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"Concordia domi, foris pax" : zur sprichwörtlichen Mehrsprachigkeit der Rhetorik Helmut Schmidts
(2016)
In den zahlreichen Büchern Helmut Schmidts, die in Sammelbänden auch seine Interviews, Reden und Aufsätze enthalten, spielen fremdsprachliche Phraseologismen eigentlich nur eine kleine Rolle. Dieser Beitrag enthält im Prinzip alle aufgefundenen Belege, was deutlich zu erkennen gibt, dass Helmut Schmidt im Vergleich zu Otto von Bismarck und Willy Brandt seine lateinischen und englischen Sprachkenntnisse weniger unter Beweis stellt. Französisch fehlt wegen seiner Unkenntnis der ehemals so bedeutenden Diplomatensprache fast völlig, während sich die beiden aussagekräftigen lateinischen Sprichwörter "Concordia domi, foris pax" und "Salus publica suprema lex" als gewichtige Leitmotive der politischen Rhetorik Schmidts erweisen. Erwartungsgemäß vertritt die moderne lingua franca des Angloamerikanischen die Mehrsprachigkeit Schmidts am deutlichsten. Zusätzlich zu englischen Zwillingsformeln und Redensarten kommt es hier in der Tat zu einer Reihe von englischen und amerikanischen Sprichwörtern, die eine erhebliche kommunikative Funktion übernehmen. Zweifelsohne hätte Schmidt deutschsprachige Äquivalente finden können, doch will er offensichtlich seine Betrachtungen zur politischen Situation in Deutschland, Europa und der Welt durch angloamerikanische Sprichwortweisheiten international untermauern. Dafür gab es vormals Latein und Französisch, doch hat nuneinmal die englische Weltsprache diese Rolle im modernen Zeitalter übernommen.
Flashmob, App, E-Bike, Gendermainstreaming, bloggen, skypen, gefaked/gefakt, geliked/gelikt, Coffee-to-go, Latte macchiato, Gnocchi, Yallah, Shisha oder Sushi – die beherrschenden Fremdwörter aus Wissenschaft und Alltag der Gegenwartssprache im 21. Jahrhundert sind englischen Ursprungs, im letzten Jahrzehnt auch zunehmend aus anderen modernen europäischen und außereuropäischen Sprachen entlehnt. Die Entlehnungsbedingungen dieser Wörter unterscheiden sich damit grundsätzlich von den Gegebenheiten, die für die Integrationsentwicklungen bei Gräzismen und Latinismen sowie für Gallizismen bestimmend waren. Während die Fremdwörter aus den drei bis ins 20. Jahrhundert hinein wesentlichen Gebersprachen über Jahrhunderte hinweg in mehreren Phasen schrittweise Eingang in die deutsche Sprache fanden und dabei durch einen kontinuierlichen, wenn auch nicht immer widerspruchsfreien Prozess orthografischer Normierung begleitet wurden, erfolgte die Übernahme einer Vielzahl von Anglizismen und anderer Neologismen erheblich schneller im Rahmen umfassender Internationalisierung und Globalisierung von Sprache und Gesellschaft. Die entlehnten Wörter bezeichnen zum allergrößten Teil neue Phänomene, Wortbedeutungen oder Sachverhalte, sie sind Indizien für fundamentale gesellschaftliche Veränderungen, die einen grundlegenden Sprach- und schließlich auch Schreibwandel zur Folge haben. Im Gegensatz zum Umfeld früherer Entlehnungen bieten normierende Texte wie Grammatiken oder Wörterbücher daher zunächst noch keine orthografische Orientierung. Stattdessen gewinnt das Internet, bestimmt von professionellen wie auch informellen Schreibern, sowohl als Bezugsquelle von Informationen als auch als Orientierungsrahmen für die Schreibung neuer Wörter eine immer stärkere Bedeutung. Anglizismen spielen dabei eine Sonderrolle: Sie werden sowohl von englischen als auch von deutschen Quelltexten aus rezipiert und zum Teil in ihrem gebersprachlichen graphemischen Status übernommen, zum Teil modifiziert.
The interpretation of traces
(2004)
This paper argues that parts of the lexical content of an A-bar moved phrase must be interpreted in the base position of movement. The argument is based on a study of deletion of a phrase that contains the base position of movement. I show that deletion licensing is sensitive to the content of the moved phrase. In this way, I corroborate and extend conclusions based on Condition C reconstruction by N. Chomsky and D. Fox. My result provides semantic evidence for the existence of traces and gives semantic content to the A/A-bar distinction.
A contrast to a trace
(2001)
For movement, such as quantifier raising, the three different structures illustrated in (1) are discussed in the recent literature.
(1) A girl danced with every boy
a. [every boy]x a girl danced with x (copy + replace)
b. [every boy]x a girl danced with [every boy] (copy)
c. [every boy]x a girl danced with [thex boy] (copy + modify)
In this paper, I'll call the proposal illustrated by (1a) the copy+replace theory since the movement is analyzed as first copying the moving phrase followed by replacing the moving phrase with a trace in the base position of movement. Chomsky (1993) and Fox (1999) argue against the copy+replace theory (1a) on the basis of Condition C data that show that moved material can behave as if it occupied the base position of movement. This behavior would, for example, be expected on the copy theory of movement illustrated by (1b), which also seems conceptually simpler than the copy+replace theory since it involves only copying without replacement. This conceptual advantage, however, is probably only apparent since a theory of the interpretation of structures like (1b) would probably be more complicated than for (1a). Standard assumptions about interpretation, at least, don't predict the right meaning when applied to (1b). For this reason, Chomsky and Fox propose what I'll call the copy+modify-theory illustrated in (1c). This proposes that copying is followed by a trace modification operation that replaces the determiner of the moved DP with something else. I assume that this is an indexed definite determiner, the interpretation of which is to be clarified below.
Why variables?
(1999)
This paper addresses the question of how sentence-internal semantic dependencies are computed? The kind of semantic dependency I am looking at is that between a so called "bound (variable) pronoun" and its binder illustrated in (1), where the dependency is indicated by a connecting line. With all the literature on the topic (see for example Partee 1973, Percus 1998), I assume that this case is the prototype of all semantic dependencies, and therefore any result for this case generalizes to all types of sentence-internal semantic dependencies.
This paper addresses the syntax and semantics plurals, and then applies it to reciprocal expressions. In the course of this investigation, I address two problems for the conventional view that a reciprocal makes essentially the same semantic contribution to the sentence as other noun phrases, but has an interesting internal structure. I will show that both problems are properties of plurality in general, and can be successfully explained along these lines. As a result, the paper is more about plurality in general than reciprocals though the goal of the paper is to account for the two problems relating to reciprocals.
Textkompetenz in mehreren Sprachen : Forschungsergebnisse und weiterführende Forschungsansätze
(2014)
The article presents results of an empirical study which examines productive transfer in the area of text skills competence and the associated writing skill which could be attributed to the learners' contact with several languages. The research was conducted within the research project "Multilingualism in the Czech Republik: Learning and Teaching German after English." After a short presentation of the key concepts in the development of the study and a presentation of selected results, implications and a modell for further research in multilingual writing and on transfer processes between languages are introduced.
O objetivo principal deste artigo é apresentar uma visão geral dos resultados obtidos em uma pesquisa empírica envolvendo aprendizes adultos de alemão como língua estrangeira com conhecimentos prévios de inglês. O foco deste artigo recai sobre os processos envolvidos no ensino/aprendizagem de terceiras línguas, levando-se em consideração que a língua alemã é comumente aprendida como uma segunda língua estrangeira após o inglês. Os principais questionamentos da pesquisa estão baseados em processos de transferência positiva, bem como na interferência linguística observada em um grupo de 50 aprendizes de alemão dos níveis A1 a B1 do Quadro Europeu Comum de Referência para as Línguas. Ao que concerne a relação entre as línguas alemã e inglesa, a afirmação de que o inglês exerce um papel importante na aprendizagem de alemão pôde ser confirmada, sendo o parentesco etimológico entre as duas línguas um dos mais importantes fatores para se determinar a ocorrência de influência interlinguística. Por outro lado, a interferência linguística resultante da coexistência de ambas as línguas demanda o desenvolvimento de uma didática do plurilinguismo que compreenda métodos alternativos para o ensino/aprendizagem de alemão como segunda língua estrangeira no Brasil.
Several phenomena associated with the differences in the performance of novice interpreters and semi-professionals have been discussed in the paper. Particular emphasis was placed on the occurrence of imported cognitive load which strongly influenced the performance of the subjects also in places where no intrinsic difficulty had been detected. Nevertheless, too little evidence was provided to establish a more detailed pattern of imported cognitive load, which was due to the limited number of participants in the study. It would be possible to obtain more detailed data and comments from the participants by means of interviews conducted individually with the participants. It would allow asking detailed questions to the participants, which might be a more reliable method than the immediate retrospective accounts. Moreover, in the present study such variables as gender differences, age differences and the possible influence of other foreign languages were not taken into account. Perhaps these variables might shed some light on the issue of the management of cognitive resources. Also, the corpus gathered for the present study may be used for the investigation of other aspects of the SI performance.
Translation is a very broad, complex and multi-faceted phenomenon, encompassing much more factors than it seems at first glance. It is not just copying the words from the original work while changing the language, but it consists of a careful selection of appropriate phrases and expressions, combining them together in a skillful way while taking into consideration numerous aspects, one of them being the text type. The purpose of this article is, therefore, to present various text typologies and text types, specify their implications for translators and determine the role of the correct recognition of text type in producing a successful translation. This will be done on the assumption that a text type is one of the basic factors that allow the translator to recognise the function and purpose of the text as well as the author's intention. Thus, depending on the nature of these, the translator will inevitably resort to different techniques and strategies in order to successfully render the source text. Therefore, identifying the text type also helps the translator to select the appropriate translation strategy.
In what follows, I first briefly review Perlmutter (1968, 1970), in which it is argued that aspectual verbs are ambiguous between control and raising. I suggest that while the argument for the raising analysis is solid, the arguments supporting the control analysis of aspectual verbs are less so. As an alternative hypothesis to consider, I introduce the structural ambiguity hypothesis. In Section 3, I review three recent analyses of control and raising. Although there are important differences among them, they all share the basic assumption that the control/raising distinction is due to differences in selectional restrictions that the lexical items impose. Under such an assumption, the lexical ambiguity hypothesis is the only available option. In Section 4, I present evidence for the structural ambiguity hypothesis from studies concerning aspectual verbs in languages from four distinct families, German (Wurmbrand 2001), Japanese (Fukuda 2006), Romance languages (Cinque 2003), and Basque (Arregi Molina-Azaola 2004). These data strongly suggest that across languages aspectual verbs can appear in two different syntactic positions, either below or above vP, or the projection with which an external argument is introduced (Kratzer 1994, 1996, Chomsky 1995). Given these findings, I argue that it is the aspectual verbs' position with respect to vP which creates the control/raising ambiguity. When an aspectual verb appears in a position that is lower than vP, an external argument takes scope over the aspectual verb. Thus, it is interpreted as control. When an aspectual verb appears in a position that is higher than vP, on the other hand, it is the aspectual verb that takes scope over an entire vP, including the external argument. Thus, it is interpreted as raising. In section 5, I extend the scope of this study to include a discussion of want-type verbs in Indonesian, as analyzed in Polinsky & Potsdam (2006). Polinsky & Potsdam argue that the Indonesian want-type verbs must be raising in at least certain cases where they allow a rather peculiar interpretation. Although they assume that there are also control counterparts of the want-type verbs, I argue that applying the proposed analysis to the want-type verbs does away with the need for stipulating two distinct lexical entries for these verbs. Section 6 concludes the paper.
This paper investigates the semantic underpinnings of the distinction between two syntactic types of "manner of movement" verbs in Levin (1993), namely the RUN and ROLL classes. According to Levin's (1993) and Levin & Rappaport's (1995) work on unaccusativity, a semantic factor of "internal causation" should be the trigger for the classification of a movement verb as intransitive (=not-unaccusative), and hence for its belonging to the RUN class. We point out empirical problems for this characterisation, mainly coming from the different readings of the German verb fliegen (fly). From a comparison with other semantically similar verbs, we conclude that the semantic description which underlies the class distinction should be refined: instead of "internal causation", the crucial semantic factor is described here as "inherent specification for a momentum of movement". This result indicates that forces, and relations between forces, have to be part of the semantic description of the manner component in movement verbs.
Rethinking the adjunct
(2000)
The purpose of the present paper is twofold: first, to show that, when defining the adjunct, it is necessary to distinguish in a strict modular way between the syntactic level and the lexico-semantic level. Thus, the adjunct is a syntactic category on a par with the specifier and the complement, whereas the argument belongs to the same set as does (among others) the modifier. The consequence of this distinction is that there is no direct one-to-one opposition between adjuncts and arguments. Nor is there any direct one-to one relation between adjuncts and modifiers.
The second and main purpose of the paper is to account for the well-known difference between the position of a specific set of modifiers (cause, time, place etc.) in, on the one hand, English and Swedish, on the other, German. In English and Swedish the default position of these modifiers is postverbal, whereas in German it is preverbal. Further, in English and Swedish, these modifiers occur in a mirror order compared with their German counterparts, an order which, from a semantic point of view, is not the expected one. I shall demonstrate that this difference is due to the different settings of the verbal head parameter, the former languages being VO-languages and the latter being OV -languages. I shall further argue that in English and Swedish these modifiers are base generated as adjuncts to an empty VP, which is a complement of the main verb of what I shall call the minimal VP (MVP), whereas in German they are adjuncts on top of the MVP. Finally, I shall argue that the postverbal modifiers move at the latest at LF to the top of the MVP, in order to take scope over it, the restriction being 'Shortest move'. The movement results in the correct scope order of the postverbal modifiers.
The proposed structure also accounts for the binding data, in particular for the binding of a specific Swedish possessive anaphor 'sin'. This pronoun, which may occur within the MVP, must not occur within the postverbal modifiers in the empty VP. This supports the assumption that there is a strict borderline between the MVP and the assumed empty VP. The account is also in accordance with the focus data, the specific set of modifiers being potential focus exponents in a wide focus reading in English and Swedish, but not in German.
Starting from a consideration of the internal make-up of adverbial clauses this paper shows that the widespread assumption that fronted arguments in English and CLLD constituents in Romance occupy the same position leads to a number of problems. I will conclude that the position occupied by English topicalized arguments differs from that of the CLLD topics in Romance. In particular, English topics occupy a higher position in the left periphery. The final part of the paper compares three proposals for the lower topic position in Romance.
This study examines intraoral pressure for English and German stops in bilabial and alveolar place of articulation. Our subjects are two speakers of American English and three speakers of German. VOICING is the main phonological contrast under evaluation in both word initial and word final position. For initial stops, a few of the pressure characteristics showed differences between English and German, but on the whole the results point to similar production strategies at both places of articulation in the two different languages. Analysis of the pressure trajectory differences between VOICING categories in initial position raises questions about articulatory differences. In the initial closing gesture, time from start of gesture to closure is roughly equivalent for both categories, but the pressure change is significantly smaller on average for VOICED stops. Final stops, however, present a more complicated picture. German final stops are neutralized to a presumed VOICELESS phonological state. English final /p/ is broadly similar to German /p/, but English /t/ often shows no pressure increase at all which is at odds with the conventional account of phonation termination via pressure increase and loss of pressure differential. The results raise the question of whether the German final stops should be considered VOICELESS or some intermediate form, at least as compared to English final stops.
The paper proposes structural constraints for different adjunct classes in German and English. Approaches in which syntax has only the task to provide adjunct positions and in which principles of scope are supposed to explain the distribution of adjuncts are rejected as incomplete. The syntactic requirements are not as rigid as other approaches require, such that there is just one possible position for a given adjunct. Rather the syntactic constraints may be fulfilled in different positions.
Starting from the basic observation that, across languages, the anticausative variant of an alternating verb systematically involves morphological marking that is shared by passive verbs, the goal of this paper is to provide a uniform and formal account of these arguably two different construction types. The central claim that I put forward is that passives and anticausatives differ only with respect to the event-type features of the verb but both arise through the same operation, namely suppression by special morphology of a feature in v that encodes the ontological event type of the verb. Crucially, I argue for two syntactic primitives, namely act and cause, whereto I trace the passive/anticausative distinction. Passive constructions across languages are made compatible by relegating the differences to simple combinatorial properties of verb and prepositional types and their interactions with other event functors, which are in turn encoded differently morphologically across languages. New arguments are brought forward for a causative analysis of anticausatives. Agentive adverbials are examined, and doubt is cast on the usefulness of by-phrases as a diagnostic for argumenthood.
The ultimate goal of the study is to examine the acquisition of intensifiers in English and German. In this paper an overview of the first results regarding four L1 English-speaking children will be given. Contrary to previous claims in the literature (e.g. Thomas 1990), it will be argued that intensifiers are used by children in early phases of language acquisition. Intensifiers play an important role in early phases of language acquisition since they can be used to express the wish either to be included or excluded in a certain action and thus contribute to structuring a central aspect of the child's discourse.