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The paper addresses the longstanding question of whether the copular verb "werden" ('become') is a transitional, i.e. telic, or a nontransitional, i.e. atelic, verb, or verb that is unspecified with regard to telicity. By means of standard tests and historical considerations, it is argued that the verb is telic and refers to accomplishment situations. Nevertheless, there are two types of copular "werden"-clauses with regard to which this view may seem questionable at first sight. First, some "werden"-clauses appear to refer to achievements. This, however, is not a matter concerning the semantics of werden. Rather, the crucial cases are accidentally instantaneous because their predicative complements are absolute predicates. Hence, they do not allow for extended transitions from one state to another. Second, some other "werden"-clauses, expecially those with comparative complements, sometimes appear to refer to processes. However "werden" combined with a comparatival adjective can be shown to be able to refer to clear accomplishment situations. The process-effect is due to a common phenomenon of reinterpretation that leads to iterative transitions between degrees.
Betrachtet man als Sprecher oder Sprecherin des Deutschen die mit '-su' derivierten Verben im Aymara und ihre spanischen Übersetzungen, so fällt auf, daß diese Verben häufig eine Entsprechung in einem deutschen Partikelverb mit 'aus-/heraus-' oder 'auf-' haben, und zwar nicht nur dann, wenn sie Bewegungsvorgänge bezeichnen, sondern auch, wenn keine Direktionalität erkennbar ist. [...] Diese Parallele zwischen '-su' und 'aus-' oder 'auf-' ist frappierend, wenn man bedenkt, dass die beiden Sprachen keinerlei genetische Beziehung haben, und die Annahme liegt nahe, daß hier ein ähnliches kognitives Konzept zugrundeliegt. Um dies genauer beurteilen zu können, ist allerdings mehr Information über '-su' im Aymara nötig. So habe ich mir für die vorliegende Arbeit zum Ziel gesetzt, die Semantik von '-su' im Aymara genauer herauszufinden und herauszuarbeiten, welche Funktionen das Suffix hat. Dabei interessierte mich zum einen, ob sich neben den in den Aymara-Grammatiken beschriebenen Funktionen des Morphems, nämlich der Markierung der Richtung 'nach außen' und des kompletiven Aspekts, noch weitere Funktionen herausarbeiten lassen und wie diese mit der Semantik der jeweiligen Verbwurzel interagieren. Daneben widmete ich mich der Fragestellung, worin der Zusammenhang zwischen den verschiedenen Funktionen des Morphems bestehen könnte.
In diesem Aufsatz wird das mentale Lexikon als System beschrieben, in dem Lexeme aufgenommen, gespeichert und nach bestimmten Regeln geordnet und eingesetzt werden. Hierbei spielen Bedeutungsbeziehungen eine grundlegende Rolle. Die Mikrostruktur dieses Netzwerks bildet die Polysemie, die anhand von Bedeutungssternen (mit Kernbedeutung und Nebenbedeutungen einzelner Lexeme) dargestellt werden kann. Anhand von Musterübungen wird gezeigt, wie dieses Thema im muttersprachlichen Unterricht didaktisch umgesetzt werden kann.
Die Termini Possessivität und Possession, die wir synonym für einander verwenden wollen, sind vorwissenschaftlich. Ihr Inhalt hat in keinem der Modelle der synchronen Sprachbeschreibung eine befriedigende Präzisierung erfahren. Die Auffassungen darüber, was man in gewissen Sprachen als possessiv anzusehen hat, schwanken. Man hat sich, mit Recht, gefragt, ob man einem entsprechenden Begriff überhaupt einen Platz in der Beschreibung von Sprachen – und damit in der Grammatik – einräumen solle. […] So erwägenswert manches an dieser Einschätzung auch ist, so finde ich es anderseits doch bemerkenswert, daß sich die verschiedensten Linguisten bei der Beschreibung der verschiedensten Sprachen doch immer wieder veranlaßt sehen, solche Termini – und Begriffe – wie "possessiv", "Possession" einzuführen. […] Intuitiv denkt man bei dem Terminus "Possession", "possessiv" in Sprachen wie dem Deutschen an die Konstruktionen mit Genitiv oder Possessivpronomen einerseits 'Karls/sein Haus') und an Konstruktionen mit 'haben', 'gehören', 'besitzen' anderseits ('Karl hat ein Haus'). Es hat nicht an Versuchen gefehlt, das eine auf das andere zu reduzieren. Die orthodoxe TG hat lange genug behauptet, 'Karls Haus' liege ein 'Karl hat ein Haus' zugrunde. Daß sich das nicht verallgemeinern läßt, sieht man etwa an 'Karls Tod', wozu es kein *'Karl hat einen Tod' gibt. Die Hypothese, die ich hier vorlegen und begründen möchte besteht darin, daß beide Ausdrucksweisen, also Genitiv, Possessivpronomen einerseits und 'haben' etc. anderseits einander komplementieren und erst zusammen den Phänomenbereich der Possessivität konstruieren. Eine große Rolle spielt dabei der Unterschied zwischen sogenannten relationalen und nicht-relationalen Nomina. Solche schwierigen Fragen untersucht man einerseits am besten an seiner eigenen Muttersprache. Anderseits aber hoffe ich das hier Gefundene durch die Konfrontation mit den Verhältnissen in einer davon weit abliegenden Sprache, einer Indianersprache Süd-Kaliforniens, Cahuilla, noch plastischer hervortreten zu lassen. Das hier angewendete Beschreibungsmodell ist gemischt. Die zugrundeliegenden Strukturen sind so weit wie möglich als syntaktische dargestellt. Doch konnte ich nicht umhin, in solchen syntaktischen Strukturen gewisse semantische Entitäten unterzubringen. Das gilt insbesondere für die abstrakten oder "höheren" Verben APPLIES und EXIST. Sie haben einen direkten semantischen Wert.
In this paper I would like to show that the principles which have been proposed so far to account for the relationship between the informational level and the syntactic level in a Chinese utterance are unable to predict some interesting and regular facts of that language.
To my mind, the form and the position of the question operator in an interrogative utterance provide two distributional tests which univocally indicate where the new information lies. Hence, the pairing of affirmative and interrogative sentences might be a better approach to locate where the new information lies in a Chinese utterance.
In this paper I investigate the properties of the copula-like verb 'ficar' in Brazilian Portuguese using Pustejovsky's generative lexicon (GL). The verb 'ficar' can be translated as 'stay' or 'become', depending on its complement. With locatives, only the STAY reading is possible. With adjectival complements, both BECOME and STAY readings are possible. I propose that 'ficar' takes an eventuality as its complement and I argue that there is no need to create multiple lexical entries for it, since the readings are the result of the possible combinations between the transition denoted by 'ficar' and the properties of the stative complements.
I argue that the BECOME reading with adjectival predicates is the result of combining part of the qualia of the adjectival predicate with the TRANSITION of 'ficar'. The STAY readings of 'ficar'+adjective are the result of shadowing the transition. In the case of 'ficar'+locative, the BECOME reading is unavailable. Departing from the hypothesis that subevents have to be linked to arguments in order to be able to be modified by certain types of modifiers or be selected by certain types of heads, I argue that the transition, in the case of locative complements, is not associated to any argument because nothing in the qualia of the locative complement is compatible with a transition, given that there is not motion component in either 'ficar' or the locative. Unlinked to any argument, the TRANSITION can only be part of the 'constant' meaning of the verb, which explains why it is not available for modification.
This paper aims to present a type of verb which serves to connect two or more propositions to each other in a way similar to that carried out by connectors such as conjunctions and prepositions. It is the objective of this paper to classify the types of semantic connections they establish, such as cause and effect, equivalence, and temporality. Verbs with this type of connectivity are called "connection verbs". They are investigated both in German and Portuguese, organized according to the semantic relations they indicate, and described by means of syntactic and semantic criteria.
In my Cahuilla Grammar (Seiler 1977:276-282) and in a subsequent paper (Seiler 1980:229-236) I have drawn attention to the fact that many kin terms in this language, especially those that have a corresponding reciprocal term in the ascending direction – like niece or nephew in relation to aunt – occur in two expressions of quite different morphological shape. The following remarks are intended to furnish an explanation of this apparent duplicity.
This paper deals with a series of semantic contrasts between the copula "be" and the preposition "as", two functional elements that both head elementary predication structures. It will be argued that the meaning of "as" is a type lowering device shifting the meaning of its complement NP from generalized quantifier type to property type (where properties are conceived as relations between individuals and situations), while the copula "be" induces a type coercion from (partial) situations to (total) possible worlds. Paired with van der Sandt's 1992 theory of presupposition accommodation, these assumptions will account for the observed contrasts between "as" and "be".
In this paper I firstly argue that secondary predicates are complement of v, and v is overtly realized by Merge or Move in secondary predication in Chinese. The former option derives the de-construction, whereas the latter option derives the V-V construction. Secondly, I argue that resultatives are hosted by complement vPs, whereas depictives are hosted by adjunct vPs. This complement-adjunct asymmetry accounts for a series of syntactic properties of secondary predication in Chinese: the position of a secondary predicate with respect to the verb of the primary predicate, the co-occurrence patterns of secondary predicates, the hierarchy of depictives, the control and ECM properties of resultative constructions, and the locality constraint on the integration of secondary predicates into the structure of primary predication. Thirdly, I argue that the surface position of de is derived by a PF operation which attaches de to the right of the leftmost verbal lexical head of the construction. Finally, I argue that in the V-V resultative construction, the assumed successive head-raising may account for the possible subject-oriented reading of the resultative predicate, and that the head raising out of the lower vP accounts for the possible non-specific reading of the subject of the resultative predicate.
Modern theorists rarely agree on how to represent the categories of tense and aspect, making a consistent analysis for phenomena, such as the present perfect, more difficult to attain. It has been argued in previous analyses that the variable behavior of the present perfect between languages licenses independently motivated treatments, particularly of a morphosyntactic or semanticsyntactic nature (Giorgi & Pianesi 1997; Schmitt 2001; Ilari 2001). More specifically, the wellknown readings of the American English (AE) present perfect (resultative, experiential, persistent situation, recent past (Comrie 1976)), are at odds with the readings of the corresponding structure in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), the 'pretérito perfeito composto' (default iterativity and occasional duration (Ilari 1999)). Despite these variations, the present work, assuming a tense-aspect framework at the semantic-pragmatic interface, will provide a unified analysis for the present perfect in AE and BP, which have traditionally been treated as semantically divergent. The present perfect meaning, in conjunction with the aspectual class of the predicate, can account for the major differences between languages, particularly regarding iterativity and the "present perfect puzzle", regarding adverb compatibility.
This paper draws a link between the typological phenomenon of the paradigmatically supported evidentiality evoked by perfect and/or perfectivity and the equally epistemic system of modal verbs in German. The assumption is that, if perfect(ivity) is at the bottom of evidentiality in a wide number of unrelated languages, then it will not be an arbitrary fact that systematic epistemic readings occur also for the modal verbs in German, which were preterite presents originally. It will be demonstrated, for one, how exactly modal verbs in Modem German still betray sensitivity to perfect and perfective contexts, and, second, how perfect(ivity) is prone to evincing epistemic meaning. Although the expectation cannot be satisfied due to a lack of respective data from the older stages of German, a research path is sketched narrowing down the linguistic questions to be asked and dating results to be reached.
This paper reviews research on English past-tense acquisition to test the validity of the single mechanism model and the dual mechanism model, focusing on regular-irregular dissociation and semantic bias. Based on the review, it is suggested that in L1 acquisition, both regular and irregular verbs are governed by semantics; that is, early use of past tense forms are restricted to achievement verbs—regular or irregular. In contrast, some L2 acquisition studies show stronger semantic bias for regular past tense forms (e.g., Housen, 2002, Rohde, 1996). It is argued that L1 acquisition of the past-tense morphology can be accounted for more adequately by the single-mechanism model.
In this study, I investigate the positions and interpretations available to 'manner' adverbs in English. My central claim, contra Wyner (1994, 1998), is that an association does exist between 'manner' adverb positions and interpretations, which is best characterized in terms of Peterson's (1997) distinction between 'restrictive' and 'non-restrictive' modification. I also claim, however, that the association in question is not as general as commonly claimed; and, in particular, does not apply directly to 'manner' adverbs in 'fronted' and 'parenthetical' positions, which require special syntactic description.
Specifics
(2001)
In all these examples there appears to be mismatch between the position at which an indefinite appears and its preferred interpretation. Following many of the more recent contributions to the literature, I will assume that this is the hallmark of specificity (e.g. Ahusch 1994, Reinhart 1997, Winter 1997, van Geenhoven 1998). Such mismatches are not the norm: indefinites are often interpreted in situ, and there is some reason for taking this to be the default option. The reason is that comparatively 'neutral', i.e. semantically attenuate, indefinites have a preference for in situ readings [...].
Specificity distinction
(2001)
This paper is concerned with semantic noun phrase typology, focusing on the question of how to draw fine-grained distinctions necessary for an accurate account of natural language phenomena. In the extensive literature on this topic, the most commonly encountered parameters of classification concern the semantic type of the denotation of the noun phrase, the familiarity or novelty of its referent, the quantificational/nonquantificational distinction (connected to the weak/strong dichotomy), as well as, more recently, the question of whether the noun phrase is choice-functional or not (see Reinhart 1997, Winter 1997, Kratzer 1998, Matthewson 1999). In the discussion that follows I will attempt to make the following general points: (i) phenomena involving the behavior of noun phrases both within and across languages point to the need of establishing further distinctions that are too fine-grained to be caught in the net of these typologies; (ii) some of the relevant distinctions can be captured in terms of conditions on assignment functions; (iii) distribution and scopal peculiarities of noun phrases may result from constraints they impose on the way variables they introduce are to be assigned values.
Section 2 reviews the typology of definite noun phrases introduced in Farkas 2000 and the way it provides support for the general points above. Section 3 examines some of the problems raised by recognizing the rich variety of 'indefinite' noun phrases found in natural language and by attempting to capture their distribution and interpretation. Common to the typologies discussed in the two sections is the issue of marking different types of variation in the interpretation of a noun phrase. In the light of this discussion, specificity turns out to be an epiphenomenon connected to a family of distinctions that are marked differently in different languages.
Sluicing phenomena
(2001)
The paper shows that in various sluicing types, the wh-phrase in the sluicing sentence as well as its relatum in the antecedent clause must be F-marked, and it explains this observation with Schwarzschild's (1999) and Merchant's (1999) focus theory. According to the semantics of the wh-phrase, it will argue that the relatum of the wh-phrase is an indefinite expression that must allow a specific interpretation. Following Heusinger (1997, 2000), specificity will be defined as an anchoring relation between the discourse referent introduced by the indefinite expression and a discourse given item. Because specific indefinite expressions are always novel, contexts like the scope of definite DPs, the scope of thematic matrix predicates, and the scope of downward-monotonic quantifiers which all exhibit non-novel indefinites do not allow sluicing.
Im folgenden Beitrag handelt es sich um die Entwicklung eines semantischen Wörterbuches der deutschen Sprache für maschinelle Sprachverarbeitungssysteme im Rahmen des Projektes "Compreno" bei dem russischen IT-Unternehmen ABBYY. Es wird eine kurze Übersicht über andere elektronische Quellen zur deutschen Sprache gegeben, ferner werden ihre Unterschiede im Vergleich zum Projektwörterbuch analysiert. An einigen Beispielen werden aktuelle Probleme der Computerlexikografie (Bedeutungsunterscheidung, Komposita-Analyse u.a.) und ihre mögliche Lösung in Bezug auf das Projektwörterbuch betrachtet.
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).
Obwohl die moderne deutsche Wortbildungslehre im verhältnismäßig kurzen Zeitraum eine rasante Entwicklung mit bemerkenswerten Forschungsergebnissen und interdisziplinären Bindungen (zu Syntax, Text, Pragmatik) zu verzeichnen vermag und zu einem festen Bestandteil der universitären DaF-Curricula in fast ganz Europa wurde, konnte sie hierzulande erst etwa seit den 80er Jahren des 20. Jh. als eine eigenständige Disziplin oder im Verbund mit der Lexikologie (vorher in die formale Morphologie integriert) Eingang in das DaF-Studium finden. Die Hintergründe sind in einer durch die damals herrschende Sprachtheorie (der Generativen Grammatik/Syntax der 60er Jahre) mit einer Überbetonung der Sprachproduktion (der Erzeugung von Sätzen) und zum Nachteil der rezeptiven, die Analyse der sprachlichen Erscheinungen anstrebenden Ansätze, zu sehen. Unsere (tschecho-slowakischen) didaktischmethodischen Theorien des Fremdsprachenlehrens und -lernens hatten diese asymmetrische Auffassung der sprachlichen Kommunikation (d. h. Sprachkompetenz = Sprachproduktion) damals ziemlich unkritisch übernommen. Die Überbewertung und die damit einhergehende fälschliche Gewichtung der Erzeugungsphase von Sätzen und Texten beeinträchtigten u. a. die Prozesse der verstehenden Verarbeitung von fertigen Sprach-, folglich auch von Wortbildungsprodukten. Die Wortbildungslehre kam dabei zu kurz, sie wurde zeitweilig aus den Curricula verbannt, weil die Ausländer auch bei guter Kenntnis von Bildungsmitteln, -modellen und -regeln einer Fremdsprache meist nur noch nicht-usuelle, nichtübliche, wenn auch vom System her "richtige" Wörter zu komplettieren vermochten. Diese Argumentation ist stichhaltig: Nichtmuttersprachler bilden wirklich meist defekte Wörter in einer Fremdsprache und die Wortbildungslehre soll eben deshalb nicht als ein Instrumentarium zur selbstständigen Bildung unbekannter Wörter dienen. Bei vielen Gemeinsamkeiten von Wortbildung und Flexion bzw. Satzbildung ist die Wortbildung ja doch anders beschaffen als die Bildung von Sätzen oder Wortformen, vgl. u. a. die Unvollständigkeit/Defektivität des Wortbildungsparadigmas, verschiedene, nichtprädiktable Benennungsmotive in einer Fremdsprache, die Wahl einer Benennungsart aus dem Inventar mehrerer Möglichkeiten, einschließlich der Entlehnung, die Besonderheiten der jeweiligen sprachspezifischen onomatologischen Verarbeitung einer Einwortbenennung u. a. m.
Semantik für Sprechakte
(1972)
Semantik wird herkömmlicherweise als die Interpretation von Zeichenketten verstanden, die die Syntax liefert. Damit gibt sie aber ein dubioses Programm für die Beschäftigung mit natürlichen Sprachen ab. Ausgangspunkt für diese muß die Feststellung sein, daß Sprechen ein Handeln ist und kein Produzieren von Zeichenketten (außer vielleicht zu Demonstrationszwecken). Sprechhandlungen sind z. B.: jmd. Widersprechen, jmd. beschuldigen, sich ausreden bzw. entschuldigen usw. Über die Sprechhandlungen selbst werde ich im folgenden nichts weiter sagen; ich werde vielmehr ein Verfasser und Leser gemeinsames Verständnis, begründet in einer gemeinsamen Erfahrung, voraussetzen. In dem so angedeuteten Rahmen soll es die Aufgabe der Semantik sein, die Bedingungen für Sprechhandlungen zu explizieren: Welche Bedingungen muß z. B. eine Sprechhandlung erfüllen, um eine Beschuldigung zu sein (als Beschuldigung zu gelten, als solche akzeptiert zu werden o. ä.)? Dieses Programm möchte ich im folgenden exemplarisch entwickeln.
This paper proposes that we can predict which adverbs cannot adjoin to the right in headinitial languages by means of a particular semantic property, that of being a "subjective" adverb, one which maps an event or proposition onto a scale with the high degree of indeterminacy and context-dependence. Such adverbs, such as 'probably' or 'luckily', cannot adjoin to the right with non-manner readings, while other adverbs (like 'politically', 'often', or 'deliberately') may. This supports the view that the distribution of adverbs depends heavily, and subtly, on their lexicosemantic properties.
The paper starts with a semantic differentiation between the notions of sentence topic and discourse topic. Sentence topic is conceived of as part of a semantic predication in the sense of Y. Kim's work. Discourse topic is defined, as in N. Asher's Segmented Discourse Representation Theory, as a discourse constituent that comprises the content of (part of) the larger discourse.
The main body of the paper serves to investigate the intricate connection between the two types of topic. For restricting the context of investigation, a specific relation between discourse constituents, Elaboration, is chosen. If Elaboration holds between two discourse constituents, one of them can be identified as the explicit discourse topic with respect to the other one. Whereas an elaborating sentence - with or without a sentence topic - is used to infer a 'dimension' for extending the discourse topic, the role of the sentence topic if it occurs is to mark an 'index' for predication along that dimension. The interaction of elaborating sentences and their topics is modelled by means of channel theoretic devices.'
Rethinking the adjunct
(2000)
The purpose of the present paper is twofold: first, to show that, when defining the adjunct, it is necessary to distinguish in a strict modular way between the syntactic level and the lexico-semantic level. Thus, the adjunct is a syntactic category on a par with the specifier and the complement, whereas the argument belongs to the same set as does (among others) the modifier. The consequence of this distinction is that there is no direct one-to-one opposition between adjuncts and arguments. Nor is there any direct one-to one relation between adjuncts and modifiers.
The second and main purpose of the paper is to account for the well-known difference between the position of a specific set of modifiers (cause, time, place etc.) in, on the one hand, English and Swedish, on the other, German. In English and Swedish the default position of these modifiers is postverbal, whereas in German it is preverbal. Further, in English and Swedish, these modifiers occur in a mirror order compared with their German counterparts, an order which, from a semantic point of view, is not the expected one. I shall demonstrate that this difference is due to the different settings of the verbal head parameter, the former languages being VO-languages and the latter being OV -languages. I shall further argue that in English and Swedish these modifiers are base generated as adjuncts to an empty VP, which is a complement of the main verb of what I shall call the minimal VP (MVP), whereas in German they are adjuncts on top of the MVP. Finally, I shall argue that the postverbal modifiers move at the latest at LF to the top of the MVP, in order to take scope over it, the restriction being 'Shortest move'. The movement results in the correct scope order of the postverbal modifiers.
The proposed structure also accounts for the binding data, in particular for the binding of a specific Swedish possessive anaphor 'sin'. This pronoun, which may occur within the MVP, must not occur within the postverbal modifiers in the empty VP. This supports the assumption that there is a strict borderline between the MVP and the assumed empty VP. The account is also in accordance with the focus data, the specific set of modifiers being potential focus exponents in a wide focus reading in English and Swedish, but not in German.
This paper is concerned with the fact that a number of adverbal modifications involve a systematic reinterpretation of at least one of the expressions connected by the operation in question. It offers an approach in which such transfers of meaning turn out to be a result of contextually controlled enrichments of an underspecified as well as a strictly compositionally structured semantic representation. The approach proposed is general for three reasons: First, it takes into account not only reinterpretations in temporal but also such in non-temporal modification. Second, it allows considering so-called secondary predications as a particular kind of adverbal modification. Third, it explains the respective reinterpretations within a uniform formal framework of meaning variation.
This paper is about the semantics of wh-phrases. It is argued that wh-phrases should not be analyzed as indefinites as, for example, Karttunen (1977) and many others have done, but as functional expressions with an indefinite core -their function being to restrict possible focus/background structures in direct or congruent answers. This will be argued for on the basis of observations made with respect to the distribution of term answers in well-formed question/answer sequences. This claim having been established, it will be integrated in a categorial variant of Schwarzschild's (1999) information-theoretic approach to F-marking and accent placement, and – second – its consequences with respect to the focus/background structure of wh-questions will be outlined.
The paper presents an additional argument for a specific account of semantic binding: the flat-binding analysis. The argument is based on observations concerning sloppy interpretations in verb phrase ellipsis when the binder is not the subject of the elided VP. In one such case, it is important that one of the binders belong to the domain of the other. This case can be derived from the flat-binding analysis as is shown in the paper, while it is unclear how to account for it within other analyses of semantic binding.
Predication at the interface
(2001)
We try to show that predication plays a greater role in syntax than commonly assumed. Specifically, we wil argue that predication to a large extent determines both the phrase structure of clauses and trigger syntactic processes that take place in clauses. If we are on the right path, this implies that syntax is basically semantically driven, given that predication is semantically construed.
Eine allgeneine und theoretische Antwort auf die Frage, ob der Begriff "Possesivität" zur grammatischen Beschreibung einer natürlichen Sprache gehören solle oder nicht, wird je nach Standpunkt verschieden ausfallen. Man kann auch anders vorgehen, indem man in einem vortheoretischen Verständnis einen Begriff "Possesssivität" zunächst annimmt und zusieht, wie die Repräsentationen eines solchen Begriffs in je einer einzelnen Sprache sich gestalten. Die Möglichkeit, dass sich daraus, fast von alleine, eine Bestätigung und Präzisierung für diesen Begriff, ja sogar der eine oder andere Anhaltspunkt für dessen Universalität ergibt, dürfte man nicht ausschliessen. Der .Aufsatz von Hansjakob Seiler scheint schon in Zusammenhangmit diesem Problem nicht nur das Wesentlichste klargemacht zu haben; er stellt auch die Frage nach einem gemeinsamen Prinzip, dem die einzelnen Sprachen gehorchen, wenn sie die Possessivitätsrelation ausdrücken.
Dieser Beitrag ist ein Vorschlag, auf der grammatisch-semantischen Ebene dieses Prinzip in einer konktreten Sprache, dem Polnischen, aufgrund der die Possessivität ausdrückenden Mittel und ihrer Bereiche zu illustrieren. Daher wird hier semantisch davon ausgegangen, dass die Possessivität eine Relation ausdrückt, die den Verhältnis des Teils zum Ganzen entspricht. Ob man nun diese Relation als direkte Zugehörigkeit zur Menge oder als eine Art indirekter Zugehörigkeit, nämlich zum Besitzer der Menge auffasst, wäre eine Frage über die aufgrund der Struktur der betreffenden Sprache entschieden werden sollte, – vorausgesetzt immer, dass die Possessivität ein sprachlich ausgeprägtes und sprachwissenschaftlich beschreibbares Phänomen ist.
This paper addresses the syntax and semantics plurals, and then applies it to reciprocal expressions. In the course of this investigation, I address two problems for the conventional view that a reciprocal makes essentially the same semantic contribution to the sentence as other noun phrases, but has an interesting internal structure. I will show that both problems are properties of plurality in general, and can be successfully explained along these lines. As a result, the paper is more about plurality in general than reciprocals though the goal of the paper is to account for the two problems relating to reciprocals.
This contribution concerns the interaction of morphology, syntax and semantics. It treats German past participles and concentrates on their function as heads in attributive and adverbial modifier phrases. It is argued that participles have the same argument structure as the underlying verbs and can undergo passivization, perfectivization and conversion to adjectives. Since these three operations involve changes in the morphosyntactic categorization they are considered as zero affixation. Two affixless templates – without any categorical changes – convert participle constructions to modifiers relating to participants or to situations. These phrases do not have a syntactic position for the grammatical subject, an operator or an adverbial relator. The pertinent components are present only in the semantic structure. Two further templates serve the composition of participle constructions as modifiers with the modificandum. It is necessary to differentiate between modifiers which function as predicates and those which have the status of a propositional operator. In syntax, these different semantic functions correspond to different adjunct positions of the respective participle phrases.
This volume presents a collection of papers touching on various issues concerning the syntax and semantics of predicative constructions.
A hot topic in the study of predicative copula constructions, with direct implications for the treatment of he (how many he's do we need?), and wider implications for the theories of predication, event-based semantics and aspect, is the nature and source of the situation argument. Closer examination of copula-less predications is becoming increasingly relevant to all these issues, as is clearly illustrated by the present collection.
Papers on pragmasemantics
(2009)
Optimality theory as used in linguistics (Prince & Smolensky, 1993/2004; Smolensky & Legendre, 2006) and cognitive psychology (Gigerenzer & Selten, 2001) is a theoretical framework that aims to integrate constraint based knowledge representation systems, generative grammar, cognitive skills, and aspects of neural network processing. In the last years considerable progress was made to overcome the artificial separation between the disciplines of linguistic on the one hand which are mainly concerned with the description of natural language competences and the psychological disciplines on the other hand which are interested in real language performance.
The semantics and pragmatics of natural language is a research topic that is asking for an integration of philosophical, linguistic, psycholinguistic aspects, including its neural underpinning. Especially recent work on experimental pragmatics (e.g. Noveck & Sperber, 2005; Garrett & Harnish, 2007) has shown that real progress in the area of pragmatics isn’t possible without using data from all available domains including data from language acquisition and actual language generation and comprehension performance. It is a conceivable research programme to use the optimality theoretic framework in order to realize the integration.
Game theoretic pragmatics is a relatively young development in pragmatics. The idea to view communication as a strategic interaction between speaker and hearer is not new. It is already present in Grice' (1975) classical paper on conversational implicatures. What game theory offers is a mathematical framework in which strategic interaction can be precisely described. It is a leading paradigm in economics as witnessed by a series of Nobel prizes in the field. It is also of growing importance to other disciplines of the social sciences. In linguistics, its main applications have been so far pragmatics and theoretical typology. For pragmatics, game theory promises a firm foundation, and a rigor which hopefully will allow studying pragmatic phenomena with the same precision as that achieved in formal semantics.
The development of game theoretic pragmatics is closely connected to the development of bidirectional optimality theory (Blutner, 2000). It can be easily seen that the game theoretic notion of a Nash equilibrium and the optimality theoretic notion of a strongly optimal form-meaning pair are closely related to each other. The main impulse that bidirectional optimality theory gave to research on game theoretic pragmatics stemmed from serious empirical problems that resulted from interpreting the principle of weak optimality as a synchronic interpretation principle.
In this volume, we have collected papers that are concerned with several aspects of game and optimality theoretic approaches to pragmatics.
In this paper, we outline the foundations of a theory of implicatures. It divides into two parts. The first part contains the base model. It introduces signalling games, optimal answer models, and a general definition of implicatures in terms of natural information. The second part contains a refinement in which we consider noisy communication with efficient clarification requests. Throughout, we assume a fully cooperative speaker who knows the information state of the hearer. The purpose of this paper is not the study of examples. Our concern is the framework for doing these studies.
In this paper, a class of sentences in German is discussed that are often called whexclamatives. […]
So called wh-exclamatives can be roughly characterized as wh-clauses that are embedded under exclamative predicates like erstaunt sein/to be amazed at [...] or that are used as the basis for an exclamation [...].
One can ask if wh-exclamatives are a clause-type of their own, in particular, whether they are different from wh-clauses in question environments, that is under question predicates like to ask or to wonder or used as questions. It is often assumed that wh-clauses in exclamative contexts, both embedded and unembedded, are indeed different from wh-clauses in interrogative or question environments [...], at least regarding their semantical type, see for example Elliot (1971, 1974), Grimshaw (1979, 1981), Zaefferer (1983, 1984), Altmann (1 987, 1993). […]
I assume with Grimshaw (1979) that so called wh-exclamatives and wh-interrogatives are alike with respect to their syntactical properties. In addition, I think that they are also alike semantically. So, what I like to do here is to evaluate the following hypothesis:
So-called wh-exclamatives are of the same semantical type as wh-interrogatives.
The paper shows that shared indefinite expressions in coordinative constructions may differ with respect to their referential properties. This is due to their being either in a focused or in a nonfocused shared constituent. Their different information-structural status follows from Rooth's theory on focus interpretation. Thus it follows that focused shared constitutents must be beyond the actual coordination and that coordinative constructions with unfocused shared constituents can be represented as ellipsis. In a focused shared constituent indefinite expressions may have a specific and an non specific unique reading as well as an non specific distributive one. For the latter we outline the idea that subjects and objects in the actual coordination form a pair of sets to which a distributing operator is attached. The set formation is further supported by plural pronouns referring to the respective set and by plural verb agreement in subsequent expressions.
On object specificity
(2001)
[W]e have demonstrated that the object specificity follows from the same principle as the subject specificity under the EMH. Furthermore, the semantic discrepancy between the realis and irrealis object shift constructions turns out to be a subcase of the more general indicative-modal asymmetry. Although our analysis presented here is nothing but conclusive, it does suggest that the EMH is a potent candidate for explaining the indicative-modal asymmetry, as well as for building a general theory of the specificity effects in question.
This paper argues for non-primary c- and s-selectional restrictions of verbs in computing nonprimary predicatives such as resultatives, depictives, and manners. Our discussion is based both on the selection violations in the presence of nonprimary predicates and on the cross-linguistic and language-internal variations of categorial and semantic constraints on nonprimary predicates. We claim that all types of thematic predication are represented by an extended projection, and that the merger of lexical heads with another element, regardless of the type of the element, consistently has c- and s-selectional restrictions.
This article deals with the notion of reality. During the last twenty years, public discourse in Western societies has identified the opposition between the real and the virtual as one of the cultural key questions. Taking concrete examples as a point of departure, the paper investigates the semantics of the polysemic tems virtual and real. A semiotic model of the relation between (human) organisms, concepts and signs is used in order to demonstrate that the virtual cannot be adequately described as something opposed to reality, but must be seen as an indispensable part of it. The way in which organisms constitute reality is discussed in the light of the basic cognitive operations of categorization and the formation of conceptual relations, and also of their linguistic counterparts. The apparent conflict between the real and the virtual, which has led many critics to develop apocalyptic visions of the end of civilization, is, in fact, a phantom, product of an outdated theory of semantics.
In this paper, we deal with the semantic interaction between ung-nominalizations of different event types and temporal prepositions like wiihrend 'during', vor 'before', nach 'after', bis 'until' and seit 'since'. According to the two-level-approach to selnantics (Bierwisch 1983, Bierwisch / Lang 1989), we will argue that the meaning of ten~poral prepositions is determined on the level of semantic form (SF). When combined with an event nominal, the period in time required by the preposition has to be inferred on the level of conceptual structure (CS). Very often, the exact nature of the period in time is determined by pragmatic factors. There are, however, some important restrictions to this inference procedure which rely on the event noun's Aktionsart. In Ehrich/Rapp (2000), it was claimed that eventive ungnominals inherit the Aktionsart of their base verb. This assumption receives strong support by the data presented in this paper.
Recent work on argument selection couched in a lexical decomposition approach (Ehrich & Rapp 2000) postulates different linking properties for verbs and nouns, challenging current views on argument inheritance. In this paper, I show that the different behavior with respect to verbal and nominal linking observed for Present-Day German does not carry over to ung-nominals in Early New High German. Deverbal nouns and corresponding verbs rather behave alike with respect to argument linking. I shall argue that this change is motivated by the growing rift between ung-nominals and their verbal bases both focussing on different parts oftheir lexicosemantic structure in Present-Day German. Evidence for the verb-like behavior of ung-nominals in Early New High German comes from the regular meaning relation between verbs and corresponding derived nouns, the actional properties of event-denoting nouns, and the patterning of ung-nominals with nominalized infinitives. Even their syntactic behavior reflects the verbal character of ung-nominals during that period of the German language. The diachronic facts can be accounted for in a straightforward way once we adopt a lexical decomposition approach to argument selection.
In this squib, I want to argue that the morphological structure of words is, at least to some extent, motivated. As an example I have choosen the partonomic (and for the less part taxonomic) nomenclature of the human body. While important work by Brown et alii (1973), Anderson (1978) and Schladt (1997) exists on this topic, these analyses focus on the conceptualization of body-parts and their semantics, but not on their morphological representation.
In the following, I want to check two predictions about the morphological complexity of lexical items denoting parts of the human body. The first assumption is that the most canonical body-parts are always expressed by mono-lexematic items. The second one consists in the assumption that body-parts of the lowest levels in the hierarchy are always morphologically complex. A set of six body-parts has been analysed in 27 languages. The set consists of two canonical (HEAD and EAR) and of one from the lowest level of the hierarchy (TOENAIL). For this I have adopted a sample from Schladt (1997) and a small one compiled by myself
Der vorliegende Aufsatz gibt einen Überblick über das syntaktische, prosodische und semantische Verhalten sowie die textuelle Funktion kausaler Konnektoren im heutigen Deutsch. Im ersten Abschnitt wird Textkohärenz in räumliche, zeitliche und kausale Kohärenz unterteilt. Räumliche und zeitliche Kohärenz werden zu einem erheblichen Teil durch grammatische Sprachmittel kodiert, während kausale Kohärenz vor allem durch lexikalische Mittel ausgedrückt wird: durch Präpositionen, Konjunktionen und Adverbien. Im zweiten Abschnitt werden die wichtigsten kausalen Konnektoren des Gegenwartsdeutschen vorgestellt und in ihren syntaktischen und semantischen Haupteigenschaften beschrieben. Der dritte Abschnitt behandelt das linguistische Konzept der Ursache vor dem Hintergrund allgemeinerer philosophischer Reflexionen über Kausalität. Das Konzept der Verursachung wird zurückgeführt auf die zugrundeliegenden Konzepte der Situation und der Bedingung. Der vierte Abschnitt ist der Unterscheidung zwischen drei Arten kausaler Verknüpfungen gewidmet, die als dispositionelle, epistemische und deontisch-illokutionäre bezeichnet werden. Empirisch erlauben kausale Verknüpfungen häufig mehr als eine dieser Lesarten. Die folgenden Unterabschnitte untersuchen im Detail die syntaktischen, prosodischen und semantischen Bedingungen, durch die epistemische und deontische Lesarten kausaler Verknüpfungen möglich werden. Als wichtigste Faktoren, die die Interpretation beeinflussen, werden herausgestellt: syntaktische, prosodische und informationelle Integration der verknüpften Ausdrücke, Definitheit der Ursache sowie modale Umgebungen.
This paper will examine the role of various factors in affecting the salience, and hence the accessibility to pronominal reference, of entities introduced into a discourse by a full clause. We begin with the premise that the possibility of pronominal reference with it versus that depends on the cognitive status of the referent, in the sense of Gundel, Hedberg and Zacharski (1993). This formulation of the problem provides grounds for an explanation of the data presented above, and provides a framework within which we examine the role of various other factors in promoting the salience of a clausally introduced entity, including the information structure of the utterance in which the entity is introduced. For entities introduced by clausal complements to bridge verbs, we show that the information structure of the utterance introducing the entity has a partial, or one-sided, effect on the salience of the entity. When the complement clause is focal, the salience of the entity depends only on its referential givenness-newness (in the sense of Gundel 1988, 1999b), as we would expect. But when the complement clause is ground material, the salience of an entity introduced by the clause is enhanced. Other factors, including the presuppositionality of factive and interrogative complements, also serve to enhance the salience of entities introduced by complement clauses.
The paper investigates a recent proposal to resultativity by G. Jäger and R. Blutner (J&B). J&B say that the representation of result states of accomplishments by means of CAUSE and BECOME is not correct and should not be done in the syntax in terms of decomposition. They develop an axiomatic approach where each accomplishment/achievement is related to its result by a particular axiom. Modification of the result by "again" makes use of these axioms and the restitutive/resultative ambiguity is a matter of lexical ambiguity or polysemy. They argue that the classical decomposition theory cannot treat the restitutive reading of "A Delaware settled in New Jersey again" (there had been Delawares in New Jersey but not this particular one; and those earlier Delawares never moved to New Jersey but were borne there). I discuss (and dispute) these data and compare the two theories. J&B's contains an OT-part dealing with the disambiguating role of stress. While the decomposition theory cannot deal with the data mentioned, it can integrate the OT-part of J&B's theory.
The present investigation is concerned with German participles II (past participles) as lexical heads of adjuncts.
Within a minimalist framework of sound-meaning correlation, the analysis presupposes a lexicalist conception of morphology and the differentiation of Semantic Form and Conceptual Structure. It is argued that participles II have the same argument structure as the underlying verbs and can undergo passivization, perfectivization and conversion to adjectives. As for the potential of participles to function as modifiers, it is shown that attributive and adverbial participle constructions involve further operations of conversion. Participle constructions are considered as reduced sentences. They do not have a syntactic position for the subject, for an operator (comparable to the relative pronoun in relative clauses) or for an adverbial relator (as in adverbial clauses). The pertinent components are present only in the semantic structure.
Two templates serve the composition of modifiers - including participle constructions - with the modificandum. It is necessary to differentiate between modification which unifies two predicates relating to participants or to situations and frame setting modification where the modifier is given the status of a propositional operator.
The proposed analysis shows that the high degree of semantic underspecification and interpretative flexibility of German participle II constructions resides in the indeterminacy of participles II with respect to voice and perfect, in the absence of certain constituents in the syntactic structure and in the presence of corresponding parameters in the Semantic Form of the participle phrases.