German participle II constructions as adjuncts
- 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.
Author: | Ilse Zimmermann |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-307435 |
URL: | http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/209.html |
ISSN: | 1435-9588 |
ISSN: | 0947-7055 |
Parent Title (English): | Approaching the grammar of adjuncts : proceedings of the Oslo conference, September 22-25, 1999, Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung, Berlin, 1999; ZAS papers in linguistics Vol. 17 |
Publisher: | Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung |
Place of publication: | Berlin |
Document Type: | Part of a Book |
Language: | English |
Date of Publication (online): | 2013/11/14 |
Year of first Publication: | 2000 |
Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
Release Date: | 2013/11/14 |
GND Keyword: | Deutsch; Partizip Perfekt; Adjunkt <Linguistik>; Semantik; Syntax |
Volume: | 17 |
Page Number: | 13 |
First Page: | 309 |
Last Page: | 321 |
HeBIS-PPN: | 37841772X |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | 4 Sprache / 43 Deutsch, germanische Sprachen allgemein / 430 Germanische Sprachen; Deutsch |
Sammlungen: | Germanistik / GiNDok |
Linguistik | |
BDSL-Klassifikation: | 02.00.00 Deutsche Sprachwissenschaft (in Auswahl) / BDSL-Klassifikation: 02.00.00 Deutsche Sprachwissenschaft > 02.05.00 Grammatik |
Linguistik-Klassifikation: | Linguistik-Klassifikation: Syntax |
Linguistik-Klassifikation: Sprachtypologie / Language typology | |
Linguistik-Klassifikation: Semantik / Semantics | |
Zeitschriften / Jahresberichte: | ZAS papers in linguistics : ZASPiL / ZASPiL 17 = Approaching the grammar of adjuncts : Proceedings of the Oslo Conference |
: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-306599 |
Licence (German): | Deutsches Urheberrecht |