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Eine unübersehbare Menge neuer Anglizismen findet über Fach- und Gruppensprachen Eingang in die deutsche Alltagssprache, in der ein Teil von ihnen inzwischen seinen festen Platz hat. […] Insbesondere in den Bereichen der Lautung und der Schreibung bleibt bei den neueren Entlehnungen oberflächlich eine große Nähe zu gebersprachlichen Strukturen erhalten. Diese Entwicklung wird von einigen Fachleuten und Politikern […] als Indiz für eine schleichende ‚Kolonialisierung’ der deutschen Sprache durch das Englische herangezogen. [...] Dieser Einschätzung widersprechen zahlreiche Organe […] und Autoren […] ausdrücklich. […] Im Kontext dieser Auseinandersetzung ist die vorliegende Arbeit verortet. Ihr Ziel ist es zu zeigen, daß die Sprecher des Deutschen Anglizismen sehr wohl phonologisch, graphematisch und morphologisch in die deutsche Sprache integrieren. Untersuchungsgegenstand sind mehrgliedrige Verben, die aus dem Englischen entlehnt wurden und überwiegend in Fach- und Gruppensprachen und/oder in informellem, vorwiegend mündlichem Text auftreten. Für das Problemfeld der verbalen Wortbildung wird dargelegt, daß morphologische Integration nicht unsystematisch erfolgt, sondern sich an den Flexionsmustern deutscher komplexer Verben orientiert. Der Integrationsgrad der einzelnen Lexeme ist dynamisch und sprecherabhängig.
Der vorliegende Beitrag prüft, ob der „Sprachinsel“-Ansatz wirklich geeignet ist, das Problem „Realitätsbereich Deutsch als Minderheitensprache“ sachangemessen zu erkennen, zu erfassen, zu thematisieren, zu beschreiben, zu interpretieren und zu bewerten, indem er verdeutlicht, dass die Metapher der ‘Sprachinsel’ heute mindestens in zweifacher Hinsicht keinen optimalen Ordnungs- und Erklärungsansatz bereitstellen kann. Erstens, weil das derzeitige Kommunikationsprofil von Minderheitengemeinschaften und das aktuelle Gesicht dieser Sprachvarietäten nicht mehr durch eine insulare Abgeschiedenheit, sondern vielmehr durch Zwei- und Mehrsprachigkeit und Sprachen- bzw. Kulturenkontakte bestimmt werden. Zweitens, weil die sog. metaphorischen Konzepte bei der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis eine wesentliche Rolle spielen. Daher wäre ein Untersuchungsansatz produktiv, welcher der besonderen aktuellen Dynamik der für die Minderheiten meist charakteristischen mehrsprachigen bzw. mehrkulturigen Konfigurationen und den sprachlichen bzw. kulturellen Austauschprozessen explizit Rechnung trägt. In diesem Zusammenhang wird hier eine interkulturelle (oder transkulturelle) Linguistik als mögliches Paradigma vorgeschlagen.
Modifiability by almost has been used as a test for the quantificational force of a DP without stating the meaning of almost explicitly. The aim of this paper is to give a semantics for almost applying across categories and to evaluate the validity of the almost test as a diagnosis for universal quantifiers. It is argued that almost is similar to other cross-categorial modifiers such as at least or exactly in referring to alternatives ordered on a scale. I propose that almost evaluates alternatives in which the modified expression is replaced by a value close by on the corresponding Horn scale. It is shown that a semantics for almost that refers to scalar alternatives derives the correct truth conditions for almost and explains selectional restrictions. At the same time, taking the semantics of almost seriously invalidates the almost test as a simple diagnosis for the nature of quantifiers.
In this paper, we investigate the usefulness of a wide range of features for their usefulness in the resolution of nominal coreference, both as hard constraints (i.e. completely removing elements from the list of possible candidates) as well as soft constraints (where a cumulation of violations of soft constraints will make it less likely that a candidate is chosen as the antecedent). We present a state of the art system based on such constraints and weights estimated with a maximum entropy model, using lexical information to resolve cases of coreferent bridging.
The paper presents a novel approach to explaining word order variation in the early Germanic languages. Initial observations about verb placement as a device marking types of rhetorical relations made on data from Old High German (cf. Hinterhölzl & Petrova 2005) are now reconsidered on a larger scale and compared with evidence from other early Germanic languages. The paper claims that the identification of information-structural domains in a sentence is best achieved by taking into account the interaction between the pragmatic features of discourse referents and properties of discourse organization.
Setswana distinguishes between conjunctive and disjunctive verb forms in the present positive tense. Creissels (1996) shows that this is also true of a number of other tenses (present negative, future positive and perfect positive). This work is used as a starting point to investigate the conjunctive/disjunctive distinction in my own Setswana data. Further to those presented in Creissels, there is data on the past and past progressive tenses, and environments such as relatives and subordinates. Creissels' analysis is supported by different examples, including those that do not utilise a frame intended to limit boundary effects. There are also examples not within this frame that raise questions about how flexible the conjunctive/disjunctive system can be. This paper is a work in progress.
In this article, an account is given of the planning of a trilingual dictionary Yilumbu– French–English. The focus is on the target user, the purpose, nature and typology of the planned dictionary. Attention is also paid to some macro- and microstructural issues. For example, all types of lexical items, including multiword lexical items, are given lemma status. Moreover all items are included according to the word tradition and on account of their usage frequency in the corpus. Apart from these aspects, types of dialectal forms as well as the type of special-field lexical items are also discussed. From a microstructural point of view, this article investigates different kinds of data types to be considered for inclusion in complex articles in particular. User-friendliness parameters and innovative access structure procedures also come into play.
Starting from the basic observation that, across languages, the anticausative variant of an alternating verb systematically involves morphological marking that is shared by passive verbs, the goal of this paper is to provide a uniform and formal account of these arguably two different construction types. The central claim that I put forward is that passives and anticausatives differ only with respect to the event-type features of the verb but both arise through the same operation, namely suppression by special morphology of a feature in v that encodes the ontological event type of the verb. Crucially, I argue for two syntactic primitives, namely act and cause, whereto I trace the passive/anticausative distinction. Passive constructions across languages are made compatible by relegating the differences to simple combinatorial properties of verb and prepositional types and their interactions with other event functors, which are in turn encoded differently morphologically across languages. New arguments are brought forward for a causative analysis of anticausatives. Agentive adverbials are examined, and doubt is cast on the usefulness of by-phrases as a diagnostic for argumenthood.
This paper discusses a semantic analysis of three syntactic types of English each, namely, floated each, binominal each, and prenominal each. It is argued that floated each consists of two parts, a quantifier and an inaudible element which functions as its restrictor, which together form a tripartite quantificational structure when they compose with the predicate. Binominal each and an associated NP such as two topics (which is generally called the 'distributive share') are syntactically analyzed as forming a subject-predicate relation within a DP in which the NP undergoes so-called 'predicate inversion'. Semantically, binominal each is analyzed as having the same semantic value as floated each, while prenominal each is shown to have a different logical type from floated and binominal each. As can be seen from analogous constructions in some Romance languages, it does not lexically contain its restrictor.
The paper investigates the interaction of focus and adverbial quantification in Hausa, a Chadic tone language spoken in West Africa. The discussion focuses on similarities and differences between intonation and tone languages concerning the way in which adverbial quantifiers (AQs) and focus particles (FPs) associate with focus constituents. It is shown that the association of AQs with focused elements does not differ fundamentally in intonation and tone languages such as Hausa, despite the fact that focus marking in Hausa works quite differently. This may hint at the existence of a universal mechanism behind the interpretation of adverbial quantifiers across languages. From a theoretical perspective, the Hausa data can be taken as evidence in favour of pragmatic approaches to the focus-sensitivity of AQs, such as e.g. Beaver & Clark (2003).
Agreement is traditionally viewed as a cross-referencing device for core arguments such as subjects and (primary) objects.1 In this paper, I discuss data from Bantu languages that lead to a radical departure from this generally accepted position: agreement in a subset of Bantu languages cross-references a (sentential) topic rather than the subject. The crucial evidence for topic agreement comes from a construction known as subject-object (S-O) reversal, where the fronted patient agrees with what has uniformly been taken to be a `subject marker'. The correct analysis of S-O reversal as a topic construction with `topic agreement' explains a range of known facts in the languages in question. Furthermore, synchronic variation across Bantu in the presence/absence of S-O reversal and in the properties of the (topic/subject) agreement marker suggests a diachronic path from topic to subject marking. The systematic variation and covariation in the syntax of Bantu languages and the historical picture that it offers would be missed altogether if we continue to reject the idea that the notion of topic can be deeply grammaticized in the form of agreement.
Prefácio (...) O Objectivo A finalidade deste livrinho é de publicar dados de uma língua minoritária para contribuir ao património cultural da nação moçambicana, de que Imarenje faz parte. O próximo passo será a implem-entação de mais correcções e modificações necessárias, seja nos detalhes ortográficos, seja na escolha de exemplos e frases. Neste sentido faço um apelo a todos que se interessam pelo desenvolvi-mento das línguas nacionais, em particular aos falantes de Imarenje: Façam comentários, contribuam para que futuras edições deste livrinho possam ser mais ricas! Oliver Kröger Editor da série Monografias Linguísticas Moçambicanas Nampula, Outubro de 2006
The material reported on in this paper is part of a set of experiments in which the role of Information Structure on L2 processing of words is tested. Pitch and duration of 4 sets of experimental material in German and English are measured and analyzed in this paper. The well-known finding that accent boosts duration and pitch is confirmed. Syntactic and lexical means of marking focus, however, do not give the duration and the pitch of a word an extra boost.
Previous studies suggest that the application of Controlled Language (CL) rules can significantly improve the readability, consistency, and machine-translatability of source text. One of the justifications for the application of CL rules is that they can have a similar impact on several target languages by reducing the post-editing effort required to bring Machine Translation (Ml’) output to acceptable quality. In certain situations, however, post-editing services may not always be a viable solution. Web-based information is often expected to be made available in real-time to ensure that its access is not restricted to certain users based on their locale. Uncertainties remain with regard to the actual usefulness of MT output for such users, as no empirical study has examined the impact of CL rules on the usefulness, comprehensibility, and acceptability of MT technical documents from a Web user's perspective. In this study, a two-phase approach is used to determine whether Controlled English rules can have a significant impact on these three variables. First, individual CL rules are evaluated within an experimental environment, which is loosely based on a test suite.Two documents are then published and subject to a randomised evaluation within the framework of an online experiment using a customer satisfaction questionnaire. The findings indicate that a limited number of CL rules have a similar impact on the comprehensibility of French and German output at the segment level. The results of the online experiment show that the application of certain CL rules has the potential to significantly improve the comprehensibility of German MT technical documentation. Our findings also show that the introduction of CL rules did not lead to any significant improvement of the comprehensibility, usefulness, and acceptability of French MT technical documentation.
This report explores the question of compatibility between annotation projects including translating annotation formalisms to each other or to common forms. Compatibility issues are crucial for systems that use the results of multiple annotation projects. We hope that this report will begin a concerted effort in the field to track the compatibility of annotation schemes for part of speech tagging, time annotation, treebanking, role labeling and other phenomena.
It is no secret that Gerhard Doerfer has argued strongly against a genetic relationship between the Mongolic and Tungusic languages. Ten years ago he presented a detailed analysis of the Mongolo-Tungusic vocabulary (1985). In the following I intend to show that his material allows of a quite different conclusion.
Der traditionsreiche Kultur-, Kontakt- und Integrationsraum Schlesien stellt eine Region im Überlappungs- und Durchdringungsbereich von Kulturen, Religionen, Sprachen und Nationen dar, wo sich im historischen Verlauf eine spezielle Sensibilität für Probleme und Chancen kultureller und sprachlicher Pluralität sowie für die Geschichtlichkeit und Dynamik multikultureller Zusammenhänge entwickeln konnte. Daher verkörpert er ein besonders wertvolles Erinnerungsgut (vgl. zur Thematik Engel/Honsza 2001 und Lasatowicz 2004). Solche Regionen werden nun mit Blick auf ihre Ressourcen des multikulturellen Gedächtnisses im Zuge von gesamteuropäischen Prozessen – auch im Sinne einer neuen „mentalen Welt“ – zunehmend aufgewertet. Die kulturelle und sprachliche Situation, einschließlich der Sprach gebrauchsstrukturen, ist in derartigen multi-ethnischen Arealen im Spannungsfeld von mehreren Sprachen, Kulturen und Identitäten naturgemäß äußerst vielschichtig. Entsprechend dieser komplexen sprachkommunikativen Realität in Mehrsprachigkeits-Kulturen setzt ihre wissenschaftlich adäquate Erfassung, Beschreibung und Explizierung ein mehrperspektivisches multi-, inter- und transdisziplinäres Herangehen voraus. Denn die Bearbeitung der entsprechend weiten Fragestellungen erfordert einen relevanten Betrachtungsrahmen und eine angepasste Methodologie, die sowohl dem komplexen Gegenstand als auch den Erkenntnisinteressen der Praxis gerecht werden. Müssen doch die Linguisten mit der mannigfaltigen sprachkommunikativen Realität mindestens (a) systemorientiert, (b) soziologisch und (c) „technologisch“ umgehen und sie entsprechend reflektieren können. Da aber die Gesamtthematik – wie sie auch im Titel der Tagung zum Ausdruck kommt – einen etwas sperrigen Gegenstand bildet, konzentriert sich der vorliegende Beitrag lediglich auf einen besonders wichtigen Aspekt. Mithin lautet die erkenntnisleitende Forschungsfrage: Wie kann man inter- bzw. transkulturelle,4 bi- bzw. multilinguale Kommunikationsräume im Kontakt der Kulturen mit den für sie charakteristischen zweisprachigen Diskursmodi (die oft durch verschiedene Ausprägungen von Hybridität gekennzeichnet sind) in disziplinärer Hinsicht sinnvoll analysieren? Also in welchem generellen Verstehensrahmen bzw. unter welchem "Blickwinkel", im Kompetenzbereich welcher linguistischen Teildisziplin, mit welcher Methodologie lassen sich die im Blickpunkt stehenden sprachkommunikativen Konstellationen, bilingualen Sprechhandlungen und entsprechenden Kontakt-, Interaktions-, Überblendungs- und Konvergenzphänomene sachangemessen untersuchen und heuristisch interpretieren? Solche Fragen erlangen m.E. angesichts der aktuellen Fachentwicklung der Sprachwissenschaft zunehmend Relevanz. War doch im Rahmen der kartesischen Sicht noch eine Einheit von Rationalität und Wissenschaft gegeben, ist spätestens seit Thomas Kuhn (1996) klar geworden, dass man es heute mit einem Nach- und Nebeneinander verschiedener (z.T. sogar inkommensurabler) „Paradigmen“ (Kuhn 1996), „Denkstile“ (vgl. Fleck 2002), „disziplinärer Matrizes“ (Kuhn 1977, 392 f.) oder Wissenschaftskulturen als diskursive Terrains zu tun hat.
Focus theories distinguish different types of focus according to the pragmatic conditions or communicative point on the one side and different scopes of focus on the other side. The assertion in term focus constructions (Dik 1989), called by others argument focus constructions or identificational sentences (Lambrecht 1994), has the purpose of establishing a relation between an argument and an open proposition. Kar, a north-eastern Senufo language of Burkina Faso, which has the basic word order S-Aux-O-V-other, has at its disposal different strategies to mark argument focus, among them fronting of the focused item. In many West African languages the displacement of the focused argument involves other devices, such as the use of special verb forms. In Kar fronting of a focused argument requires the use of special pronouns in the out-of-focus part of the sentence, called background subject pronouns. They are used in other backgrounded contexts, too, for example in relative clauses, adverbial clauses and constituent questions. Their inconsistent use is attributed to a particular sociolinguistic situation in which the data has been collected. The use of the same focus strategies for completive and contrastive focus suggests that Kar does not distinguish pragmatic conditions on the level of sentence grammar.
Research on a variety of structurally different languages suggests that information is assigned to grammatical form in way of preferred representations of arguments. These preferences can be captured by four interacting constraints which are based on the analysis of spoken and written discourse. These constraints represent measurable discourse preferences: pragmatically unmarked utterances seem to follow them blindly and widely. Consequently, the preferences motivating these constraints seem to represent the default structuring of discourse in immediate relation to elementary grammatical form. Discourse is no longer viewed as acting upon grammatical form, but as being ‘grammatical’ itself.
Die synchrone wie diachrone Untersuchung von vier Passivauxiliaren in der deutschen Standardsprache und in deutschen Dialekten, im Schwedischen und im Luxemburgischen liefert deutliche Evidenz dafür, dass Vollverben nicht direkt zu Passivauxiliaren grammatikalisieren, sondern dass dieser Pfad über die Inchoativkopula verläuft. Inchoativkopulas sind soweit grammatikalisiert (und damit reduziert), dass sie über den Weg einer Reanalyse zu Vorgangspassivauxiliaren mutieren können: Erst verbinden sie sich mit (prädikativen) Substantiven, dann mit Adjektiven und schließlich partizipialen Verben. Bereits im Kopulastadium haben sie sich (sofern vorhanden gewesen) ihres Dativ- und Akkusativobjekts entledigt (Intransitivierung). Das Subjekt ist nach seiner Entkoppelung mit dem Agens eine neue Koppelung mit dem Patiens eingegangen. Damit hat die einstige Handlungsperspektive eine Umkehr zur Geschehensperspektive erfahren. Diese Schritte dokumentiert die folgende Figur: .... Als weniger problematisch hat sich, bedingt durch die Ausgangssemantik, der Grammatikalisierungspfad bei nhd. werden, bair.lalem. kommen und schwed. bli erwiesen im Gegensatz zu lux. ginn 'geben', das in jeder Hinsicht die stärksten Reduktionen erfahren hat und einen besonders langen, verschlungenen und "steinigen" Weg absolviert hat. Mit Sicherheit kann geben nicht als Idealkandidat für Passivgrarnmatikalisierungen gelten. Nur so lässt sich erklären, weshalb diese Grarnmatikalisierung in anderen Sprachen der Welt bisher nicht beobachtet wurde.
The retreat of BE as perfect auxiliary in the history of English is examined. Corpus data are presented showing that the initial advance of HAVE was most closely connected to a restriction against BE in past counterfactuals. Other factors which have been reported to favor the spread of HAVE are either dependent on the counterfactual effect, or significantly weaker in comparison. It is argued that the effect can be traced to the semantics of the BE perfect, which denoted resultativity rather than anteriority proper. Related data from other older Germanic and Romance languages are presented, and finally implications for existing theories of auxiliary selection stemming from the findings presented are discussed.
In this paper I discuss four type of bare nominal, and note that, in some sense, all of them appear to imply stereotypicality. I consider an account in terms of Bidirectional Optimality Theory: unmarked (bare) forms give rise to unmarked (stereotypical) interpretations. However, it turns out that, while the form of bare numerals is unmarked, the interpretation sometimes is not. I suggest that the crucial notion is not unmarkedness, but optimal inference: unmarked forms give rise to interpretations that are best used for drawing inferences. I propose a revision of Bidirectional Optimality Theory to reflect this.
Chatten online
(2006)
Aus linguistischer Sicht besteht die "kommunikationsgeschichtliche Novität" des Chattens darin, dass Schrift „für die situationsgebundene, direkte und simultane Kommunikation" verwendet wird (Storrer 2001: 462), ohne in einem "systematischen Verhältnis zu einer vorgängigen oder nachträglichen Oralisierung" zu stehen (ebd.). Dabei ist natürlich auch von Interesse, wie die Teilnehmer des Chats miteinander Kontakt herstellen und mit welcher kommunikativen Grundhaltung die Äußerungen im Chat produziert und rezipiert werden (vgl. Beißwenger 2000: 39f.). Unter den Vorzeichen einer dezidiert medialen Fragestellung müssen darüber hinaus die performativen Übertragungs- und Verkörperungsbedingungen des Chats thematisiert werden (vgl. Wirth 2002a: 44).
In this paper, focusing on the relevance-theoretic view of cognition, I discuss the idea that what is communicated through an utterance is not merely an explicature upon which implicature(s) are recovered, but rather a propositional complex that contains both explicit and implicit information. More specifically, I propose that this information is constructed on the fly as the interpreter processes every lexical item in its turn while parsing the utterance in real time, in this way creating a string of ad hoc concepts. While hearing an utterance and incrementally constructing a context, the propositional complex communicated by an utterance is pragmatically narrowed and simultaneously pragmatically broadened in order to incorporate only the set of optimally relevant propositions with respect to a specific point in the interpretation. The narrowing of propositions from the initial context at each stage allows relevant propositions to be carried on to the new level, while their broadening adds to the communicated propositional complex new propositions that are linked to the lexical item that is processed at every step of the interpretation process.
The work presented here addresses the question of how to determine whether a grammar formalism is powerful enough to describe natural languages. The expressive power of a formalism can be characterized in terms of i) the string languages it generates (weak generative capacity (WGC)) or ii) the tree languages it generates (strong generative capacity (SGC)). The notion of WGC is not enough to determine whether a formalism is adequate for natural languages. We argue that even SGC is problematic since the sets of trees a grammar formalism for natural languages should be able to generate is difficult to determine. The concrete syntactic structures assumed for natural languages depend very much on theoretical stipulations and empirical evidence for syntactic structures is rather hard to obtain. Therefore, for lexicalized formalisms, we propose to consider the ability to generate certain strings together with specific predicate argument dependencies as a criterion for adequacy for natural languages.
Complex focus versus double focus : investigations on multiple focus interpretations in Hungarian
(2006)
The main aim of this paper is to point out several problems with the semantic analysis of Hungarian focus interpretation and 'only'. For current semantic analyses the interpretation of Hungarian identificational/exhaustive focus and 'only' is problematic, since in classical semantic analyses 'only' is identified with an exhaustivity operator. In this paper I will discuss multiple focus constructions and question-answer pairs in Hungarian to show that such a view cannot be applied to Hungarian exhaustive focus. Next to this I will discuss possible interpretations of Hungarian sentences containing multiple prosodic foci: complex focus versus double focus. My claim is that in order to interpret multiple focus (in Hungarian) we have to take into consideration the different intonation patterns, the occurrence of 'only', and the syntactic structure as well.
Since Haiman (1978), a general assumption concerning the information structure of conditional sentences is that "conditionals are topics". However, in Chadic South Bauchi West languages spoken in Northern Nigeria, as well as in Banda Linda, an Adamawa language spoken in the République Centre-Africaine, conditionals share their structure with focus, not topic. This seriously questions Haiman’s claim and forces us to reconsider the facts and characterizations of conditionals, topic and focus in general.
In order to do this, we will first examine the facts of conditionals in some Chadic languages, then their information structure. We will see how both data and theory invalidate Haiman's claim. Then we will see that if they are not topics, they are different from focus as well. We will argue that if the elements which make a topic or a focus can appear in conditionals, these must be separated from what constitutes the identity of conditions. Then, we will see if these can be characterized in the same way as Lambrecht characterizes temporal clauses, viz. as "activated propositions" (Lambrecht 1994). We will finally conclude that they should rather be defined as "fictitious assertions" (Culioli 2000).
This paper compares two approaches to computational semantics, namely semantic unification in Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammars (LTAG) and Lexical Resource Semantics (LRS) in HPSG. There are striking similarities between the frameworks that make them comparable in many respects. We will exemplify the differences and similarities by looking at several phenomena. We will show, first of all, that many intuitions about the mechanisms of semantic computations can be implemented in similar ways in both frameworks. Secondly, we will identify some aspects in which the frameworks intrinsically differ due to more general differences between the approaches to formal grammar adopted by LTAG and HPSG.
Russian and Spanish each have two variants of the predicational copular sentence. In Russian, the variation concerns the case of the predicate phrase, which can be nominative or instrumental, while in Spanish, the variation involves the choice of the copular verb, either ser or estar. It is shown that the choice of the particular variant of copular sentence in both languages depends on the speaker’s perspective, i.e., on whether or not the predication is linked to a specific topic situation.
Das bresilionische Deitsch unn die deitsche Bresilioner : en Hunsrickisch Red fo die Sprocherechte
(2006)
This paper is a contribution of the area of linguistic policies to the discussion of linguistic rights of speakers of minority languages in Brazil. The text, bilingual in Portuguese and Hunsrückisch, one of the varieties of German immigration languages spoken in Brazil, was presented by the authors (as native speakers and translators), in the Legislative Seminar on Creation of the Book of Language Registers, organized by the Institute of National Artistic Heritage (IPHAN), Institute of Investigation and Development in Linguistic Policies (IPOL) and Education and Culture Committee of the Chamber of Representatives, in Brasília, on March 2006. The idea of the Book of Languages contributes to the recognition of Brazilian linguistic diversity, represented by approximately 210 languages, from which 180 are autochthonous (indigenous) and around 30 are allochthonous (of immigration). Its recognition as an immaterial (virtual) cultural heritage is seem as an important act in favor of speakers’ linguistic rights and against linguistic prejudice that comes along with the use of minority languages in contact with the Portuguese language. This work is inserted in this perspective and it comes along with a supportive bibliography and a map of bilingual areas in the south of Brazil.
Wenn man heute neue lexikografische Projekte plant, ist es unerlässlich, sowohl den Computer als Arbeitswerkzeug, als auch das elektronische Medium als Publikationsmedium in die Konzeption einzubeziehen. Dabei ist es oft erwünscht, die einmal erarbeiteten lexikografischen Daten mehrfach zu verwerten, sei es als gedruckte und elektronische Version eines Wörterbuchs, sei es einmal als eine lange und kurze Ausführung eines lexikografischen Produkts oder als eine ausschließlich elektronische, aber benutzeradaptiv unterschiedliche Darstellung der gleichen lexikografischen Daten. (Vgl. u.a. Schryver 2003, Storrer 2001, Engelberg/Lemnitzer 2001, S. 220ff.) Solche Wünsche sind mit den heutigen Möglichkeiten des Computereinsatzes zu erfüllen, doch müssen die lexikografischen Prozesse entsprechend geplant werden. Vor allem die Frage der Strukturierung und Aufbereitung der lexikografischen Daten muss sorgfältig überlegt sein, denn hierbei wird der Grundstein dafür gelegt, wie flexibel auf die Daten zugegriffen werden kann und wie unterschiedlich darstellbar sie sind. Für einen inhaltlich wie gestalterisch möglichst flexiblen Umgang mit lexikografischen Daten ist daher eine bestimmte Form der Datenmodellierung und -auszeichnung erforderlich. Das Stichwort, das in diesem Zusammenhang immer wieder fällt, ist das der medienneutralen Datenhaltung. Doch wie müssen lexikografische Daten ausgezeichnet werden, damit diese Kodierung losgelöst von den Eigenschaften einer bestimmten Präsentation ist? Welche Richtlinien können hier projektübergreifend angewandt werden? Die moderne Wörterbuchforschung gibt darauf noch keine hinreichenden Antworten. Vor allem fehlen klare, theoretisch fundierte und intersubjektiv nachvollziehbare Richtlinien für die maßgeschneiderte Modellierung lexikografischer Daten. Denn oft ist es in lexikografischen Projekten nicht möglich, eine Standard-Modellierung wie die TEI2 oder leXeML3 anzuwenden, da diese kein ausreichend granulares und maßgeschneidertes Modellierungsinventar bieten, um die lexikografischen Daten später sehr flexibel darstellen zu können und verschiedenartige Zugriffsstrukturen zu bieten. Doch auch bei der Entwicklung einer maßgeschneiderten Modellierung ist es wichtig, einen klaren Leitfaden für die Datenmodellierung zu haben, um nicht bei jedem Phänomen neu entscheiden zu müssen, wie die Modellierung aussehen soll. Ziel dieses Aufsatzes ist es daher, ein Konzept vorzustellen, welche Eigenschaften lexikografischer Daten Gegenstand für eine Modellierung einer lexikografischen Datenbasis sein sollen, wie eine solche Modellierung aussehen kann und schließlich auch, welche Folgen diese Art der Modellierung für die lexikografische Praxis hat. Ein wichtiger Teil dieses Konzepts der Inhaltsstrukturen ist dabei auch die Entwicklung und Ausgestaltung einer eigenen Terminologie; auch in Abgrenzung zu Wiegands Konzept der Mikrostrukturen (vgl. Abschnitt 5).
Dealing with alternatives
(2006)
Traditionally, pure additive particles and scalar additive particles are both characterized by an existential presupposition. They differ insofar as the set of alternatives that is built is unordered for the former, and ordered for the latter, which carry the so-called scalar presupposition. As a result, the two characterisations cannot be cumulated, an impossibility that is at odds with the fact that several languages exhibit this combination of readings for a single item. The discussion of Italian neanche '(n)either/(not) even', an item that can both be additive and scalar, allows us to expose the connection between the oppositions non-ordered vs ordered set of alternatives and verified vs accommodated existential presupposition by adding content to the traditional view that the set of alternatives is made up of 'relevant' items in the context. The question of how to characterise this item is set against the backdrop of a more general discussion of the network of additive particles found in Italian.
In this paper we will develop a formal conceptual model of how the path in a motion situation interacts with the semantic analysis of so called 'motion shape verbs' like 'wackeln' ('wobble'), a subclass of the so called 'manner of motion verbs'. Central to this model will be the distinction between two concepts of motion: translational motion and nontranslational motion, which has no inherent translational component but puts emphasis on describing specific Motion Shape Patterns. We will define and algorithmically describe a theory of Path Shape Decomposition that aims at algorithmically deriving the translational vs. nontranslational distinction from the shape of the path. To account for object internal motion, we additionally introduce Bounding Box encapsulation, which yields a topological division of inner and outer movement. Finally we demonstrate how the outcome of such a technical decomposition can be used in modelling a Path Superimposition scenario like 'Peter wackelt über die Straße'.
Decomposing questions acts
(2006)
Die Erzählfähigkeit eines zweisprachig aufwachsenden Geschwisterpaares: eine exemplarische Analyse
(2006)
This paper describes the ability of German-Portuguese bilingual siblings to narrate in German. The paper deals with the underlying theory of 'Functional Pragmatics' and describes within this theory the complex verbal pattern of narration in everyday life. In order to do this, a selected corpus will be analysed focussing on the conditions and characteristics of narration.
Using a qualitative analysis of disagreements from a referentially annotated newspaper corpus, we show that, in coreference annotation, vague referents are prone to greater disagreement. We show how potentially problematic cases can be dealt with in a way that is practical even for larger-scale annotation, considering a real-world example from newspaper text.
Dog after dog revisited
(2006)
This paper presents a compositional semantic analysis of pluractional adverbial modifiers like 'dog after dog' and 'one dog after the other'. We propose a division of labour according to which much of the semantics is carried by a family of plural operators. The adverbial itself contributes a semantics that we call pseudoreciprocal.
Languages cross-linguistically differ with respect to whether they accept or ban True Negative Imperatives (TNIs). In this paper I show that this ban follows from three generally accepted assumptions: (i) the fact that the operator that encodes the illocutionary force of an imperative universally takes scope from C°; (ii) the fact that this operator may not be operated on by a negative operator and (iii) the Head Movement Constraint (an instance of Relativized Minimality). In my paper I argue that languages differ too with respect to both the syntactic status (head/phrasal) and the semantic value (negative/non-negative) of their negative markers. Given these difference across languages and the analysis of TNIs based on the three above mentioned assumptions, two typological generalisations can be predicted: (i) every language with an overt negative marker X° that is semantically negative bans TNIs; and (ii) every language that bans TNIs exhibits an overt negative marker X°. I demonstrate in my paper that both typological predictions are born out.
This paper investigates what factors make a particular referent a good antecedent for subsequent pronominal reference. In particular, it explores two seemingly conflicting claims in the literature regarding the effects of topicality and focusing on referent salience. In light of new experimental results combined with a review of existing work, I conclude that neither topicality nor focusing alone can explain referent salience as indicated by patterns of pronoun reference. Rather, the data provide support for a multiple-factor model of salience (e.g. Arnold 1999). More specifically, the results show that grammatical role has a striking effect: being a subject makes a referent more salient than either pronominalization/givenness or focusing alone. Furthermore, the results of the experiment suggest that the likelihood of subsequent pronominal reference is also influenced by structural focusing and pronominalization, but not as strongly as by subjecthood. I argue that these data are best captured by a multiple-factor model in which factors differ in how influential they are relative to one another, i.e. how heavily weighted they are. A single-factor system does not seem adequate for these data.
Focus on verbal operators such as aspect or tense ("predication focus", lucidly described by Hyman & Watters (1984) under the label "auxiliary focus") has been noticed to exist in African languages of Afroasiatic and Niger-Congo affiliation, but not so far in Saharan. The Saharan language Kanuri is assumed to have substantially reorganized its TAM system, particularly in the perfective aspect domain (Cyffer [2006] dates major changes between the years 1820 and 1900). The paper discusses, for the first time in Kanuri scholarship, the existence of a neat subsystem of predication focus marking by suffix in the perfective aspect which is made up of a total of six conjugational paradigms that uniformly encode predication focus by suffix {-ò}. Kanuri dialects differ in strategies and scope of focus marking encoded in verb morphology. In the light of data from the Yerwa (Nigeria) and Manga (Niger) dialects the paper discusses some "anomalies" with regard to general focus theory which we account for by describing the "Kanuri Focus Shift" as a diachronic process which is responsible for leftward displacement of scope of focus.
Die Hauptthese dieser Dissertation ist, dass Nord-Sotho keinen obligatorischen Gebrauch von grammatischen Mitteln zur Markierung von Fokus macht, weder in der Syntax noch in der Prosodie oder Morphologie. Trotzdem strukturiert diese Sprache eine Äußerung nach informationsstrukturellen Aspekten. Konstituenten, die im Diskurs gegeben sind, werden entweder getilgt, pronominalisiert oder an den rechten oder linken Satzrand versetzt. Diese (morpho-)syntaktischen Prozesse wirken so zusammen, dass die fokussierte Konstituente oft final in ihrem Teilsatz erscheint. Obwohl die finale Position keine designierte Fokusposition ist, ist das Wissen um diese Tendenz doch entscheidend für das Verständnis einer morphologischen Alternation, die in Nord-Sotho am Verb erscheint und die in der Literatur im Zusammenhang mit Fokus diskutiert wurde.
Obwohl also ein direkter grammatischer Ausdruck von formaler F(okus)-Markierung im Nord-Sotho fehlt, ist F-Markierung trotzdem entscheidend für die Grammatik dieser Sprache: Fokussierte logische Subjekte können nicht in kanonischer präverbaler Position erscheinen. Sie erscheinen stattdessen entweder postverbal oder in einem Spaltsatz, abhängig von der Valenz des Verbs. Obwohl Nord-Sotho bei Objekten im Gebrauch von Spaltsätzen eine Korrespondenz von komplexer Form mit komplexer Bedeutung zeigt, gilt diese Korrespondenz nicht für logische Subjekte.
Die vorliegende Dissertation modelliert die oben genannten Ergebnisse im theoretischen Rahmen der Optimalitätstheorie (OT). Syntaktischer in situ Fokus und die Abwesenheit von prosodischer Fokusmarkierung können mit unkontroversen Beschränkungen erfasst werden. Für die Ungrammatikaliät fokussierter logischer Subjekte in präverbaler Position schlägt die vorliegende Arbeit die Modifizierung einer in der Literatur vorhandenen Beschränkung vor, die in Nord-Sotho von entscheidener Bedeutung ist. Die Form-Bedeutungs-Korrespondenz wird, wie andere Phänomene pragmatischer Arbeitsteilung auch, innerhalb der schwach bidirektionalen Optimalitätstheorie behandelt.
Many analyses of existential sentences have focused attention on determining which of its elements constitutes the logical subject and predicate, and this has proven to be a not uncontroversial topic of research. Some, from both syntactic and semantic points of view, have argued that there is a subject (cf. Williams 1994) others that it is a predicate (cf. Moro 1997). Similarly, some have argued that the associate NP is a logical subject, others that it is apredicate (Higginbotham 1987).
One logical possibility that has not (to my knowledge) been pursued in the linguistics literature is that these statements are not of the form subject-predicate, a possibility that has been taken up in the philosophical literature by P.F. Strawson (1959). He claims that there are such statements and that their form is simpler than that of subject-predicate statements because it does not, and cannot, involve an expression that makes reference to an individual. Not involving reference to an individual, these sentences are therefore are made true by different means than a subject-predicate statement whose truth, in the simplest cases, depends on the denotation of the subject being a member of the denotation of the predicate. Of interest from the point of view of the present discussion is his claim that existential statements are examples of this kind of statement, which he calls a feature-placing statement. The truth of a statement of the form feature-placer requires that something with the set of features denoted by the associate NP exist at the location or coordinates expressed by the placer. In an existential sentence we can take the associate NP as the feature-denoting expression and the coda-XP as the placer.
In our presentation we will outline the verb system of Lelemi and concentrate on certain “focal” aspects which are of primary interest to us. Lelemi has two TAMP paradigms: one constituting the so-called “simple tenses”, the other the so-called “relative tenses” (Allan 1973), although not every “simple tense” has a counterpart in the “relative tenses”. The simple paradigm is formed by subject prefixes (prefixed pronouns for 1st or 2nd person and noun class pronouns for 3rd persons) and the verb form whereas the relative paradigm is build up by the obligatory use of an external subject noun, an invariable verb prefix, and the verb form. While the simple paradigm is used in quite a lot of syntactic environments the relative paradigm only shows up in relative clauses with the subject being the head as well as in subject and sentence focus constructions including questions concerning the subject. We will show some interesting interactions between the grammatical expression of focus and the verb system and sketch the grammaticalisation path of the morpheme nà.
Focus and tone
(2006)
Tone is a distinctive feature of the lexemes in tone languages. The information-structural category focus is usually marked by syntactic and morphological means in these languages, but sometimes also by intonation strategies. In intonation languages, focus is marked by pitch movements, which are also perceived as tone. The present article discusses prosodic focus marking in these two language types.
Focus expressions in Foodo
(2006)