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This paper aims to work toward a proper understanding of the role of preverbal ge- in Old English (henceforth OE) and its disappearance in the course of Middle English. This prefix is reminiscent of its cognates in Modern German and Dutch (also written ge-) in its distribution, but even a cursory examination of the details reveals it to be quite distinct, as we will see. The proper characterization of that distribution, and of its diachronic development, has proven to be extremely difficult. I have thus carried out a large-scale corpus study using the York-Toronto-Helsinki parsed corpus of Old English prose (Taylor et al. 2003) and the Penn-Helsinki parsed corpus of Middle English, 2nd ed. (Kroch & Taylor 1999). This paper will report the results of the first phase of the project, involving patterns in the data that could be identified primarily on the basis of automatic searches in the corpora.
In this paper, we will argue for a novel analysis of the auxiliary alternation in Early English, its development and subsequent loss which has broader consequences for the way that auxiliary selection is looked at cross-linguistically. We will present evidence that the choice of auxiliaries accompanying past participles in Early English differed in several significant respects from that in the familiar modern European languages. Specifically, while the construction with have became a full-fledged perfect by some time in the ME period, that with be was actually a stative resultative, which it remained until it was lost. We will show that this accounts for some otherwise surprising restrictions on the distribution of BE in Early English and allows a better understanding of the spread of HAVE through late ME and EModE. Perhaps more importantly, the Early English facts also provide insight into the genesis of the kind of auxiliary selection found in German, Dutch and Italian. Our analysis of them furthermore suggests a promising strategy for explaining cross-linguistic variation in auxiliary selection in terms of variation in the syntactico-semantic structure of the perfect. In this introductory section, we will first provide some background on the historical situation we will be discussing, then we will lay out the main claims for which we will be arguing in the paper.
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 the course of the ME period, HAVE began to encroach on territory previously held by BE. According to Rydén and Brorström (1987); Kytö (1997), this occurred especially in iterative and durational contexts, in the perfect infinitive and modal constructions. In Early Modern English (henceforth EModE), BE was increasingly restricted to the most common intransitives come and go, before disappearing entirely in the 18th and 19th centuries. This development raises a number of questions, both historical and theoretical. First, why did HAVE start spreading at the expense of BE in the first place? Second, why was the change conditioned by the factors mentioned by Rydén and Brorström (1987) and Kytö (1997)? Third, why did the change take on the order of 800 years to go to completion? Fourth, what implications does the change have for general theories of auxiliary selection? In this paper we’ll try to answer the first question by focusing on one the earliest clearly identifiable advance of HAVE onto BE territory – its first appearance with the verb come, which for a number of reasons is an ideal verb to focus on. First, come is by far the most common intransitive verb, so we get large enough numbers for statistical analysis. Second, clauses containing the past participle of come with a form of BE are unambiguous perfects: they cannot be passives, and they did not continue into modern English with a stative reading like he is gone. Third, and perhaps most importantly, come selected BE categorically in the early stages of English, so the first examples we find with HAVE are clear evidence for innovation. We will present evidence from a corpus study showing that the first spread of HAVE was due to a ban on auxiliary BE in certain types of counterfactual perfects, and will propose an account for that ban in terms of Iatridou’s (2000) Exclusion theory of counterfactuals.
This paper examines the development of periphrastic constructions involving auxiliary "have" and "be" with a past participle in the history of English, on the basis of parsed electronic corpora. It is argued that the two constructions represented distinct syntactic and semantic structures: while the one with have developed into a true perfect in the course of Middle English, the one with be remained a stative resultative throughout its history. In this way, it is explained why the be construction was rarely or never used in a number of contexts, including past counterfactuals, iteratives, duratives, certain kinds of infinitives and various other utterance types that cannot be characterized as perfects of result. When the construction with have became a true perfect, it was used in such contexts, regardless of the identity of the main verb, leading to the appearance of have with verbs like come which had previously only taken be. Crucially, however, have was not spreading at the expense of be, as the be perfect had never been used in such contexts, but rather at the expense of the old simple past. At least until the end of the Early Modern English period, the shift in the relative frequency of have and be perfects is to be explained in terms of the expansion of the former into new contexts, while the latter remained stable. A formal analysis is proposed, taking as its starting point a comparison with German which shows that the older English be perfect indeed behaves more like the German stative passive than its haben and sein perfects.
This paper focuses on restrictions on the ordering of internal constituents of noun phrases in Chichewa, especially when those constituents are discontinuous. The motivation for discontinuity of the NP constituents will be given, together with discussion of constructions that can be subsumed under this rubric but that do not really involve discontinuity in the canonical sense. These are constructions where a topic NP in a left periphery position is either linked anaphorically with a modifier "remnant" or semantically with its hyponym in post-verbal position. According to Guthrie's classification of Bantu languages, Chichewa is placed in zone N unit N31. It is regarded as a dialect of Nyanja, classified as belonging to unit N30 (Guthrie 1967-71).
Chicheŵa, a Bantu language of East Central Africa, displays mixed properties of configurationality such as the existence of VP, on the one hand, and discontinuous constituents (DCs), on the other. In the present work we examine the discourse and syntactic properties of DCs, and show that DCs in Chicheŵa arise naturally from the discourse-configurational nature of the language. We argue that the fronted DCs in Chicheŵa are contrastive topics that appear in a leftdislocated external topic position, with the remnant part of the split NP in the right-dislocated topic position. Once the precise discourse functions of DCs are properly integrated into the syntactic analysis, all the facts and restrictions observed in Chicheŵa DCs can be explained in a straightforward fashion.
While the perilinguistic child is endowed with predispositions for the categorical perception of phonetic features, their adaptation to the native language results from a long evolution from the end of the first year of age up to the adolescence. This evolution entails both a better discrimination between phonological categories, a concomitant reduction of the discrimination between within-category variants, and a higher precision of perceptual boundaries between categories. The first objective of the present study was to assess the relative importance of these modifications by comparing the perceptual performances of a group of 11 children, aged from 8 to 11 years, with those of their mothers. Our second objective was to explore the functional implications of categorical perception by comparing the performances of a group of 8 deaf children, equipped with a cochlear implant, with normal-hearing chronological age controls. The results showed that the categorical boundary was slightly more precise and that categorical perception was consistently larger in adults vs. normal-hearing children. Those among the deaf children who were able to discriminate minimal distinctions between syllables displayed categorical perception performances equivalent to those of normal-hearing controls. In conclusion, the late effect of age on the categorical perception of speech seems to be anchored in a fairly mature phonological system, as evidenced the fairly high precision of categorical boundaries in pre-adolescents. These late developments have functional implications for speech perception in difficult conditions as suggested by the relationship between categorical perception and speech intelligibility in cochlear implant children.
In dyadic communication, both interlocutors adapt to each other linguistically, that is, they align interpersonally. In this article, we develop a framework for modeling interpersonal alignment in terms of the structural similarity of the interlocutors’ dialog lexica. This is done by means of so-called two-layer time-aligned network series, that is, a time-adjusted graph model. The graph model is partitioned into two layers, so that the interlocutors’ lexica are captured as subgraphs of an encompassing dialog graph. Each constituent network of the series is updated utterance-wise. Thus, both the inherent bipartition of dyadic conversations and their gradual development are modeled. The notion of alignment is then operationalized within a quantitative model of structure formation based on the mutual information of the subgraphs that represent the interlocutor’s dialog lexica. By adapting and further developing several models of complex network theory, we show that dialog lexica evolve as a novel class of graphs that have not been considered before in the area of complex (linguistic) networks. Additionally, we show that our framework allows for classifying dialogs according to their alignment status. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first approach to measuring alignment in communication that explores the similarities of graph-like cognitive representations. Keywords: alignment in communication; structural coupling; linguistic networks; graph distance measures; mutual information of graphs; quantitative network analysis
Bulgarian belongs to the South Slavic language group but exhibits specific linguistic features shared with the non-Slavic languages of the Balkan Sprachbund. In this paper, we discuss linguistic and cultural aspects relevant for the Bulgarian adaptation of the revised English version of The Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (LITMUS-MAIN). We address typological properties of the verbal system pertaining to a differentiated aspectual system and to a paradigm of verbal forms for narratives grammaticalized as renarrative mood in Bulgarian. Further, we consider lexical, derivational and discourse cohesive means in contrast to the English markers of involvement and perspective taking in the MAIN stories.
In a similar way to dramatic performances and plays, song lyrics establish a complex discourse structure whereby listeners are placed in a position to overhear ‘the pretence of a conversation constructed to convey the performer’s meaning’ (Nahajec 2019: 25; see also Short 1996: 169). In Taylor Swift’s songwriting, listeners are positioned not only to eavesdrop on the narratives presented but are also invited to conceptualise and enact particular roles and scenarios in the discourse. This paper offers a stylistic analysis of songwriting and narrative structure across Swift’s oeuvre to identify how disnarration strategies are used to build stories in her two sister albums written and produced during the Covid-19 pandemic, folklore (2020) and evermore (2020). Specifically, this study examines how disnarration characterises the albums’ narrators, establishes narrator-narratee relationships and invites listeners to adopt a participatory role in the meaning-making process. Through close analysis of four songs across the two albums, this paper builds on developing studies of the stylistics of songwriting (see West 2019) and argues that disnarration strategies foreground particular themes within the discourse, such as nostalgia, wistfulness and regret, and contribute to the fictionalisation and self-aware storytelling characteristic of these albums’ storyworlds.
Wie formt sich die Sprache im Kopf? : Kognitive Linguistik: Sprache, Grammatik und die Wissenswelten
(2005)
Editorial preface
(2000)
The present issue grew out of two sources. The main one was the workshop on Adding and Omitting (A & 0) held during the DGfS Conference organized in Konstanz at the beginning of 1999 by our ZAS project on Syntax der Fokusbildung. The purpose of the workshop was to bring together people working on topicalization (addition of expressions, in a sense) and ellipsis (omission, i.e. deletion of linguistic material) and their relations and interaction. Since the workshop was very successful and met with a great deal of interest on the part of both participants and outsiders, we decided to collect and publish the papers that were presented. Towards the end of 1999, a follow-up workshop on Ellipsis and Information Structure was organized by Kerstin Schwabe and Susanne Winkler (Tübingen). The papers given at this second meeting were supposed to be an integral part of the publication as well. More and more people got involved, further developing our common understanding of the topic phenomenon, so that there was too much material for a single volume. We therefore decided to split the enterprise into two volumes. The ellipsis papers are to be published by 'Benjamins' this year in Interpreting Omitted Structures.
'Je-desto'-Sätze scheinen in struktureller Hinsicht Einzelgänger zu sein. Das Ungewöhnliche ist, dass sie wie eine obligatorische Verb-dritt-Konstruktion daherkommen: An erster Stelle steht scheinbar der durch je eingeleitete Nebensatz im linken Außenfeld bzw. Vor-vor-Feld, dann folgt die desto-Konstituente, die das Vorfeld einnimmt, und dann an dritter Stelle das finite Verb des Matrixsatzes. Angesichts der Semantik der involvierten Konstituenten ist diese Strukturbeschreibung ungewöhnlich und widerspricht plausiblen Erwartungen. Der Aufsatz bietet eine Analyse, nach der der 'je'-Satz und die 'desto'-Konstituente zusammen eine komplexe Konstituente bilden, die eine einzige, ganz reguläre Einheit konstituiert, was bedeutet, dass der Gesamtsatz eine ziemlich reguläre Verb-zweit-Struktur ist.
Das im vorliegenden Artikel untersuchte Phänomen im Deutschen ist in der Literatur bisher quasi unentdeckt geblieben. Die einzige Ausnahme bildet der Beitrag von Berg (2008). Die Beobachtung ist folgende: Unter bestimmten Bedingungen, die mit Emphase zu tun haben, kann die lexikalisch festgelegte Betonung, also der Wortakzent, verschoben werden. Im Normalfall betrifft dieser Prozess nicht-native lexikalische Einheiten, denn die Akzentverschiebung passiert in der Regel von hinten nach vorn. Da deutsche Erbwörter initial-, also erstbetont, sind, ist das schwer möglich (jedoch s.u.). Fremdwörter, die auf den hinteren Silben betont sind, sind deshalb prädestiniert. Die meisten Beispiele kommen aus dem Bereich der Wortklasse Adjektiv: spektakulär, skandalös, sensationell, optimal, ideal, brutal, fulminant, perfekt, gigantisch. Im angedeuteten expressiven Gebrauch kann der Wortakzent von der letzten auf die erste Silbe wandern [...].
Interjeições e onomatopéias recebem pouca atenção dentro dos estudos lingüísticos, e gramáticas e dicionários freqüentemente restringem-se a apresentar uma definição estereotipada e alguns poucos exemplos. Desprezadas pela literatura tradicional, essas expressões encontram seu "habitat natural" nas histórias em quadrinhos, nas quais se tornam elementos imprescindíveis da linguagem própria desse gênero textual. Este breve experimento sobre interjeições e onomatopéias presentes em mangás (histórias em quadrinhos japonesas) traduzidos para alemão e português mostra que, embora haja padrões fonéticos básicos comuns de acordo com o que representam (riso, passos etc.), as interjeições e onomatopéias da amostra diferem muito em ambas as línguas, o que ressalta sua condição de signos lingüísticos, mesmo que diferenciados em relação aos demais elementos do léxico.
At the same time that language is fundamental for establishing and maintaining social-cultural groups, it is also influenced by them to the extent that a number of social-cultural conventions are unconsciously mirrored in their members’ linguistic manifestations. Different expectations regarding conversational style in interactions between speakers from different cultural groups can lead to misunderstandings, conflicts or even to the creation and perpetuation of stereotypes. This paper will present some examples and considerations of conversational style and interculturality in general and about conversational style in German and Brazil in particular.
Syntactic negation and particularly the position of the negative particle 'nicht' are challenging themes not only for learners of German as a foreign language, but also for teachers and researchers of the grammar of German. This paper gives an overview of recent studies related to negation in Modern German. In its main part, it presents results of empirical research on the relationship between syntax and prosody in the field of negation.
Rezension zu Elke Hentschel, Negation und Interrogation. Studien zur Universalität ihrer Funktion. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag 1998 (Reihe Germanistische Linguistik 195, ix + 250 S., 112,00 DM, ISBN 3-484-31195-9)
This paper presents results of research into syntactic negation in both German and Brazilian Portuguese dialogues. After some considerations on the nature of negation, its occurrence in a corpus is investigated based on semantic negation categories established from works by Polenz and Engel. Based on Ilari's works, possible syntactic negation forms are presented as formulae that express the relationships between their components. Use frequency of syntactic negation in the semantic categories in each language is presented, as well as possible sources of interference in the use of such elements by foreign speakers, along with considerations about negation, culture and language.
Sprache ist der Grundstein in der Bildung und im Zusammenhalt soziokultureller Gruppen. Jedoch wird sie auch so von der Gruppe beeinflusst, dass sich verschiedene soziokulturelle Konventionen unbewusst in den sprachlichen Beiträgen von Mitgliedern solcher Gruppen widerspiegeln. Bei Interaktionen zwischen Sprechern verschiedener Kulturen können Unstimmigkeiten der Erwartungen in Bezug auf den Konversationsstil zu Missverständnissen führen, sowie zu Konflikten und sogar zur Bildung bzw. Verstärkung von Stereotypen. Ziel dieses Aufsatzes ist, einige Beispiele und Überlegungen bezüglich der Beziehung zwischen Konversationsstil und Interkulturalität in Anlehnung an den Ausdruck von Dissens zu präsentieren.
An important role in the coherence of texts is played by the distribution of information in the sentence. The present paper especially examines the beginning of sentences (topics). Which syntactic elements are most adequate to initiate a sentence, and which of their characteristics can be considered responsible for this? After a short review of the pertinent literature, we shall present grammatical, semantic and pragmatic factors that organize topicalization. The point of departure are the patterns of basic serialization as defined by the grammar. Deviations of these patterns can particularly be a result of the principle of known information. In addition to this constitutive principle, we can distinguish five regulative principles that lead to non-marked topicalizations (situation, empathy, iconicity, lengthening terms, text connection). In the closing sections, the positioning of phrasal accents and some special types of topics will be discussed. All the examples given are from modem German.
This article combines a brief introduction into a particular philosophical theory of "time" with a demonstration of how this theory has been implemented in a Literary Studies oriented Humanities Computing project. The aim of the project was to create a model of text-based time cognition and design customized markup and text analysis tools that help to understand ‘‘how time works’’: more precisely, how narratively organised and communicated information motivates readers to generate the mental image of a chronologically organized world. The approach presented is based on the unitary model of time originally proposed by McTaggart, who distinguished between two perspectives onto time, the so-called A- and B-series. The first step towards a functional Humanities Computing implementation of this theoretical approach was the development of TempusMarker—a software tool providing automatic and semi-automatic markup routines for the tagging of temporal expressions in natural language texts. In the second step we discuss the principals underlying TempusParser—an analytical tool that can reconstruct temporal order in events by way of an algorithm-driven process of analysis and recombination of textual segments during which the "time stamp" of each segment as indicated by the temporal tags is interpreted.
Seit einiger Zeit ist zu beobachten, dass zu dem Handwerkszeug eines DaF-Lerners […] nicht mehr Grammatiken und Wörterbücher im klassischen Sinne gehören. Das Nachschlagen in Printwerken wird auf allen Stufen und für alle Benutzersituationen durch die Konsultation in den unterschiedlichsten über Internet frei zugänglichen Materialien ersetzt. […] So scheint es, dass gerade im DaF-Bereich die Printnachschlagewerke bald schon zu einem Relikt anderer Zeiten angehören werden. Aber genauso wie für die Benutzung von Printwörterbüchern, benötigt der DaF-Lerner durch die ganz neu entstehenden online-Nachschlagetechniken (Engelberg/Lemnitzer 2009, 111) genügend Information und Schulung, um für seine jeweilige Benutzersituation in dem dafür am besten geeigneten Konsultationssystem die jeweils adäquateste Rechercheoption auszuwählen. […] Das gilt gleichermaßen für Print- wie für Onlineressourcen, wobei allerdings gerade bei Internetwörterbüchern bei der Suchanfrage das Risiko des Orientierungsverlustes („lost in hyperspace“) verstärkt auftreten kann (cfr. Haß/Schmitz 2010, 4). Es ist daher Aufgabe der Lehrenden, die entsprechende Orientierung und Hilfestellung zu leisten. Leider ist zu bemerken, dass im DaF-Bereich die nötige lexikographische Kompetenz nicht genügend vermittelt wird, was nicht zuletzt oft an der mangelnden lexikographischen Vorbildung der DaF-Lehrer liegt. Ziel des Beitrages ist es daher, einige Internetwörterbücher (IWB) mit freiem Zugang für die Deutsche Sprache in groben Zügen vorzustellen und für ihren Nutzen in unterschiedliche Benutzersituationen im Bereich DaF zu kommentieren, um dem DaF-Lerner und Lehrer die Auswahl aus dem inzwischen recht unübersichtlichen Angebot für seine jeweiligen Bedürfnisse zu erleichtern. In Anlehnung an die vorgeschlagenen Kriterien von Engelberg/Lemnitzer (42009, 220ff.), Storrer (2010) und das Evaluationsraster zur Beurteilung von online-WB von Kemmer (2010) sollen verschiedene aktuelle IWB der deutschen Gegenwartssprache beurteilt werden. Zur Wörterbuch-Typologisierung orientiere ich mich an den Vorschlägen von Engelberg/Lemnitzer (42009), beschränke aber in diesem Rahmen den Gegenstandsbereich auf zweisprachige IWB, spezifische einsprachige DaF-IWB und einige modularisierte allgemeinsprachige Wörterbuchportale, in denen verschiedene IWB miteinander verlinkt sind.
The process of turning a hand-written HPSG theory into a working computational grammar requires complex considerations. Two leading platforms are available for implementing HPSG grammars: The LKB and TRALE. These platforms are based on different approaches, distinct in their underlying logics and implementation details. This paper adopts the perspective of a computational linguist whose goal is to implement an HPSG theory. It focuses on ten different dimensions, relevant to HPSG grammar implementation, and examines, compares, and evaluates the different means which the two approaches provide for implementing them. The paper concludes that the approaches occupy opposite positions on two axes: faithfulness to the hand-written theory and computational accessibility. The choice between them depends largely on the grammar writer's preferences regarding those properties.
Iz kajkavske frazeologije
(2011)
U radu se proučava kajkavska frazeologija na temelju prikupljanja kajkavskih, čakavskih i štokavskih frazema u stotinjak hrvatskih punktova prema posebno izrađenim upitnicima i u slobodnom razgovoru s ispitanicima u sklopu rada na projektu Istraživanje hrvatske dijalektne frazeologije i u suradnji s nekoliko generacija studenata Kroatistike Filozofskog fakulteta u Zagrebu.
Some kind of relative clause
(2018)
Amount Relatives (ARs) differ from restrictive relative clauses in that they do not refer to a particular object denoted by the head of the relative clause, but to an amount of such objects (Carlson, 1977a; Heim, 1987). Traditionally, ARs have been regarded as degree expressions.
In this paper I argue against this view and propose instead that amount interpretations of relative clauses are in fact a special case of kind interpretation.
The article is based on an empirical study on the development of textual competence of Bulgarian pupils. It is focussed on stories, written by pupils aged 14 to 17 years with different competence and knowledge in German as a foreign language. The authors can show that the length of the sentences rises by the age of the pupils. The complexity of the sentences grows with the increasing level of linguistic security. Further, it is probable that the text size depends on age and sex. The results also reveal the low efficiency of teaching German at primary school. Finally, it can be concluded that creative writing represents a useful method for testing textual competence in foreign language teaching.
Some requirements for a VERBMOBIL system capable of processing Japanese dialogue input have been explored. Based on a pilot study in the VERBMOBIL domain, dialogues between 2 participants and a professional Japanese interpreter have been analyzed with respect to a very typical and frequent feature: zero pronouns. Zero pronouns in Japanese texts or dialogues as well as overt pronouns in English texts or dialogues are an important element of discourse coherence. As to translation, this difference in the use of pronouns is a case of translation mismatch: information not explicitly expressed in the source language is needed in the target language. (Verb argument positions, normally obligatory in English, are rather frequently omitted in Japanese. Furthermore, verbs in Japanese are not marked with respect to features necessary for pronoun selection in English.)
This paper challenges the assumption that the nature of apparent word order and verb form irregularities in the German verbal complex is that of an irreducible cluster of idiosyncrasies surrounding an exceptional word order possibility. I discuss two lesser known sets of data which raise serious problems for the traditional 'idiosyncrasy-based' analysis. I conclude that the verbs in the upper-field are exceptional in a 'deeper' sense, in that they do not construct as ordinary syntactic heads. Instead they seem to behave more like functional elements as characterized by Abney (1987). On the basis of such a revised syntactic analysis most of the unexpected word order and verb form irregularities resurface as related regular properties.
Fronting of an infinite VP across a finite main verb - akin to German "VP-topicalization" - can be found also in Czech and Polish. The paper discusses evidence from large corpora for this process and some of its properties, both syntactic and information-structural. Based on this case, criteria for more user-friedly searching and retrieval of corpus data in syntactic research are being developed.
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 has been hypothesized that sounds which are less perceptible are more likely to be altered than more salient sounds, the rationale being that the loss of information resulting from a change in a sound which is difficult to perceive is not as great as the loss resulting from a change in a more salient sound. Kohler (1990) suggested that the tendency to reduce articulatory movements is countered by perceptual and social constraints, finding that fricatives are relatively resistant to reduction in colloquial German. Kohler hypothesized that this is due to the perceptual salience of fricatives, a hypothesis which was supported by the results of a perception experiment by Hura, Lindblom, and Diehl (1992). These studies showed that the relative salience of speech sounds is relevant to explaining phonological behavior. An additional factor is the impact of different acoustic environments on the perceptibility of speech sounds. Steriade (1997) found that voicing contrasts are more common in positions where more cues to voicing are available. The P-map, proposed by Steriade (2001a, b), allows the representation of varying salience of segments in different contexts. Many researchers have posited a relationship between speech perception and phonology. The purpose of this paper is to provide experimental evidence for this relationship, drawing on the case of Turkish /h/ deletion.
This paper describes in detail the development of the Polish version of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (LITMUS-MAIN). We first describe its two earlier versions, the unpublished version and the published version, developed in 2012, as well as the revised version. We also justify the differences between the unpublished Polish version developed in 2012 and the original MAIN. Then we summarize the results from studies that used the unpublished version of the Polish MAIN. We end with outlining a study that could be conducted to compare the two slightly different procedures in order to examine whether the results obtained with MAIN are resistant to changes in the procedure details.
Abrupt switches between different tenses (past-to-present, present-to-past) are known from oral narratives and medieval literature in Romance languages, but there is little consensus about their function and interpretation. In this study, we combine corpus-linguistic tools with experimental methods and quantitative analysis to shed light on the use of tense switches in a medieval Icelandic prose text (Hrafnkels saga freysgoða). Specifically, we part-of-speech tagged all words in Hrafnkels saga freysgoða and then determined where verbs exhibit tense switches. In a second step, we had 19 subjects mark all parts in the saga they consider climactic so as to study the overall as well as subject-specific correlations between climaxness and tense switches. In the vast majority of subjects, we observe the expected correlation, and for most of these it is significant. We discuss the findings with regard to their implications for tense switching as a performative device and the position of sagas on an orality-literacy continuum.
U radu se analizira fonološko nazivlje koje se upotrebljava u pravopisima kojima je Klaić bio autor. Nazivlje se uspoređuje s fonološkim nazivljem koje se upotrebljavalo u pravopisima koji su prethodili Klaićevim i u onima koji su napisani nakon Klaićevih. Posebna je pozornost posvećena problemu glasovnih promjena. Utvrđuje se koje se glasovne promjene spominju, koji se nazivi upotrebljavaju te kako se one definiraju.
U radu se razmatraju strukturna svojstva i distribucija parentetičkih izraza s glagolima govorenja u hrvatskome jeziku. Noseći izraz u koji je umetnut parentetički izraz s glagolom govorenja najčešće je rečenica, a znatno rjeđe koja druga sintaktička skupina. Distribucija je parentetičkoga izraza pritom prilično slobodna. Smještanje parentetičkoga izraza obično poštuje granice maksimalnih projekcija. Iskazi koji sadrže parentetičke izraze s glagolima govorenja mogu se semantički podijeliti u dvije skupine, na one usmjerene prema govorniku i one usmjerene prema subjektu. Čimbenici su koji u hrvatskom jeziku određuju je li iskaz usmjeren prema govorniku ili prema subjektu: smjer pronominalizacije, inverzija subjekta i predikata, različito ponašanje u dosegu niječnice i različita intonacija. Da parentetički izrazi tvore s nosećim izrazom jednu sintaktičku cjelinu potvrđuje, osim utjecaja dosega niječnice, i asimetrija u odnosu zamjenica i kvantifikatora te sličnosti takvih iskaza s posebnim pitanjima, odnosno s wh-pomicanjem: fakultativnost inverzije subjekta i predikata uvjetovana pragmatičkim čimbenicima, dalekometna ovisnost te slično ponašanje glede otočnih ograničenja. Heterogeno ponašanje dviju vrsta iskaza upućuje na to da vjerojatno imaju različitu unutarnju strukturu. Autor zaključuje da razlika nije u tome kako je parentetički izraz uklopljen (spojen) u noseći izraz, nego samo u unutarnjoj strukturi parentetičkoga izraza. U iskazima usmjerenim prema subjektu na mjestu objekta parentetičkoga glagola spojena je kopija nosećega izraza, a u onima koji su usmjereni prema govorniku na tom je položaju samo prazni operator OP koji je pomaknut na položaj specifikatora i koindeksiran s nosećim izrazom. Budući da za primjere usmjerene prema subjektu nije prikladan opis s pomoću operacije pomakni, autor kao alternativu predlaže pretpostavku da je riječ o eliptičnim iskazima u kojima je poništena dopumbena rečenica parentetičkoga glagola koja je identična nosećemu izrazu.
This article investigates the influence of tense and aspect on the choice of verb forms in texts written by Russian-speaking learners of German. Through eight written narrations, each produced by advanced learners of German with L1-Russian and German native speakers, the use of verb forms and relevant linguistic means (perfect markers, temporal adverbs and temporal clauses) was compared and analysed.
The study shows that even very advanced Russian-speaking learners of German could not meet target language preferences in German. They tended to deploy a different temporal perspective than German native speakers (simple past instead of present tense) and they also showed an overuse of the perfect tense, especially when describing completed actions. These differences compared to the preferences of German native speakers can be explained as transfer effects from the L1 of Russian-speaking learners since – unlike in German – the grammatical aspect in Russian is obligatory and its perfective form offers an effective tool to express completeness.
This article explores the uses and functions of dialogue in Frank McCourt’s memoir Angela’s Ashes. Taking conversational dialogue and fictional dialogue as points of comparison, the article argues that dialogue in autobiographical writing is essentially constructed, albeit not in the same way as fictional dialogue is. Dialogue as a means of dramatisation raises questions regarding factuality and fictionality. In McCourt’s memoir, dialogue is shown to serve numerous functions: characterisation and stereotyping; selfpositioning and indirect stance-marking; the creation of verisimilitude, humour and reader involvement.
The phenomenon discussed in this paper is the so-called expletive negation in negated yes/no questions in Serbo-Croatian. The term expletive negation seems, at this point to be a useful descriptive term for the phenomenon in question. One of the goals of this paper, however, is to show that it is not the correct one. Proposing the existence of semantically vacuous negation is the consequence of the assumption that sentential negation has a fixed position in the clausal hierarchy (Brown and Franks 1995). This approach cannot account for the relevant data in Serbo-Croatian. My claim is that the cases under consideration involve an alternative position of NegP in Serbo-Croatian, above TP. It is confined to the derivation of one semantic type of negated yes/no interrogatives, and it cannot trigger negative concord.
In this paper I will discuss the formation of different types of yes/no questions in Serbian (examples in (1)), focusing on the syntactically and semantically puzzling example (1d), which involves the negative auxiliary inversion. Although there is a negative marker on the fronted auxiliary, the construction does not involve sentential negation. This coincides with the fact that the negative quantifying NPIs cannot be licensed. The question formation and sentential negation have similar syntactic effects cross-linguistically. This has led to various attempts to formulate a unifying syntactic account of the phenomena (ever since Klima 1964). One striking fact about the two syntactic contexts is that both license weak NPIs (Negative Polarity Items). It has been suggested (cf. Laka 1990, Culicover 1991) that the derivation of both interrogatives and negatives involves the same type of functional projection PolP (polarity phrase). One such account of the formation of negative interrogatives in Serbo- Croatian is offered by Progovac (2005). She proposes that there are two PolPs optionally cooccurring in the same clause, in which both positive and negative polarity items check their positive or negative features (following Haegeman and Zanuttini (1991) feature-checking account of negative structures, and the insights of Brown(1999) on the negation in Russian). On her account, the negative auxiliary question in (1d), is the case when both polarity phrases are present. The higher has [-pos +neg] features, and the lower one (below TP) is [-pos -neg]. Although her account correctly predicts the ungrammaticality of (2a) in contrast with (1c), it wrongly predicts the (2b) to be grammatical. I will argue that Progovac’s theory regarding the nature of the PolP is wrong. It employs both the binary feature valuation on the polarity head and the hierarchical ordering of the two polarity phrases, which eventually leads to overgeneration. On the account presented here the nature of the question marker (li vs zar) is highly relevant. Notice that (1b) and (1d) express presuppositions regarding the truth value of the propositions. In this way they contrast with (1a) and (1c). In addition, the type (1b) (with the question particle zar) can introduce both the positive and negative presupposition as shown in (3), which, semantically, makes this construction compatible with negative auxiliary questions in English (4a). The polarity items licensed in the relevant structures are also of the same type in both languages. The fronted-negative-auxiliary questions (1d) in Serbian are only possible with the particle li. In this case the presupposition is exclusively positive. The peculiar question/focus marking function of li (in Bulgarian and Russian) is well known. However, it is always assumed that its focus marking role is not relevant for the formation of yes/no questions. This I believe is not correct. The syntactic explanation of the interpretational facts points to the following: A) The possibility of the separate lexical encoding (particle zar) of the ‘rhetorical’ yes/no questions in Serbian allows the embedding of both positive and negated sentences, in which case the (weak) NPIs can remain in local relation with the negated verb. B) Recall that Serbian is an NC language, which requires local/c-command relation between the verbal negative marker and the NPI. With the negative inverted auxiliary questions this condition is not met, and the licensing of an n-word is not possible. C) The impossibility of licensing a weak NPI (i-words in the examples below) is due to the nature of the question marker li. (1) a. Da li je Vera videla ikoga / nekoga / *nikoga? DA Q aux Vera see.part.F.Sg anyone someone noone “Did Vera see anyone/someone/noone?” b. Zar je Vera videla ikoga / nekoga / *nikoga? ZAR aux Vera see.part.F.Sg anyone someone noone “Is it really the fact that Vera saw anyone/someone?” c. Je li Vera videla ikoga / nekoga /*nikoga? aux Q Vera see.part.F.Sg anyone someone noone “Did Vera see anyone/someone/noone?” d. Nije li Vera videla *ikoga / nekoga / *nikoga? neg+aux Q Vera see.part.F.Sg anyone someone noone “Didn’t Vera see someone?”/ “Vera saw someone, didn’t she?” (2) a. *Nije li Vera videla nikoga? neg+aux Q Vera see.part.F.Sg noone b. *Nije li Vera videla ikoga? neg+aux Q Vera see.part.F.Sg anyone (3) a. Zar je Vera videla nekoga / ikoga? ZAR aux Vera see.part.F.Sg someone/anyone b. Zar Vera nije videla nekoga/nikoga? ZAR Vera neg+aux see.part.F.Sg someone/anyone (4) a. Didn’t Vera (NOT) see someone/anyone? b. Vera saw someone, didn’t she?
Tema je ovoga rada raščlamba kategorije prijelaznosti u hrvatskim gramatikama. Pri raščlambi je proučen odnos subjekta i (auto)objekta. Prikazan je način na koji je prijelaznost opisana u gramatikama te su obrađena ova pitanja: Kako prijelazni glagoli mogu postati neprijelazni i što se događa s njihovim značenjem? Kako gramatike dijele glagole prema prijelaznosti? Kako se tumači neprava povratnost? Što znači da radnja proizlazi sama od sebe? Na koji je način moguća dodatna interpretacija prijelaznosti kod pravih povratnih glagola s obzirom na razine proučavanja?
Rezension zu Silvana Vranić: Govori sjeverozapadnoga makrosustava na otoku Pagu, 2. MORFOLOGIJA. Rijeka: Matica hrvatska Ogranak Novalja, Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Rijeci, 2011, 235 S.
U radu se opisuju posebnosti samoglasničkih, suglasničkih i naglasnih jezičnih značajka govora Medveje te se ističu neke jezične različitosti u odnosu na govor Kastva. Oba govora pripadaju sjeveroistočnomu istarskom poddijalektu ekavskoga dijalekta čakavskoga narječja. Rad se temelji na vlastitim terenskim istraživanjima Kastva i Medveje iz 2005. godine, na opsežnim fonološkim terenskim istraživanjima koje je prije petnaestak godina proveo dr. sc. Mijo Lončarić te na dijelu zapisa objavljenih u recentnoj dijalektološkoj literaturi.
U radu se razmatraju teorijska i metodološka polazišta u opisu prijedloga s obzirom na organske i anorganske sustave – dijalekte i standardni jezik, i dalje u odnosu na konkretne ekavskočakavske govore, južnočakavske govore i hrvatski standardni jezik. Osnovna razlika u usporedbi prijedloga u dvama dijalektima i prijedloga u hrvatskome standardnom jeziku uspostavlja se prema kriteriju fonološke, distribucijske i značenjske razlikovnosti, i dodatno prema kriteriju odstupanja od norme standardnoga jezika u odnosu na dijalekte na primjeru pojedinih prijedloga.
Aproximadamente cinquenta universidades brasileiras possuem algum tipo de estudo de Língua Alemã, sendo que dezessete delas oferecem a graduação em Letras com habilitação em Alemão, bacharelado ou licenciatura. O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar as crenças e ex-pectativas dos estudantes de Letras/Alemão a respeito do curso que frequentam, a partir da rea-lização de uma investigação em uma universidade pública do Estado do Paraná, em 2016. Com base em um questionário respondido por 18 alunos do Curso de Letras desta instituição, busca-mosidentificar os motivos que os levaram a optar pela licenciatura em Letras/Alemão e suas perspectivas de desenvolvimento profissional. A fundamentação teórica advém da perspectiva dos estudos de crenças discentes (SILVA 2007; BARCELOS2001), mais especificamente dos es-tudos de crenças de alunos acerca da aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras. A metodologia da pesquisa corresponde a um paradigma híbrido (KUCKARTZ 2014, 2016 e MAYRING 2015), com características de pesquisa qualitativa e quantitativa. Como resultado da pesquisa, entre outros aspectos, observou-se que a maioria dos alunos optou pelo curso de Letras/Alemão como forma de aprender essa língua e no futuro atuarem profissionalmente nessa área, seja no campo da Linguística, da Literatura ou da Tradução.
U radu su prikazani refleksi praslavenskih naglasnih tipova imenica a-deklinacije u mjesnom govoru Dolnje i Gorenje Mraševo, koji pripada skupini dolenjskih narječja slovenskoga jezika. Opisan je i naglasni sustav navedenoga govora s naglaskom na nizu oblika u kojima se pojavljuje postpraslavenski novi cirkumfleks. Povijesnojezična analiza naglasnih tipova imenica a-deklinacije donosi neke važne spoznaje za naglasni sustav slovenskoga jezika. U govoru dolazi do analognoga podudaranja samoglasnika praslavenskoga naglasnog tipa a, s imenicama praslavenskoga naglasnog tipa b i to refleksa imenica s praslavenskim dugim samoglasnikom u jedinom/zadnjem slogu osnove, što je posljedica prenošenja naglaska na dužinu. Novost predstavlja analogija u instrumentalu množine. Kod nekih je imenica praslavenskoga naglasnog tipa c očuvano povlačenje cirkumfleksa na dužinu uz proklitike (mr. na glàːvo, na nùːge). Došlo je također i do podudaranja imenica praslavenskoga naglasnog tipa b, koje imaju u jedinom/zadnjem slogu osnove praslavenski kratki samoglasnik ili poluglas, s imenicama praslavenskoga naglasnog tipa c, koje imaju u jedinom/zadnjem slogu osnove praslavenski kratki samoglasnik ili poluglas.
Decomposing coordination
(2014)
Natural languages display a surprising diversity of expression of elementary logical operations. The study of this variation is emerging as an important topic of cross-linguistic semantics. In this paper, we address the expression of coordination from this perspective, especially coordination of individual denoting expressions such as "John and Mary". We argue that there is an underlying universal structure for individual coordination, and that the cross-linguistic variation can be explained by assuming that languages pronounce different morphemes of this universal structure. In particular, we argue that there two main types of system for the expression of individual coordination: the J-type and the μ-type. In μ-type languages the morpheme used for individual coordination also has uses a quantificational or focus particle, while in the J-type languages it doesn't. Instead at least in many J-type languages the same morpheme is used for individual and propositional coordination. The evidence we present for our model comes from two sources: new data from specific data of the J-type and μ-type languages, and from a study of the historical development of the expression of individual coordination in Indo-European which switched from a μ-type to a J-type system.
Seitdem die Junggrammatiker den Begriff des Lautgesetzes geprägt haben, sind deren fast ebenso viele aufgestellt wie in der Folge hinterfragt, widerlegt und vielleicht am Ende sogar doch wieder erfolgreich verteidigt worden. Jedes Lautgesetz wirkt in einem unterschiedlichen Zeitraum. Ist aus dem Zeitraum des Wirkens mehrerer zeitlich benachbarter oder gar einander zeitlich überlappender Lautgesetze ein ausreichend großes Textkorpus erhalten, so ist es ein Leichtes, die Reihenfolge des Wirkens der Gesetze zu ermitteln, oder, im günstigsten Fall, den Zeitraum ihres Wirkens sogar mit gewisser Präzision datieren zu können. Anders verhält es sich hingegen, wenn schriftliche Überlieferungen der untersuchten Sprache in der entscheidenden Epoche nur spärlich oder gar nicht vorliegen. Hier muss daher traditionell darauf zurückgegriffen werden, die Reihenfolge anhand der allein möglichen Entwicklung einzelner Wörter, auf die besonders viele der betreffenden Lautgesetze gewirkt haben, zu bestimmen. Diese Methode birgt jedoch die Gefahr menschlicher Fehler, insbesondere in Fällen, in denen eine klare Reihenfolge nur unter Betrachtung mehrerer Wörter zu ermitteln ist. Die Forscher vergangener Jahrzehnte und Jahrhunderte hatten hier allerdings keine andere Wahl. Mit den heute verfügbaren Computern eröffnen sich jedoch ungeahnte Möglichkeiten. Zuvor in Programmiersprache umgeschriebene Lautgesetze können in Sekundenschnelle auf immense Textkorpora angewandt werden. Um aber – ohne jegliche Zuhilfenahme außersprachlichen Wissens – die eine oder mehrere mögliche Reihenfolgen verschiedener Lautgesetze zu bestimmen, ist es nötig, sämtliche Möglichkeiten anhand eines Wortkorpus durchzuspielen und die jeweiligen Ergebnisse mit den tatsächlichen, vorliegenden Ergebnissen zu vergleichen. Dieser Versuch soll im Folgenden unternommen werden. Auf diese Weise könnten dann relative Chronologien von Lautgesetzen, die als längst etabliert gelten, noch einmal auf den Prüfstand gestellt und möglicherweise sogar noch präzisiert werden. Nach einer kurzen Begriffsgeschichte des Lautgesetzes soll zunächst auf sprachliche Problemstellungen eingegangen werden, die das Vorhaben erschweren, bevor die Auswahl zweier den Untersuchungszeitraum begrenzender Sprachstufen sowie eine Beschreibung des Datenmaterials – Wortkorpus und Lautgesetze – folgen. Nun soll das Computerprogramm, von den Anforderungen bis hin zur Umsetzung, erläutert werden. Anschließen soll sich hieran eine Darstellung der Erkenntnisse, die die Ergebnisse des Programms gewähren. Im Schlussteil sollen die offen gebliebenen und die neu entstandenen Fragen noch einmal zusammengefasst und Möglichkeiten zur hierauf basierenden weitergehenden Forschung erörtert werden.
В докладе рассматривается употребление глаголов mít/иметь/имам с учетом изменения их значения в результате изменений порядка слов и с учетом вопросительных предложений. Особенно интересным оказалось употребление глагола mít в чешском языке, т.к. порядок слов в чешском предложении определяет в каком значении он употреблен – поссессив- ном или модальном. Рассматриваются случаи типа Proč to má dělat? Má to proč dělat?, когда порядок слов в чешском определяет совершенно раз- ные эквиваленты на болгарском и на русском языках. При том значение во втором случае тоже трудно однозначно интерпретировать как поссес- сивное или грамматикализованное. На фоне употребления этих глаголов со значениями поссессивными, экзистенциальными, грамматикализованными и фразеологизованными оказывается, что модальное значение чешского глагола mít в вопросительных предложениях прямо зависит от порядка слов. В переводах на болгарский и на русский языки значение чешских выражений однозначно определяется их модальным или пос- сессивным соответствием как б. трябва / има или р. должен / есть.
In diesem Beitrag wird korpusbasiert, qualitativ und aus kontrastiver Sicht anhand ausgewählter Einzelbeispiele untersucht, welchen Beitrag die Frame-Semantik bei der Analyse konzeptueller Metaphern im aktuellen Migrationsdiskurs in der deutschen und italienischen Presse leisten kann. Sie macht es möglich, unterschiedliche Perspektivierungen bei der Betrachtung des Phänomens herauszukristallisieren, da semantische Frames ein facettenreiches Angebot für den Blickwinkel der Betrachtung bereitstellen. Auch Metaphern selbst besitzen diese Eigenschaft der Perspektivierung, vor allem auch solche, die charakteristisch für einen kulturspezifischen Kontext stehen. Zu den Möglichkeiten, die der Einsatz von Metaphern bietet, zählt vor allem der "Highlighting und Hiding"-Effekt (LAKOFF/JOHNSON 1980), indem Metaphern bestimmte Aspekte betonen oder verdunkeln. Um welche es sich dabei im Einzelnen handelt, hängt von mehreren Faktoren ab, wie zum Beispiel der politischen Orientierung von Journalisten oder Politikern oder der wirtschaftlichen Lage eines Landes.
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.
Aprendizagem intercultural na formação de professores de Alemão como Língua Estrangeira no Brasil
(2012)
Uma reflexão básica sobre o objetivo da aprendizagem intercultural parece ainda não estar presente nas publicações brasileiras, principalmente na área de Alemão como Língua Estrangeira. Embora a aprendizagem intercultural seja tema de muitos trabalhos da área, o conteúdo e os objetivos parecem ainda ser fixados pelo material didático mais recente do catálogo das editoras alemãs, e isso se reflete na formação dos futuros professores. A solução seria uma integração consequente e sistemática, desde o início do curso, dos conteúdos específicos relativos ao Alemão como Língua Estrangeira no Curso universitário de alemão, através de uma real interdisciplinaridade entre as áreas de Letras e de Ciências Humanas.
In the last few years, the areas of study of German as Foreign Language and German for Specific Purposes have evidently made an inflationary, and sometimes even inadequate use of concepts related to the adjectives 'cultural' and 'intercultural'. The concepts have often been used so as to serve only to instigate the increase, permanency and dissemination of stereotypes and pre-conceptions. In the Winter 2006/07 Semester, a course called "Fachsprachen und Kultur" was offered on the way the concepts of culture are approached in different fields of study. This paper presents the conclusions of some of the participants on the use of the concept in their primary or secondary areas. The results show that it is urgent and necessary to examine the concepts of culture used in our field of study so that stereotypes do not become the basis for a didactics of German as a Foreign Language.
Rezension zu Igor Sosa Mayor, Routineformeln im Spanischen und im Deutschen. Eine pragmalinguistische kontrastive Analyse. Wien: Praesens Verlag, 2006. (451 S., ISBN 13:978-3-7069-0360-8)
The goal of this paper is to study the influence of information structure in the referential status of linguistic expressions such as bare plurals and indefinite NPs in Spanish. In particular, we will argue for the following claims: (a) Spanish bare plurals can receive a generic interpretation in object position and (b) Spanish bare plurals in object position can be topics in siru. We will focus on object position because of the well known semantic and syntactic constraints that affect preverbal subject bare plurals in Spanish.
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.
Vores interesse for logotyper tager sit udgangspunkt to steder: I vores fælles interesse for henholdsvis visuelle kommunikationsformer og de måder, hvorpå virksomheder kommunikerer med deres omverden. Vores interesse for visuelle kommunikationsformer er overvejende praktisk funderet, da Christian driver Øje for Øje illustration ved siden af studierne, og Henrik er freelancefotograf. Specialet her er dog udtryk for en lyst til undersøge teorien bag visuel kommunikation. Interessen for virksomheders kommunikation er stadig overvejende teoretisk funderet. Vi har med vores fælles uddannelsesbaggrund i Nordisk og Virksomhedskommunikation haft rig lejlighed til, på et teoretisk niveau, at beskæftige os med generel kommunikationsteori og mere specifik virksomhedskommunikationsteori. Disse to interesseområder smelter sammen i vores intention om at belyse logotyper, der er en kommunikationsform, vi alle konfronteres med dagligt - for langt de flestes vedkommende dog uden at det afføder nogen nævneværdig undren. Vi undrer os imidlertid over at logotypen, så vidt vi har kunnet konstatere, hidtil er blevet overset af sprogteoretikere og aldrig er blevet underkastet en stringent metodisk videnskabelig undersøgelse som en selvstændig kommunikationsform. Det ønsker vi med dette speciale at tage de første skridt til at ændre. Vi mener, at det er relevant at tage hul på undersøgelsen af logotyper som selvstændig kommunikationsform, fordi tendensen i de vestlige samfund peger i retning af, at det nuværende samfunds hyperkompleksitet (Qvortrup 2000) langt fra har nået sin kulmination. I det hyperkomplekse samfund vil efterspørgslen efter simple kommunikationsmekanismer, der kan sammenkæde eller overføre store mængder af information og dermed reducere kompleksitet, stige. Som undersøgelsen i specialet vil vise, er logotyper netop en kommunikationsform af den simpelhed, der vil blive efterspurgt i det hyperkomplekse samfund. Paradoksalt nok spiller logotyper i kraft af deres simplicitet en forbløffende stor rolle for moderne virksomheder. Det er ikke uden årsag at noget af det første, grundlæggeren af en moderne virksomhed sætter sine kræfter ind på, er at finde det rigtige navn til virksomheden og i forlængelse heraf at få skabt den rigtige logotype. Først i det øjeblik disse to identifikatorer er på plads, begynder den ny virksomhed at føles manifest. Logotypen spiller rollen som bærer af identitet, og som specialet vil vise, afføder det hyperkomplekse samfund kravet om en fortættet identitet.
Das vorliegende Arbeitspapier ist das Skript einer Vorlesung, die ich während des Wintersemesters 1986/87 am Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität zu Köln gehalten habe. […] Das Arbeitspapier gliedert sich in zwei Teile. Im ersten Teil, Kapitel 1 - 4, werden die bei der Untersuchung und Beschreibung einer Sprache auftretenden soziolinguistischen Probleme besprochen, während im zweiten Teil, Kapitel 5 - 11, behandelt wird, wie eine Grammatik geschrieben werden sollte. Es geht dabei also nicht um die grammatische Analyse sprachlicher Daten, sondern um die Darstellung einer Sprache, d.h. um die schriftstellerische Aufgabe des Linguisten, des Grammatikers im eigentlichen Sinn.
Possessive constructions are grammatical constructions which contain two nominals and express that the referent of one of these nominals belongs to the other. The kind of relationship denoted by possessive constructions is not only that of ownership (1), as the term "possessive" might suggest, but also that of kinship (2), bodypart relationship (3), part/whole relationship (4) and similar relationships [...]. The following investigation will start with possessive constructions on phrase level, i.e. possessive phrases, and then deal with possessive constructions on clause level.
According to the present state of research, there seems to be no language which shows possessive classifiers and possessive verbs corresponding to English "to have" at the same time. In classifier languages predicative possession is expressed by verbless clauses, i.e. by existential clauses ("there is my possessed item"), equative clauses ("the possessed item is mine" "that is my possessed item") or by locative expressions ("the possessed item is near me"), in which the classifier in the case of non-inherent possession marks the nature of the relationship. While most Melanesian languages, as for instance Fijian, Lenakel, Pala and Tolai are classifier languages, Nguna, a Melanesian language spoken in Vanuatu, only shows traces of the Melanesian possessive classifier system, but, in contrast to the other Melanesian languages, it has a possessive verb, namely 'peani' "to have". In order to show how the Nguna possessive constructions deviate from the common Melanesian type, we shall start with a brief description of the Melanesian possessive constructions in general, and that of Fijian in particular.
Ergativity in Samoan
(1985)
Most typological and language specific studies on so- called ergative languages are concerned with case marking patterns, particularly split ergativity, with the organization of syntactic relations as defined by syntactic operations such as coreferential deletion across coordinate conjunctions, Equi-NP-deletion and relativization , and with the notion of subject, but usually neglect the notion of valency, though the inherent relational properties of the verb , i. e. valency, play a fundamental role in the syntactic organization of sentences in ergative as well as in other languages . The following investigation of ergativity in Samoan aims to integrate the notion of valency into the description of semantic and syntactic relations and to outline the characteristic features of Samoan verbal clauses as far as they seem to be relevant to recent and still ongoing discussions on linguistic typology and syntactic theory. The main points of the definition of valency […] are: Valency is the property of the verb which determines the obligatory and optional number of its participants, their morphosyntactic form, their semantic class membership (e.g. ± animate, ± human) , and their semantic role (e.g. agent , patient , recipient). All semantic properties and morphosyntactic properties of participants not inherently given by the verb and therefore not predictable from the verb, are not a matter of valency. Valency is not a homogenous property of the verb, but consists of several exponents which show varying degress of relevance in different languages or different verb classes within a single language.
Grammatical relations, particularly the notions of transitivity, case marking, ergativity, passive and antipassive have been a favourite subject of typological research during the last decade, but surprisingly, the notion of valency has been of marginal interest in cross-linguistic studies, though the syntactic and semantic status of participants is, to a great extent, determined by the relational properties of the verb. Valency is the property of the verb which determines the obligatory and optional number of its participants, their morphosyntactic form, their semantic class membership (e.g. ± animate, ± human) ,and their semantic role (e.g. agent, patient, recipient). The valency inherently gives information on the nature of the semantic and syntactic relations that hold between the verb and its participants. If a verb is combined with more participants than allowed or less than required, or if the participants do not show the required morphosyntactic form or class membership, the clause is ungrammatical. In other words, it is not sufficient to consider only the number of actants as a matter of valency, but it is only acceptable if all semantic and morphosyntactic properties of the relation between a verb and its participants that are predictable from the verb are included. The predictability of these properties results from their inherent givenness, and it does not seem reasonable to count some inherently given relational properties as a matter of valency, but not others (compare Helbig (1971:38f) and Heidolph et ale (1981:479) who distinguish between the quantitative, syntactic and semantic aspect of valency).
Using Ultan's theory of descriptivity grading as a starting point, I will attempt to capture this differential utility in terms of [...] criteria of literalness, explicitness and syntactic complexity. I will first briefly present his System and investigate some generalizations which he has proposed on the basis of his study of body part terminologies in numerous languages. I will apply his theory to nouns in this and four other semantic domains, in three North American Indian languages. I will test his generalizations and propose some new ones. I will then present an alternative system of descriptivity grading and compare the results of its application with those of Ultan's system. In the final section I will suggest another methodology for quantification. An appendix at the end of the paper lists all of the descriptive lexical items mentioned, graded according to both systems.
Die Germanistische Institutspartnerschaft zwischen der Staatlichen Pädagogischen Universität Barnaul (Linguistisches Institut) und der Europa-niversität Viadrina Frankfurt/Oder (Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften) existiert seit 1993. In dieser Kooperation wurden im Laufe der Zeit gemeinsame Vorstellungen über die wichtigsten Maßnahmen entwickelt, die für eine Umstrukturierung und Modernisierung der germanistischen Lehre und Forschung an der russischen Hochschule geboten erscheinen.
The aim of this paper is to present the results of an empirical analysis of the use of non-alphabetic graphic signs (e.g. asterisks, slashes, plus signs etc.) in the context of repairs in Russian and German informal electronic communication. The data for the analysis were taken from the “Mobile Communication Database MoCoDa” (http://mocoda.spracheinteraktion.de/), which contains Russian and German private electronic communication via SMS, WhatsApp and other short message services, and the “Dortmunder Chat-Korpus” (http://www.chatkorpus.tu-dortmund.de/korpora.html). This paper describes the functions of various graphic resources in the context of repairs in both data collections and compares the occurrences of these functions in current Russian and German computer-mediated communication. It concludes that particular signs in both data sets share the same subset of functions, but they differ in terms of how frequently these resources occur in each form of communication.
Příspěvek pojednává o výrazových prostředcích emocí uţitých v internetových komentářích, které reflektují jedno z nejvýznamnějších fotbalových utkání mistrovství světa roku 2010 – semifinále mezi Německem a Španělskem. Fotbal skýtá ohromný emoční potenciál, který přímo ovlivņuje textovou produkci. V komentářích je jednoznačně patrná polarita emocí. Intenzivní emoční proţitek se v korpusu projevuje velkou variabilitou jazykových prostředků, z nichţ nejčastější jsou zejména lexikální prostředky a také rétorické figury, zejména pak metafory. Internetová komunikace pak nabízí další, nonverbální prostředky vyjádření emocí, které jsou typické pro tzv. cyberslang.
This paper addresses the means of expressing emotions in internet discussion forums focusing on issues of death and dying; these issues are to a large extent considered taboo in society. The death of a loved one is a highly intense emotional experience. The analysis takes into account the verbal and non-verbal means of expressing grief, various levels of emotionality, and also the cognitive concepts forming the basis of metaphorical expressions that are closely connected with death and dying.
Tento článek tématicky navazuje na přìspěvek "Nominalizačnì tendence v jazyce ekonomiky" v časopise Studia Germanistica 3, přičemņ podává odpovědi na otázky spjaté s tehdy vznikajìcì disertačnì pracì s názvem "Grammatische Mittel der Informationskondensierung in Wirtschaftstexten". V článku je zmìněna souvislost mezi mìrou abstrakce a jazykovou kondenzacì a také pragmatické faktory, které ovlivņujì jejì výskyt v odborném textu. Ve druhé části jsou souhrnně uvedeny výsledky empirické analýzy v oblasti infinitivnìch konstrukcì. Pozornost je věnována zejména faktorům, které majì vliv na jejich uņitì v textu oproti konkurenčnìm vedlejńìm větám.
The paper presents the possibilities for analyzing deverbal derivatives from verbs ending in -ier(en); in many cases these exist as doublets, with the suffix -ung and/or the suffix -(at)ion. Based on selected examples of these doublets, the paper demonstrates how both monolingual and bilingual dictionaries fail to take sufficient account of the semantic differences between such competing forms. The author also presents research questions connected with this issue, and outlines a methodology for addressing these questions based on metalexicographic and corpus analysis; this methodology is demonstrated using the example of the doublet Diskrimination and Diskriminierung
Die Erforschung von Ausdrucksmitteln der Emotionalität ist bereits vor einigen Jahrzehnten ins Zentrum des Interesses der Linguistik gerückt, sie bietet aber weiterhin offene Forschungsfragen, insbesondere in Verbindung mit der jüdischen Emigration und der narrativen Gestaltung des Erlebten. Der im Jahre 2016 in Würzburg erschienene Band 'Emotionsausdruck und Erzählstrategien in narrativen Interviews. Analysen zu Gesprächsaufnahmen mit jüdischen Emigranten' leistet einen Beitrag zur Erforschung des Verhältnisses zwischen Sprache, Emotion und jüdischer Emigration bzw. Flucht in den 1930er Jahren von Mitteleuropa nach Palästina.
This article focuses on the means of expressing emotionality in internet commentaries written in German and Czech; the commentaries consist of reactions to news items on political topics. The author applies a contrastive approach. Politics is a field holding a strong potential for emotionality, which significantly affects text production. Internet commentaries in German and Czech are characterized by the use of verbal and non-verbal means that are typical of "cyberslang". The article also focuses on emotional nomination (of politicians and parties), offers a comparison of the cognitive concepts underlying this nomination in both languages, and examines the means of expressing the emotion "anger" - which is closely related to politics.
The article characterizes the stylistic tendencies found in academic economic texts with a high degree of abstraction presenting economic theory from the end of the 18th century to the present day. At the centre of the author's attention are changes that are visible on the microstructural level of the text. In this connection, the author also describes quantitative methods that can be used in the diachronic analysis of academic texts.
Nen and Nyokon are unique among the Bantu languages in allowing full nominal objects between the tense/aspect marker and the verb. Despite the fact that the two languages are neighbours and related they make different use of this positional option. In Nen the position is the default one for objects and the post-verbal position renders an object discrete and suitable for quantified objects and for contrast. In Nyokon the position before the verb is functionally equivalent to the one after the verb. The difference is related to the fact that Nyokon allows the preverbal object only in certain tenses whereas in Nen it is not restricted. But contrasted objects in Nyokon too appear after the verb. There is a construction in which both positions are filled with a constituent. This construction is modelled on a secondary predication construction.
The interaction between Syntax and Phonology has been one area of interesting empirical research and theoretical debate in recent years, particularly the question of the extent to which syntactic structure influences phonological phrasing. It has generally been observed that the edges of the major syntactic constituents (XPs) tend to coincide with prosodic phrase boundaries thus resulting in XPs like subject NPs, object NPs, Topic NPs, VPs etc. forming separate phonological phrases. Within Optimality Theoretic (OT) accounts, this fact has been attributed to a number of well-motivated general alignment constraints. Studies on relative clauses in Bantu and other languages have significantly contributed to this area of research inquiry where a number of parametric variations have been observed with regard to prosodic phrasing. In some languages, XPs which are heads of relatives form separate phonological phrases while in others they phrase with the relative clauses. This paper makes a contribution to this topic by discussing the phrasing of relatives in Ciwandya (a Bantu language spoken in Malawi and Tanzania). It shows that XPs which are heads of restrictive relative clauses phrase with their relative verbs, regardless of whether they are subjects, objects or other adjuncts. A variety of syntactic constructions are used to illustrate this fact. The discussion also confirms what has been generally observed in other Bantu languages concerning restrictive relatives with clefts and non-restrictive relative clauses. In both cases, the heads of the relatives phrase separately. The paper adopts an OT analysis which has been well articulated and defended in Cheng & Downing (2007, 2010, to appear) Downing & Mtenje (2010, 2011) to account for these phenomena in Ciwandya.
Directional Serial Verb Constructions (Directional SVCs), which are a subset of Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs) in Thai and involve motion-related verbs, are studied in this paper. According to two syntactic tests, two phrase structural schemata are involved in Thai Directional SVCs, including a recursive VP-over-VP structure and a complementation structure. Thai Directional SVCs also exhibit a dissociation between constituent structure and linear order. With this distinctive syntactic structure, Thai Directional SVCs are not reduceable to previously described SVCs. Nevertheless, within Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, the rich featural specifications of heads and the mechanisms available for the percolation of specific head properties in a default interpretation of the Head Feature Principle allow for a straightforward model of Thai Directional SVCs.
Zur Etymologie von psyche gab es bislang eine erstaunlich einhellige und feste Meinung, aber keine fundierte Untersuchung. Die hier vorgelegte Untersuchung hat ergeben, dass psyche nicht die 'Atemseele' und auch etymologisch nicht auf das Atmen zurückzufuhren ist. Die etymologische Bedeutung von psyche ist vielmehr die 'Kälte', nämlich die Kälte des Leichnams, übertragen auf die Totenseele.
In this work we examine several sentential particles, occurring in imperatives, main exclamative and interrogative sentences, which display a uniform syntactic behaviour. We analyse them as heads of high CP projections which require their specifier to be filled either by the wh-item (in sentences where there is one) or by the whole clause, yielding the sentence final position of the particle. The hypothesis that they are C°-heads accounts for their sensitivity to sentence type and for their occurrence only in matrix contexts. We also provide a first sketch of their semantic contribution, showing that they select ‘non standard’ contexts and interact with tense and modality of the verb when the whole CP has moved to their specifier.
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.
Syllable cut is said to be a phonologically distinctive feature in some languages where the difference in vowel quantity is accompanied by a difference in vowel quality like in German. There have been several attempts to find the corresponding phonetic correlates for syllable cut, from which the energy measurements of vowels by Spiekermann (2000) proved appropriate for explaining the difference between long, i.e. smoothly, and short, i.e. abruptly cut, vowels: in smoothly cut vowels, a larger number of peaks was counted in the energy contour which were located further back than in abruptly cut segments, and the overall energy was more constant throughout the entire nucleus. On this basis, we intended to compare German as a syllable cut language and Hungarian where the feature was not expected to be relevant. However, the phonetic correlates of syllable cut found in this study do not entirely confirm Spiekermann's results. It seems that the energy features of vowels are more strongly connected to their duration than to their quality.
This article analyzes the representation of linguistic variation in the Finnish translations of four Swedish coming-of-age stories depicting migrant or minority perspectives: Mikael Niemi’s 2000 Popular Music from Vittula, Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s 2003 Ett öga rött, Marjaneh Bakhtiari’s 2005 Kalla det vad fan du vill, and Susanna Alakoski’s 2006 Svinalängorna. Through an analysis of speech and thought representation techniques and focalization, the article explores the role played by literature and translation in the materialization of dialects and sociolects as bounded entities. The paper argues that linguistic and social hybridity, on which the reception of minority and migrant literatures often focuses, is accompanied by the reification of new varieties conceived as authentic expressions of migrant and minority experience. Literature and translation are active agents in such processes, which are largely based on cultural, discursive, and cognitive constraints that condition the interpretation of each text.
This paper focuses on different subtypes of constructions involving temporally bounded quantification, e.g. sequences like David visited Rome three times followed by temporal phrases as different as (i) last year, which defines a time interval; (ii) in less that two months, which defines an amount of time; and (iii) per month, which refers to a time unit. As for the first two types of temporal phrases, data will be presented which shows that they have specific linguistic properties in these quantifying contexts, and do not behave exactly as the locating or duration adverbials they are superficially identical with. The third type of phrases will receive special attention. Structures with frequency adverbials like n times per month will be analysed compositionally, separating the quantified component n times from the temporally binding phrase per month (whose role is comparable to that of adverbials (i) and (ii) in the relevant constructions). The data presented is mainly from Portuguese, although the issues at stake – the linguistic properties of temporally bounded quantification – are obviously relevant to parallel constructions in other languages.
Dieser Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit verschiedenen Ansätzen der Konstruktion von Grundwortschatzbeständen für den Bereich Deutsch als Fremdsprache. Am Beispiel des kommunikativ-pragmatisch erstellten Wortschatzes, der in Profile Deutsch erfasst ist, und zwei frequenzorientierten Listen, der DeReWo Wortliste und der Herder/BYU Häufigkeitsliste, werden anhand einer empirischen Gegenüberstellung Stärken und Schwächen der verschiedenen Ansätze herausgestellt. Resümierend werden in diesem Beitrag Desiderate sowie mögliche Lösungsansätze zur validen und empirisch abgesicherten Grundwortschatzbestimmung zur Diskussion gestellt.