most macabre of the numerous anthropomorphic metaphors linguists provide for their subject matter is that of language death. The extinction of a language is in fact a distressing matter, because the cultural tradition connected to it and the sociocultural or even ethnic independence of the group that speaks it very often perish together with it. Yet it is a very common phenomenon. [...] It would seem strange that such a frequent and well-known phenomenon has not been studied much earlier; nevertheless it is a fact that the investigation of language death is a new and developing field, which emerged as something like an independent subdiscipline of linguistics towards the end of the seventies. This comparatively embryonic stage of the field should be kept in mind throughout the following discussion.
Nachdem die Domäne des Computers im universitären Einsatz noch bis vor wenigen Jahren im naturwissenschaftlichen Bereich lag, werden elektronische Verfahren heute mehr und mehr auch in den Geisteswissenschaften angewendet. Das primäre Einsatzgebiet liegt dabei zweifellos in der Textverarbeitung; der Computer erweist sich hier als ein universal einsetzbares Hilfsmittel, das die Gestaltung eines Textes von seiner Konzipierung bis zur Drucklegung in der Hand des Autors ermöglicht und herkömmlichen Verfahren somit überlegen ist. ...
Ihre frühesten Sprachzeugnisse hat uns die keltische Bevölkerung der britischen Inseln bekanntlich in einer Anzahl von Steininschriften hinterlassen, die in der sog. Ogamschrift gehalten sind. Der größte Teil dieser Inschriften, von denen rund 300 hauptsächlich aus Südirland und Wales bekannt sind, wird nach allgemeiner Ansicht in die Zeit zwischen dem 4. oder 5. Jh. und dem 8. Jh. n. Chr. datiert. Bis heute ist weder die Entstehung des eigentümlichen Ogamalphabets, das mit keinem anderen Schriftsystem des gegebenen Zeitraums vergleichbar ist, noch die Bedeutung aller Zeichen eindeutig geklärt. ...