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I present data that suggest the universal entailments of counterfactual donkey sentences aren’t as universal as some have claimed. I argue that this favors the strategy of attributing these entailments to a special property of the similarity ordering on worlds provided by some contexts, rather than to a semantically encoded sensitivity to assignment.
Tiwa (Tibeto-Burman; India) has two series of epistemic indefinites: one whose epistemic effects arise via an anti-singleton constraint similar to Spanish alg´un (Alonso-Ovalle and Men´endez-Benito, 2010), and another, wide-scope indefinite whose epistemic effects must be derived differently. I propose that for these latter indefinites, ignorance arises not through domain constraints, but as a result of their choice functional nature through competition with other indefinites. Tiwa’s wide scope indefinites then constitute a new kind of epistemic indefinite, showing that ignorance implicatures for indefinites can arise through different sorts of competition.
This paper experimentally investigates presupposition projection from the scope of the quantifiers every and at least one, as triggered by the factive verb be aware and the iterative adverb again.
The first issue we are concerned with is whether presuppositions project universally or existentially from quantified sentences. Different theoretical accounts endorse opposing views here (e.g., Heim, 1983; Geurts, 1999; Beaver, 2001; Schlenker, 2008, 2009; Fox, 2012), while recent experimental work (Chemla, 2009; Tiemann, 2014) suggests that the force of the projected presupposition varies by quantifier.
The second issue we look at is how the descriptively observed readings arise—in particular, as a direct result output from the projection mechanism, or via additional, independent mechanisms such as domain restriction (e.g., Geurts and van Tiel, 2016): if the domain of the quantifier is restricted, this can yield what looks like non-universal inferences in light of the overall, unrestricted domain, even if the projection mechanism itself yields a universal presupposition. Finally, we test whether the presupposed content also forms part of the entailed content, at least for certain triggers (Sudo, 2012; Klinedinst, 2016; Zehr and Schwarz, 2016).
Our results yield clearly different patterns for every and at least one, with every giving rise to universal presuppositions, which, to a very limited extent, can be weakened by domain restriction, and at least one overwhelmingly giving rise to non-universal presuppositions. Our results also indicate the availability of presupposition-less readings for both triggers in the task at hand, apparently more prevalent than domain restriction. Thereby, we present novel evidence that helps to pinpoint which of the theoretical options can be substantiated experimentally.
This paper argues that extant approaches to presupposition projection that either rely on strict linear order (Schlenker, 2009) or hierarchy (Romoli and Mandelkern, 2017) cannot provide a uniform account of data drawn from head-final languages. While building on Schlenker’s theory, this paper resolves the issues by restricting the calculation of local contexts to specific points in the parsing process. The consequence is that the theory makes a prediction robust to the head directionality parameter
Reference of pronouns may be constrained via lexical presuppositions, including marked F-features, implicated presuppositions, and deictic center shifting in certain languages.
This paper explores the acquisition of personal reference terms in Thai, a language that has a highly complex personal reference system. The participants of the study were 67 typicallydeveloping children (TD) and 29 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), a population which has long been observed to have difficulties with pronouns. The children were asked to complete simple production and comprehension tasks on personal reference terms. Overall, ASD children performed on par in production but significantly poorer in comprehension than TD children. Given the freedom of choice in the production task, ASD children preferred using fixed referential terms for self-reference, whereas TD children opted for personal pronouns. In terms of comprehension, ASD children were shown to generally be able to detect the person features but they seemed to struggle the most with the pragmatic aspects of personal reference terms. Our results support previous literature that lexical presuppositions are acquired earlier than implicated presuppositions. We add to the literature that the types or the amount of implicated presuppositions matter in acquisition
Depiction verbs such as paint license i(mage)- and p(ortrait)-readings; for instance, Ben painted a cow can convey that Ben produced an image of an unspecific cow or a portrait of a specific cow. This paper takes issue with a property-based intensional analysis of depiction verbs (Zimmermann, 2006b, 2016) and instead argues for an extensional account. Accordingly, the i-reading is rooted in the introduction of worldly representations by the explicit noun cow as such, whereas the p-reading is rooted in the interpolation of an implicit representation via coercion. This take on the ambiguity captures the following key traits. On i-readings, only representations are accessible to quantifiers and anaphors; moreover, intensional effects such as substitution failure disappear once ordinary objects and representations are adequately distinguished. P-readings, by contrast, involve representations that depend on the portrayed ordinary objects as particulars; correspondingly, only ordinary objects are accessible to quantifiers and anaphors. The proposal is spelled out in Asher’s (2011) Type Composition Logic.
We present an experiment which tests children’s comprehension of the requirements of use of pronouns and definites. An adult-like use of definites and pronouns imposes different but related requirements. In the case of definites, a unique referent is required in the context, whereas in the case of a pronoun, the referent in the context has to be salient. In this experiment, we use a novel word task to test three-year-olds’ sensitivity to these requirements. Our results show that children are adult-like in their sensitivity to salience in their comprehension of pronouns, compared to definites. However, they failed to show sensitivity to the uniqueness requirement on the use of definites.
Miners and modals
(2018)
I generalise Kolodny and MacFarlane’s miners puzzle by showing epistemic analogues of their case exist. After motivating various conservative approaches to the original problem, I show how they fail to solve the problem in its epistemic guise. I argue that a probabilistic approach to information-sensitivity gives a general solution to the problem.
The Wolof imperfective auxiliary di is compatible with event-in-progress, habitual and future readings. Furthermore, while varieties of all these readings are available for di when it sits in a syntactically low position, only future readings are available when it sits in a syntactically high position. We aim to account for this puzzle by combining several ingredients independently motivated in the literature: (i) event-relative circumstantial modality for event-in-progress, habitual, and a subset of future readings; (ii) metaphyisical modality for generalized future readings; (iii) the idea that syntactic height determines the type of modal anchor that projects a modal base. This study contributes to our understanding of the relation between syntactic height and modal flavor, as well as the nature of modal-aspectual interactions cross-linguistically.
In recent years, experimental research has demontrated great variability in the rates of scalar inferences across different triggering expressions (Doran et al. 2009, 2012, van Tiel et al. 2016). These studies have been taken as evidence against the so-called uniformity assumption, which posits that scalar implicature is triggered by a single mechanism and that the behaviour of one scale should generalize to the whole family of scales. In the following, we present an experimental study that tests negative strengthening for a variety of strong scalar terms, following up on van Tiel et al. (2016). For example, we tested whether the statement John is not brilliant is strengthened to mean that John is not intelligent (see especially Horn 1989). We show that endorsement rates of the scalar implicature (e.g., John is intelligent but not brilliant) are anti-correlated with endorsements of negative strengthening. Further, we demonstrate that a modified version of the uniformity hypothesis taking into account negative strengthening is consistent with van Tiel et al.’s data. Therefore, variation across scales may be more systematic than suggested by the van Tiel et al. study.
Alternative Questions with "or not" (NAQ) convey a cornering effect, which is not found with they polar counterparts (PQ). This effect has been claimed to consist of two parts (Biezma 2009): NAQs (i) cannot be used discourse-initially and (ii) they do not license followup questions/subquestions.
In this paper, we ask the following: Are both parts of cornering linked to the same property of NAQs? Or do they reflect distinct linguistic phenomena? We explore the issue by comparing the behavior of NAQs to Complement Alternative Questions (CAQ), a type of question that, like NAQs, presents logically opposite alternatives but, unlike NAQs, fully spells out the second one. Results from two experiments suggest that both parts of cornering can instead be explained in terms of independent semantic and pragmatic principles, which operate beyond the domain of alternative questions.
Sentences containing subjective predicates - e.g., "The movie was awesome"” - are intuitively anchored to a particular perspective; this makes them different from sentences describing objective facts - e.g., "The movie was set in 1995".
While authors have long debated on whether this intuition tracks a lexical distinction between subjective and factual predicates, much remains to be explored on whether, and how, the difference between these two assertions is reflected at the illocutionary level. Relying on evidence from two experiments, we show that assertions containing subjective predicates display different discourse behavior from objective assertions. We take these findings to support the idea that SAs should be assigned a special illocutionary profile, unveiling a genuine empirical difference between subjective and factual speech.
Analyses of scope reconstruction typically fall into two competing approaches: 'semantic reconstruction', which derives non-surface scope using semantic mechanisms, and 'syntactic reconstruction', which derives it by positing additional syntactic representations at the level of Logical Form. Grosu and Krifka (2007) proposed a semantic-reconstruction analysis for relative clauses like the gifted mathematician that Dan claims he is, in which the relative head NP can be interpreted in the scope of a lower intensional quantifier. Their analysis relies on type-shifting the relative head into a predicate of functions. We develop an alternative analysis for such relative clauses that replaces type-shifting with syntactic reconstruction. The competing analyses diverge in their predictions regarding scope possibilities in head-external relative clauses. We use Hebrew resumptive pronouns, which disambiguate a relative clause in favor of the head-external structure, to show that the prediction of syntactic reconstruction is correct. This result suggests that certain type-shifting operations are not made available by Universal Grammar.
According to Ogihara (1995), the usage of the embedded present in a speech report such as John said that Mary is in the room is restricted by the cause of John’s belief (the state that made John think that Mary is in the room): the present tense can be used only if this cause still holds at the time that John said that Mary is in the room is uttered.
This paper presents experimental evidence demonstrating that this is only one of the factors that licenses a felicitous usage of the embedded present tense. In particular, we show that the cause of belief still holding is not a necessary condition, and identify two additional, sufficient (but not necessary) factors: in cases of false belief, who is aware of the falsity of the belief and duration of the reported state. While these factors are independent, they collectively support the idea that the present tense encodes ‘current relevance’, even in embedded contexts (e.g. Costa 1972; McGilvray 1974). This gives rise to the question of how we can derive ‘current relevance’ and, in particular, whether previous analyses of the embedded present tense are adequately equipped to do so.
This paper presents a new account of the generalization that focused elements cannot be elided, framed within Unalternative Semantics, a framework that does away with syntactic F-marking. We propose the mirror image of the generalization: what is elided cannot introduce alternatives. We implement this as a focus restriction in UAS and then go on to show how to account for MAXELIDE effects using the same technique, without making reference to any transderivational constraints.
The semantics of adjectives related to nominals denoting societal roles, such as presidential (from president), have remained understudied. We examine the semantics of what we call role-denoting relational adjectives, providing a formal analysis using the notion of a frame, a unified representation for lexical knowledge, world knowledge, and context. The frames we propose are based on a constructivist philosophical understanding of social roles, leading us to posit a multi-tiered ontology of events and individuals. Using frames and our ontology, we provide a general semantics for role-denoting relational adjectives and roles
Discourses in the historical (or narrative) use of the simple present in English prohibit backshifting, though they allow forward sequencing. Unlike both reference time theories and discourse coherence theories of these temporal inferences, we propose that backshifting has a different source from narrative progression. In particular, we argue that backshifting arises through anaphora to a salient event in the preceding discourse.
The goal of this paper is to evaluate two approaches to quantification in event semantics, namely the analysis of quantificational DPs in terms of generalized quantifiers and the analysis proposed in Schein (1993) according to which quantifiers over individuals contain an existential quantifier over sub-events in their scope. Both analyses capture the fact that the event quantifier always takes scope under quantifiers over individuals (the Event Type Principle in Landman (2000)), but the sub-events analysis has also been argued to be able to account for some further data, namely for adverbs qualifying ‘ensemble’ events and for mixed cumulative/ distributive readings. This paper shows that the sub-events analysis also provides a better account of the Event Type Principle if a broader range of data is considered, including cases with non-existential quantifiers over events: unlike the generalized quantifiers analysis, it can successfully account for the interpretation of indefinites in bare habituals and sentences that contain overt adverbs of quantification.
Korean is a generalized classifier language where classifiers are required for numerals to combine with nominals. This paper presents a number construction where the classifier is absent and the numeral appears prenominally. This construction, which I call the classifier-less number construction (Cl-less NC), results in a definite or a partitive reading where the referent must be familiar: ‘the two women’ or ‘two of the women’. In order to account for this, I argue that Korean postnominal number constructions are ambiguous between a plain number construction and a partitive construction. After motivating and proposing an analysis for the partitive structure, I argue that Cl-less NC is derived from the partitive construction, explaining its distributional restriction and the interpretation.
Counter to the often assumed division of labour between content and function words, we argue that both types of words have lexical content in addition to their logical content. We propose that the difference between the two types of words is a difference in degree. We conducted a preliminary study of quantificational determiners with methods from Distributional Semantics, a computational approach to natural language semantics. Our findings have implications both for distributional and formal semantics. For distributional semantics, they indicate a possible avenue that can be used to tap into the meaning of function words. For formal semantics, they bring into light the context-sensitive, lexical aspects of function words that can be recovered from the data even when these aspects are not overtly marked. Such pervasive context-sensitivity has profound implications for how we think about meaning in natural language.
This study investigates macrostructure in elicited narratives of 69 monolingual German-, Russian- and Swedish-speaking adults. Using the LITMUS-MAIN (Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives), and its Baby Goats and Baby Birds stories, story structure and story complexity, concerning episodic organization, were examined across the 3 languages. As theoretical underpinnings, a multidimensional model of macrostructure was used. This model includes analyses of story structure (SS), in which a narrative merits a maximum score of 17, based on the occurrence of five types of macrostructural components (Internal states as initiating event and as reaction, Goal, Attempt and Outcome), and of story complexity (SC), which measures combinations of Goals, Attempts and Outcomes within one episode. The highest attainable complexity is the GAO-sequence, when a Goal, Attempt and Outcome are produced within the same episode. The results for SS were similar for German, Russian and Swedish, where adults included 11-12 components per story. A more detailed analysis of the individual components revealed striking similarities across the 3 languages, both for frequently used and seldom occurring components. SC did not differ significantly across languages nor across stories, whilst for SS, a slight difference between the two stories was found. We interpret this finding as story complexity (a qualitative measure of macrostructure) being of a more universal nature. Furthermore, our results indicate that caution is warranted when conclusions about children’s narrative skills are to be drawn on the basis of the MAIN Baby Goats and Baby Birds stories.
For this study one hundred sixty-seven Russian-/Turkish-German preschool children were tested with a battery of language proficiency tests in both languages. On the basis of 1.5 SD below monolingual norm for L2 German and 1.25 SD below bilingual mean for either home language, 9 children at risk of developmental language disorders (DLD) (mean age of 4 years and 5 months) were identified and 16 age-matched TD children were selected out of the cohort. All these children were tested with the LITMUS-MAIN and –SR tests in German. The results across TD and at risk of DLD group were compared. TD clearly outperformed at risk of DLD in SR. In elicited narratives, macrostructure and microstructure were scrutinized across groups. Similar to the previous findings, our results show significant differences between at risk of DLD und TD in the microstructure, e.g. total number of word tokens and verb-based communication units and SR. For the macrostructure, TD outperformed at risk children only for story complexity. The study expands our knowledge on the cut-off criteria for the identification of bilinguals at risk of DLD, scrutinized very early narratives for bilinguals at risk of DLD features and questions the similarity of cognitive skills in TD and at risk of DLD children.
The aim of the present study was to test the influence of picture composition on the narrative complexity of preschool children, and to compare the different procedures of the Cat Story of Hickmann (2002) and the Fox Story of Gülzow & Gagarina (2007) with the Baby Birds and Baby Goats Story of MAIN, by Gagarina et al. (2012). For this purpose, 27 children between the ages of 5;01 and 6;09 were tested with both variants to check whether a macro-structurally controlled picture structure would lead to more complex stories. The results show that narratives with a Goal-Attempt-Outcome structure, i.e. the Baby Birds and Baby Goats Stories, make children with increasing age tell more complex stories by means of a rise in story complexity than the narratives of Hickmann and Gülzow & Gagarina without that structure.
This paper focuses on morphological verb errors in elicited narratives of Russian-German primary school bilinguals. The data was collected from 37 children who were separated into four groups according to the age and language acquisition type (simultaneous and successive). The Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) (Gagarina et al. 2012) was used for data collection. The narratives produced in mode telling after listening to a model story were analysed and morphological verb errors in Russian and German were classified. Therefore, the error classification of Gagarina (2008) for Russian monolingual children was expanded and for the classification of German errors an own classification was suggested. Errors in Russian typically produced by monolinguals and unique bilingual errors as well were documented. The results show that the language of the environment (German) increases with age. Older children make fewer errors than younger ones. Nevertheless, a strong heterogeneity between children within each group can be observed.
This study explores the relation between the development of narrative skills at the macrostructural level and the productive lexical abilities (verbs) of German-Russian children. The narratives are elicited using the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) and the lexical abilities are assessed using different tests. Twenty-one preschoolers (mean age: 3;9), forty-four 1st graders (mean age: 6;11) and twenty-two 3rd graders (mean age: 9;3) were included in the study. Correlation analyses were performed between verb lexicon and the following macrostructural components: Story Structure, Structural Complexity and Internal State Terms. The analysis also targets cross-language effects. In addition, the production of verbs within the elicited narratives was taken into account. Some positive correlations were found; however, no clear pattern across age groups and languages was observed. It is suggested that cognitive abilities might be a more decisive factor than lexical abilities and/or that the verbs assessed via the vocabulary tests are more specific than the ones required to achieve high scores for macrostructure.
A growing body of evidence shows a positive relation between the language skills of a child and the socio-economic status (SES) of his/her parents. These studies have mainly been conducted in an American English monolingual context. The current paper addresses the question of whether SES has a comparable impact on the simultaneous bilingual language acquisition. In this study, noun and verb test scores of German simultaneous bilingual children with Turkish and Russian as heritage languages are related to the SES of their parents – to verify the existence and the nature of a common pattern. The results do not show common patterns across the two heritage language groups, suggesting the existence of other confounding factors.
The aim of this paper is to analyse the development of narrative macrostructure and the impact of socio-economic status (SES) and home literacy environment (HLE) on the narrative macrostructure of monolingual preschoolers in Germany when retelling and telling a story. The analysis of narrative macrostructure includes three components: story structure, story complexity, and story comprehension. Oral narratives were elicited via Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (LITMUS-MAIN). 198 monolingual children between age 4;6 and 5;11 participated (M=63 months, SD=5 months). The comparison of narrative macrostructure in three age groups (4;6 to 4;11 years, 5;0 to 5;5 years, 5;6 to 5;11 years) illustrate significant age effects in story structure, story complexity and story comprehension skills. There were weak significant positive correlations of some of these skills with aspects of socio-economic status and home literacy environment, for example between story comprehension skills and the educational background, the frequency and duration of the child’s exposure to books and the number of books in the household.
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.
In this paper, data from a current study on bilingual language acquisition and language promotion of children is presented. 96 narratives from 32 Turkish-German and Russian-German bilingual children were examined with regard to the acquisition of narrative ability in three rounds of tests. The macrostructure of each narrative was evaluated based on the theories of Westby (2005), Stein and Glenn (1977) and Gagarina et al. (2012). In the quantitative analysis, the factor age of onset (AoO) was considered and therefore, two hypotheses were introduced: 1) There is an influence of AoO on the narrative ability of L2 German bilingual children. And 2) The narrative ability will converge over time and after three years there will be no difference between the groups. Neither of those hypotheses could be confirmed by the examined narrative data. Hence, other influences on narrative ability were discussed in the last chapter and prospects for further research were given. In sum, the article shows that more narrative data of these children should be collected to make a comprehensive conclusion about the influence of AoO on narrative ability.
Introduction
(2019)
German underwent a typological change from a syllable language in Old High German towards a word language today (Szczepaniak 2007). Proper names followed this development until the last century (cf. Christel, Gertrud, Klaus, Wolfgang). Some of the most popular German first names from 2010, however, such as Mia, Lea, Leon, Noah, show completely different structures compared to common nouns. In sharp contrast to common nouns, first names dispose of CV-structures, full vowels in unstressed syllables and different accent positions. Thus, there must have been a deep-rooted onomastic change. The most frequent baby names of 1945 were still in harmony with the usual word structures. This article shows that the decrease of transgenerational transmission of first names led to a departure fom native phonological structures. The following factors are analyzed: the number of syllables; accent position; and the number of consonant clusters, hiatuses, schwa and unstressed full vowels. It will be demonstrated that the phonological distance between first names (particularly female names) and common nouns has increased over time and that there is an increasing tendency for names to contain syllable language structures. Thus, a typological difference developed between these two nominal classes. The reason behind this change can be found in the individualizing function of proper names and social individualization over time.
In German, female and male first names are strictly segregated: there are two big inventories with the only purpose to separate women and men. Unisex names are extremely seldom. If they are chosen, they have to be followed by a sex-specific middle name (e.g. Kim Uwe, Kim Annette). If we look at the phonological components of first names, i.e. at their sounds, we can state that male and female names became more similar over the last decades. Whereas in the 1950's, typical first names such as Katharina and Rolf diverged considering their phonic inventory considerably, today, many girls are named Leah and Lara and many boys Noah and Luca. These names share nearly the same sounds, they consist of two syllables and are stressed on the first one. If we look behind the scenes, it becomes clear that the officially required onomastic separation of the two sexes is undermined. In this paper, I will present a socalled phonetic gender score for German first names for the first time (see also Schmidt-Jüngst in this volume). It allows for measuring a degree of femaleness and maleness of names. In a second step, it will be asked whether unofficial names such as pet names, which are not obliged to mark sex also tend to be gendered or if they disobey the gender barrier. It will be shown that the most intimate names are not interested in stressing the denoted person's sex. In contrast to first names, pet names tend to be maximally de-gendered.
Viele gegenwartssprachliche Grammatiken sprechen nicht mehr von starken Verben, sondern von unregelmäßigen. Diese Verben werden denn auch nicht mehr in Ablautreihen ("AR") oder, genauer, in Alternanzmuster eingeordnet, sondern alphabetisch aufgelistet. Types und Tokens kommen damit in Deckung, jedes Verb scheint ein eigener Type zu sein. Zumindest interessiert es nicht mehr, ob es hier übergreifende Muster gibt. Das hat gravierende Folgen: Die starken Verben werden als letzte erratische Brocken eines einstigen Gebirges begriffen, die ungeordnet in der Landschaft herumliegen und noch nicht von der Welle der (regelmäßigen) schwachen Verben erfasst wurden, dem aber entgegenblicken. Klassenstatus erlangen nur die schwachen Verben, allenfalls noch die Modalverben.
Die Studie "Beziehung überschreibt Geschlecht. Zum Genderindex von Ruf- und Kosenamen" betrifft zum Teil den Beziehungstyp der Liebesbeziehung. Sie fragt danach, ob und wie die Geschlechtszugehörigkeit in Kosenamen - Namen, die eine Beziehung kodieren und Nähe signalisieren - markiert wird. Mit einem Genderindex, der auf Basis der statistisch relevanten phonologischen Unterschiede zwischen den 100 häufigsten Frauen- und Männerrufnamen der deutschen Bevölkerung gebildet wurde, reanalysiert sie eine vorhandene Erhebung von Kosenamen und kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass Kosenamen auf der Basis von Rufnamen deutlich weniger geschlechtsmarkiert sind als die zugrunde liegenden Rufnamen. Dies interpretiert sie vorrangig als Zeichen einer besonders persönlichen, individualisierenden und dabei auch genderabstraktiven Wahrnehmung der benannten Person.
"Naming Gender" von Susanne Oelkers (2003) ist die erste Studie, die sich eingehend mit der Geschlechtskennzeichnung von Rufnamen befasst. Für die Herstellung und Darstellung von Geschlecht stellt nicht nur Sprache generell, sondern zuvörderst das Namensystem ein zentrales Zeichensystem zur Verfügung. Namen haben damit beträchtlichen Anteil an Ordnungsstiftung und Komplexitätsreduktion. Die deutsche Onomastik hat sich bis 2003 kaum für die soziale Differenz Gender interessiert, sie hat die linguistische und soziologische Genderforschung nicht rezipiert. Umgekehrt haben auch Genderlinguistik und Soziologie die Personennamen weitgehend übersehen (von Lindemann 1996 und Gerhards 2003 abgesehen). Dies steht der Relevanz entgegen, die Namen für die Etablierung und Prozessierung der Geschlechterordnung haben. Selbst Sprachen ohne jegliche grammatische Genus- oder Gendermarkierung können mit ihren Rufnamen Geschlecht indizieren (z.B. Finnisch und Estnisch, die nicht einmal bei den Personalpronomen der 3. Person Geschlecht markieren).
Marie Wrona präsentiert in ihrem Beitrag "Ist das ein Komma oder kann das weg? - Topologische Felder und Kommasetzung. Erste empirische Befunde" ein Experiment zur Kommadidaktik. Sie untersucht, inwiefern sich die Kommasetzungskompetenz von SchülerInnen verbessert, wenn diese mithilfe des topologischen Feldermodells vermittelt wird, das auf der Verbklammer im Deutschen aufbaut, anstatt wie bei traditionellen Ansätzen mithilfe von Signalwörtern wie Subjunktionen. Die SchülerInnen lernten, das finite Verb zu bestimmen und so zu entscheiden, ob ein Komma gesetzt werden muss oder nicht. Nach der Unterrichtseinheit setzten die SchülerInnen v.a. deutlich weniger falsche Kommata
Johanna Hartwig beschäftigt sich mit der Deklination entlehnter Farbadjektive wie lila, orange und rosa ("Gibt es denn jetzt lilane Kühe oder nicht? - Einflussfaktoren auf den Gebrauch indeklinabler Farbadjektive"). Diese Adjektive wurden ursprünglich nicht flektiert (das lila/rosa Haus). Hartwig führt ein Produktionsexperiment durch, um zu überprüfen, inwiefern die Frequenz und die Endung eines Adjektivs Einfluss auf dessen Flexion nehmen. Dabei stellt sie fest, dass frequente Adjektive zur Flexion neigen, jedoch auch die Endung eine Rolle spielt. So bleiben Adjektive auf [a] wie bspw. lila trotz hoher Frequenz unflektiert. Adjektive auf Frikativ weisen hingegen umso mehr Flexion auf, je frequenter sie sind. Für seltene Adjektive (creme) konnte Hartwig eine Vermeidungsstrategie feststellen: Creme wurde in ihrem Experiment am häufigsten in ein Derivat (cremefarben) umgewandelt, das eine Flexion des Adjektivs ermöglicht (das cremefarbene Haus).
Wie Hashtags bei Twitter als Teile von Komposita verwendet werden, zeigt Markus Majewski in seinem Beitrag #Erdogan-Diktatur - Hashtags als Elemente von Substantivkomposita in politischen Tweets. Als Grundlage dient ihm das Korpus aus Tweets von SpitzenpolitikerInnen der großen Parteien während des Wahlkampfs, in dem er alle Substantivkomposita mit einem Hashtag als Bestandteil wie #Energiewende auf funktionale, graphematische und strukturelle Aspekte untersucht. Insbesondere bei der Schreibung der Komposita zeigt sich eine große Kreativität. Zudem lassen sich Twitter-spezifische Kommunikationsfunktionen der Hashtag-Erstglieder beobachten.
Für den Wandel und die Variation der Präposition wegen interessieren sich Lea Heese und Fabiola Kaiser in ihrem Beitrag "Die menschliche Zunge ist faul. Assoziationen zu der Verwendungsweise der Präposition wegen mit dem Genitiv und dem Dativ". Wegen schwankt im Standard-deutschen zwischen Genitiv- und Dativrektion. Obwohl sie seit langem existiert, wird die Dativvariante von SprecherInnen oftmals als Zeichen für Sprachverfall gedeutet. Heese und Kaiser erhoben mithilfe einer Onlineumfrage Daten zum Gebrauch der Präposition in informellen und formellen Registern sowie Assoziationen zu den beiden Varianten. Wie bereits das Titelzitat des Beitrags zeigt, wird der Dativ unter anderem als Zeichen für Nachlässigkeit interpretiert.
Carlotta J. Hübener diskutiert in ihrem Beitrag "Nicht/keinen/kein Fußball spielen? - Inkorporationsprozesse in Substantiv-Verb-Verbindungen" Inkorporationprozesse bei Substantiv-Verb-Verbindungen wie bspw. Fußball spielen. Hierbei fokussiert sie auf die Negation: Während kein(en) Fußball spielen einen Hinweis darauf gibt, dass Fußball noch als eigenständiges Substantiv interpretiert wird, ist nicht Fußball spielen ein Indiz dafür, dass Fußball und spielen als eine konzeptionelle Einheit wahrgenommen werden. Kein negiert nämlich Nomen (Ich mag keinen Spinat), während nicht Verben negiert (Ich hab‘ noch nicht gegessen). Hübener überprüft in ihrem Beitrag anhand des Deutschen Referenzkorpus, inwiefern Frequenz, Idiomatik und Individuiertheit Einfluss auf die Negation von Substativ-Verb-Verbindungen nehmen können.
Brit Schwerin nimmt sich in ihrem Artikel "die bisher jedermann unbekannt gewesen [ist/war/sei/wäre] -Zum Rückgang des ersparten Finitums in Nebensätzen des frühen Neuhochdeutsch" des Phänomens der afiniten Nebensätze an, die in der Frühen Neuzeit im deutschen Sprachraum weit verbreitet waren. Ihre Analyse von Nebensätzen mit und ohne finites Verb in Texten aus dem 17. und 18. Jh. ergibt, dass der Rückgang der afiniten Konstruktionen in Verbindung mit dem Bedürfnis nach eindeutiger Markierung grammatischer Kategorien wie Tempus und Modus steht. Die diachronen Studien decken somit Sprachwandel auf verschiedenen Ebenen ab.
Wie sich Konzessivkonnektoren im 18. und 19. Jh. entwickelt haben, untersuchen Lisa Bürgerhoff, Jana Giesenschlag, Linda Kunow und Alexandra Kern für ihren Beitrag "Von ob ich schon wanderte zu obschon ich wanderte?! - Eine Korpusuntersuchung zur Konzessivität von 1700-1900". Ihre Untersuchungen im Deutschen Textarchiv zeigen unter anderem einen Zusammenhang zwischen der Zusammenschreibung der Konnektoren und einer eindeutig konzessiven Lesart, der für obschon, obgleich, obwohl und obzwar allerdings unterschiedlich stark ist. Auch die Faktizität der Teilsätze und das Auftreten verstärkender Partikeln sind für die Entwicklung der ob-Gruppe von Bedeutung. Als eindeutigste und frequenteste Konzessivkonnektoren stellen sich insgesamt obwohl und vor allem obzwar heraus.
Mit der mittelhochdeutschen Nebensilbenabschwächung beschäftigt sich Tanja Stevanovićs Beitrag "Wo sind die vollen Vokale geblieben? Eine Untersuchung möglicher Einflussfaktoren auf die Nebensilbenabschwächung". Dafür hat sie in einer Korpusuntersuchung im Referenzkorpus Mittelhochdeutsch schwache Verben analysiert, die trotz der fortschreitenden Nebensilbenabschwächung noch im Mittelhochdeutschen Vollvokale in Endsilben aufweisen.
Lena Schnee analysiert in ihrem Beitrag "Eingenordet - Morphologische Assimilation mittelniederdeutscher Lehnwörter im Altnordischen" die Liste mittelniederdeutscher Entlehnungen im Altnordischen Etymologischen Wörterbuch und zeigt, wie die mittelniederdeutschen Wörter, die in der Hansezeit in die skandinavischen Sprachen entlehnt wurden, an das Altnordische angepasst wurden. Dabei wendet sie ein Transderivationsmodell an, um die morphologische Assimilation nicht nur von ganzen Lexemen, sondern auch von Affixen und Wortstämmen nachzuvollziehen. Schnees Untersuchung ergibt, dass bei der Entlehnung in das Altnordische hauptsächlich die Affixe adaptiert wurden. Die mittelniederdeutschen Affixe wurden überwiegend durch native oder entlehnte altnordische ersetzt, was darauf hinweist, dass die Morphemgrenzen und Wortbildungselemente bei der Entlehnung als solche erkannt wurden. Als Erklärung hierfür führt Schnee die typologische Ähnlichkeit der beiden Sprachen an.
This paper examines whether gender features (masculine, feminine, neuter) in German have to be interpreted semantically, along their specific gender, or whether they allow for a gender unrelated interpretation. As to this, two experiments with two different classes of nouns (gender marked and sex marked nouns vs. gender marked and sex neutral nouns) were conducted. The first experiment supports the view that in their function as nominal predicates masculine nouns, contrary to feminine (and neuter) nouns, have the widest extension – which confirms the existence of a ‘Generic Masculine’ (Generisches Maskulinum). On the other hand, the second experiment shows that in their function as subjects masculine nouns, contrary to feminine (and neuter) nouns, are the least flexible agreement controllers – hardly allowing for gender mismatches. Thus, masculine nouns behave differently depending on whether they appear as controllers/sources of agreement or as targets of agreement. The findings are supplemented by corpus data.
"Habt ihr schon mal davon gehört gehabt?" Fällt Ihnen bei diesem Satz etwas auf? Wie würden Sie den Satz interpretieren, insbesondere die Zeitform des Prädikates hören? Weist sie, Ihrer Meinung nach, eher auf Expressivität, seine Abgeschlossenheit, die (Vor-)Vorvergangenheit eines Geschehens oder eine einfache Vergangenheit hin? Im letzteren Fall würde der Satz die gleiche Semantik ausdrücken wie ohne das zweite Partizip II: Habt ihr schon mal davon gehört? Im Fokus dieser Arbeit stehen empirische Evidenzen zum Gebrauch des doppelten Perfekts und Plusquamperfekts in der deutschen Sprache. Im Rahmen dieser Untersuchung wurde ein Fragebogen mit 202 deutschen Muttersprachlern durchgeführt. Die Ergebnisse dieser Studie zeigen, dass das doppelte Plusquamperfekt bei der Interpretation von ca. 86% der untersuchten deutschen Muttersprachler akzeptiert wird. Weiterhin deuten die Ergebnisse dieser Studie auf viele Unterschiede bei der Akzeptanz der doppelten Konstruktionen zwischen Studierenden verschiedener Fachrichtungen hin.
In the paper, German disintegrated verb-final 'obwohl' (‘although’) and 'weil' (‘because’) clauses are compared with constructions in which 'obwohl' and 'weil' precedes clauses with main clause word order. The former constructions constitute independent, yet subsidiary speech acts. Thus, the subordinating connectors and the positioning of the verb do not indicate syntactic but textual dependency. The latter constructions are of a very different kind. Here, 'obwohl' and 'weil' do not form a constituent with the following clause. Instead, they appear as syntactically independent discourse markers connecting two discourse units. As discourse markers, 'obwohl' and 'weil' obtain their special syntactic and semantic properties as elements of the derived, but independent module of Thetic Grammar.
This paper deals with German 'wobei'-clauses and their Italian counterparts. Based on a corpus study of administrative texts, we identify the type and frequency of the Italian constructions that correspond to 'wobei'-clauses. In particular, we will assess to what extent the Italian converb construction gerundio correlates with 'wobei'-clauses. More specifically, we will focus on the thesis put forward by Haspelmath (1995) and Breindl (2014), according to which comitativity is expressed by converb constructions when it applies to state of affairs.
'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 Hauptziel dieses Beitrags besteht darin, anhand einer tiefergehenden prosodisch-phonologischen Analyse der häufigsten Rufnamen von 1945-2008 der Frage nachzugehen, ob im Laufe der Zeit eine Androgynisierung unserer Rufnamen dahingehend stattgefunden hat, dass Strukturen, die bislang dominant für das eine Geschlecht galten, zunehmend auch für das andere Geschlecht gewählt werden bzw. geschlechtspräferente Strukturen nivelliert oder gar abgebaut werden. Ein weiteres Ziel besteht darin, auf onymischer Ebene der These nachzugehen, dass in verschiedenen gesellschaftlichen Bereichen eine sog. Informalisierung und Intimisierung stattgefunden habe, die sich möglicherweise in heutigen Namen wie Lilly oder Nico statt früher Elisabeth und Nikolaus niederschlagen.