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The morpho-syntax of relative clauses in Sotho-Tswana is relatively well-described in the literature. Prosodic characteristics, such as tone, have received far less attention in the existing descriptions. After reviewing the basic morpho-syntactic and semantic features of relative clauses in Tswana, the current paper sets out to present and discuss prosodic aspects. These comprise tone specifications of relative clause markers such as the demonstrative pronoun that acts as the relative pronoun, relative agreement concords and the relative suffix. Further prosodic aspects dealt with in the current article are tone alternations at the juncture of relative pronoun and head noun, and finally the tone patterns of the finite verbs in the relative clause. The article aims at providing the descriptive basis from which to arrive at generalizations concerning the prosodic phrasing of relative clauses in Tswana.
This paper reports the results of a corpus investigation on case conflicts in German argument free relative constructions. We investigate how corpus frequencies reflect the relative markedness of free relative and correlative constructions, the relative markedness of different case conflict configurations, and the relative markedness of different conflict resolution strategies. Section 1 introduces the conception of markedness as used in Optimality Theory. Section 2 introduces the facts about German free relative clauses, and section 3 presents the results of the corpus study. By and large, markedness and frequency go hand in hand. However, configurations at the highest end of the markedness scale rarely show up in corpus data, and for the configuration at the lowest end we found an unexpected outcome: the more marked structure is preferred.
The argument that I tried to elaborate on in this paper is that the conceptual problem behind the traditional competence/performance distinction does not go away, even if we abandon its original Chomskyan formulation. It returns as the question about the relation between the model of the grammar and the results of empirical investigations – the question of empirical verification The theoretical concept of markedness is argued to be an ideal correlate of gradience. Optimality Theory, being based on markedness, is a promising framework for the task of bridging the gap between model and empirical world. However, this task not only requires a model of grammar, but also a theory of the methods that are chosen in empirical investigations and how their results are interpreted, and a theory of how to derive predictions for these particular empirical investigations from the model. Stochastic Optimality Theory is one possible formulation of a proposal that derives empirical predictions from an OT model. However, I hope to have shown that it is not enough to take frequency distributions and relative acceptabilities at face value, and simply construe some Stochastic OT model that fits the facts. These facts first of all need to be interpreted, and those factors that the grammar has to account for must be sorted out from those about which grammar should have nothing to say. This task, to my mind, is more complicated than the picture that a simplistic application of (not only) Stochastic OT might draw.
This thesis investigated the acquisition of restrictive and appositive interpretations of relative clauses in German-speaking children between the age of 3 and 6 in three experiments.
The theoretical background shows that restrictive relative clauses are semantically less complex than appositive ones. This assumption is supported by observations from a typological overview on the semantic functions attested across languages. It is shown that the existence of appositive relative clauses implies the availability of restrictive readings in a given language. Furthermore, restrictive readings may be favored due to the functioning of general processing principles. Previous research on the acquisition of relative clauses demonstrates that the acquisition of the semantic functions of relative clauses is an understudied area. In contrast, the acquisition of syntactic aspects of relative clauses is well documented. Relative clauses start to be produced in the third year of life and can be interpreted target-like between the age of 4 and 8 depending on their structure. Which semantic interpretation children assign to relative clauses at this age, however, is still an open question.
Based on the formal background and insights from previous studies, three experiments were designed: two picture selection tasks and one acceptability task. The crucial aspect of the experimental design constitutes the interaction of an ordinal number word and the interpretation of the relative clause in sentences like “Take the third car(,) that/which is red”. The scope of the ordinal number reveals whether the relative clause had been attached restrictively at the NP-level or whether it had been attached higher up at the DP shell resulting in an appositive interpretation.
The results of the experiments demonstrate that 4- to 6-year-old German-speaking children and adults prefer restrictive readings over appositive ones. This preference is found within the group data and is mirrored by the results of an individual analysis. In addition, while the majority of children has acquired restrictive readings at the age of 4, appositive interpretations are mastered only by about half of the children between age 4 and 6. Interestingly, 3-year-old children show a different pattern than their older peers. Appositive but not restrictive interpretations seem to be available to these children. Although the results may be taken as evidence that appositivity is acquired before restrictivity in relative clauses by German-speaking children, I propose the contrary. Based on assumptions about the complexity of restrictive and appositive derivations, I argue that the appositive interpretations observed at the age of 3 do not result from a target-like syntactic and semantic representation. I propose that 3-year-old children do not yet identify relative clauses as nominal modifiers. Instead, they are derived from an incorrect attachment of the relative clause higher up in the syntactic tree.
The results of the three experiments are the first to show that neither a prototypical unintegrated prosodic contour nor the presence of a lexical marker, the discourse particle “ja”, or a visual context biasing for appositivity led to an increase of appositive interpretations in the children’s groups. Adults, in contrast, were sensitive to the presence of the discourse particle and the cues from the visual context. As for children, the prosodic format of the relative clauses did not systematically change the interpretation preferences of adults.
The proposed acquisition path may not be specific to German. Instead, it is predicted to hold cross-linguistically and may also be transferred to the interpretation of adjectives. Moreover, the assumptions on how children integrate relative clauses during comprehension may be generalized to other types of subordinate clauses.
Abnormitäten oder Analogien bei Übersetzungen deutscher und türkischer Nebensatzkonstruktionen
(2016)
Jede Sprache hat ihre eigene grammatikalische Struktur und dementsprechend unterscheidet sich auch der Aufbau der Sätze. Was in der Grammatik als ein Teilsatz bezeichnet wird, ist ein Nebensatz, welcher in jeder Sprache seine eigene Struktur besitzt. Diese strukturellen Merkmale, Unterschiede und Ähnlichkeiten im Deutschen und im Türkischen werden in dieser Arbeit dargestellt und miteinander verglichen. In dieser Arbeit werden die deutschen Nebensatzarten samt den dazugehörigen Beispielen dargestellt. Nach denselben Gesichtspunkten werden auch die jeweiligen türkischen Übersetzungen wiedergegeben. Diese Aufteilung soll als Mittel zum Zweck der übersichtlicheren Darlegung der Nebensätze und zur Erklärung der Übersetzungsmöglichkeiten dienen. Es ist klar, dass eine konkrete Übersetzung mehr oder weniger angleichend bzw. mehr oder weniger verfremdend erscheint, welche auf Varietät der Zielsprache zurückzuführen ist. Die Gegenüberstellung zwischen von Grund aus unterschiedlichen Sprachen scheint in erster Linie in Bezug auf den Wortschatz (z. B. kulturspezifische Begriffe) und Redeweisen getroffen worden zu sein. Sie ist jedoch auch für den grammatikalischen Bereich relevant. Nach diesem Exkurs werden einige deutsche Märchen mit ihren türkischen Übersetzungen verglichen und analysiert
The interpretation of traces
(2004)
This paper argues that parts of the lexical content of an A-bar moved phrase must be interpreted in the base position of movement. The argument is based on a study of deletion of a phrase that contains the base position of movement. I show that deletion licensing is sensitive to the content of the moved phrase. In this way, I corroborate and extend conclusions based on Condition C reconstruction by N. Chomsky and D. Fox. My result provides semantic evidence for the existence of traces and gives semantic content to the A/A-bar distinction.
Relative clauses in Haya
(2010)
This paper gives an overview of the morphology and syntax of Haya relative clause constructions. It extends previous work on this topic (Duranti, 1977) by incorporating data from a number of different dialects and by introducing new data on locative relative clauses. The dialects discussed in addition to the Kihanja data from Byarushengo et al. (1977) include Kiziba, Muleba and Bugabo dialects. Nyambo data taken from Rugemalira (2005) is also compared to Haya in places. The focus of the discussion is on the grammaticality of pronominal elements attached to the verb that refer back to the relativized entity with different types of relativized constituents in Haya. It is shown that there are differences between subjects, objects and locatives in terms of this kind of morphology inside the relative clause, as well as differences between these kinds of morphemes and resumptive pronouns.
In diesem Aufsatz geht es um Sätze, deren Vorfeld mit einem anaphorischen d-Pronomen des Typs der/die/das besetzt ist und die - im Gegensatz zu Relativsätzen - Zweitstellung des Finitums aufweisen (d-V2-Sätze), wie in: "Ich habe einen Bekannten, der fährt einen Porsche." Sätze dieser Art werden in drei Perioden der Sprachgeschichte untersucht. Das Korpus besteht aus Texten aus dem Frühneuhochdeutschen, dem 19. Jahrhundert und der deutschen Gegenwartssprache. In allen drei Perioden kommen d-V2- Sätze vor. Sie werden nach ausgewählten Kriterien untersucht und mit Relativsätzen verglichen. Es werden Bedingungen formuliert, unter denen Relativsätze durch d-V2-Sätze substituiert werden können.
Für die Bildung von freien Relativsätzen existieren in verschiedenen Sprachen unterschiedliche Regeln. In einer Reihe von Sprachen muß der Kasus des Relativpronomens mit dem Kasus übereinstimmen, den das Matrixverb für die NP fordert, an deren Stelle der freie Relativsatz auftritt. Diese sogenannten "Matching-Effekte" sind jedoch nicht in allen Sprachen vorhanden. Es gibt Sprachen, in denen Matching generell nicht oder unter bestimmten Bedingungen nicht erforderlich ist. Deutsch wird im allgemeinen zu den Sprachen gerechnet, in denen freie Relativsätze Matching-Effekte aufweisen müssen. Ein Ziel dieses Aufsatzes ist, zu zeigen, daß dies nicht uneingeschränkt gilt. Auch im Deutschen gibt es freie Relativsätze, die kein Matching aufweisen. Bei dem Kasuskonflikt zwischen dem vom Matrixverb und dem Verb innerhalb des freien Relativsatzes geforderten Kasus kann ersterer unrealisiert bleiben, wenn er höher auf der Kasushierarchie rangiert als der vom Verb im freien Relativsatz geforderte Kasus. Unabhängige Evidenzen für diese Hierarchie werden aufgezeigt. Abschließend werden die Konsequenzen dieses Befunds für die Struktur von freien Relativsätzen diskutiert.