Constraints on argument linearization in German
- In this article we present experimental findings on the acceptability of different argument orders in the German middle field. Our study pursues two goals: First, to evaluate a number of surface constraints on German argument order that have been proposed in the literature, and second, to shed new light on how gradient constraints jointly determine sentence acceptability. In four experiments, we investigated the impact of surface constraints relating to animacy, thematic roles, definiteness and case. While we are able to confirm an influence of most constraints under investigation, the resulting constraint hierarchy does not coincide with any hierarchy put forward so far in the literature, to the best of our knowledge. With regard to gradience, our results can be accounted for either by an OT variant incorporating a notion of markedness, or by a fully quantified model using constraint weights. For the latter, however, we provide evidence against uniform penalties associated with constraint violations.
Author: | Emilia Ellsiepen, Markus BaderORCiDGND |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-532365 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.258 |
ISSN: | 2397-1835 |
Parent Title (German): | Glossa: a journal of general linguistics |
Publisher: | Ubiquity Press |
Place of publication: | London |
Document Type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of Publication (online): | 2018/01/12 |
Date of first Publication: | 2018/01/12 |
Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
Release Date: | 2020/04/11 |
Tag: | German; magnitude estimation; weighted constraints; word order |
Volume: | 3 |
Issue: | 6 |
Page Number: | 36 |
First Page: | 1 |
Last Page: | 36 |
HeBIS-PPN: | 463904184 |
Institutes: | Neuere Philologien / Neuere Philologien |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | 4 Sprache / 43 Deutsch, germanische Sprachen allgemein / 430 Germanische Sprachen; Deutsch |
Sammlungen: | Universitätspublikationen |
Licence (German): | Creative Commons - Namensnennung 4.0 |