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This thesis investigates the linguistic effects of language contact between French and German in Alsace due to the German annexation of this region during World War II. The turbulent, tug-of-war history of Alsace has constantly challenged the Alsatian people to secure a stable cultural and national identity. This study focuses on understanding the development of the linguistic aspect of this Alsatian identity. My hypothesis is that there was a greater French influence on Alsatian speech after World War II due to the anti-German sentiment provoked by the harsh Nazi policies during the war. To test this hypothesis, this study analyzes and compares the type and regularity of lexical borrowings from French into German and from German into French in Alsatian newspapers in 1945.
In a recent contribution to a long-standing discussion in semantics as to whether the neo-Davidsonian analysis should be extended to stative predicates or not, Maienborn (2004, 2005) proposes to distinguish two types of statives; one of them is said to have a referential argument of the Davidsonian type, the other not. As one of her arguments for making such a distinction, Maienborn observes that manner modification seems to be supported only by certain statives but to be excluded by others (thus linking the issue to the use of manner modification as one major argument in favour of event semantics, cf. Parsons 1990). In this paper, it is argued that the absence of manner modification with Maienborn's second group of statives is actually due to a failure of conceptual construal: modification of a predicate is ruled out whenever its internal conceptual structure is too poor to provide a construal for the modifier; hence, the effects observed by Maienborn reduce to the fact that eventive predicates have a more complex conceptual substructure than stative ones. Hence, the issue of manner modification with statives is shown to be orthogonal to questions of logical form and event semantics. The explanatory power of the conceptual approach is demonstrated with a case study on predicates of light emission, adapting the representation format of Barsalou's (1992) frame model.
The collaborative context of language learning in Teletandem (TELLES; VASSALLO 2006) involves the principles of autonomy, reciprocity and separation of languages, as well as the mediation of the partnerships (in Vygotskian terms). This article aims to discuss the formats of teletandem mediation, by focusing on the strategies used to reconcile the management of interactions (SALOMÃO 2008) through reflective journals in our specific educational context This qualitative investigation is based on the analysis of a corpus of reflective journals produced after teletandem sessions by Brazilian students and the feedback offered by the mediators. The Brazilian participants wrote journal entries after practicing teletandem with speakers of the following foreign languages: English, German, Italian, and Spanish. They address a wide range of topics, covering aspects of technology, foreign language learning, methodological issues, as well as comments on the relationship with their partners. The data suggest great potential of the journals and the feedback for participants, mediators and coordinators to evaluate specific issues of collaborative language learning in the teletandem, as well as other relevant aspects for the pedagogical supervision of the project.
The aim of the present paper is to show how, and to what extent, the standards of critical genetic editions as applied to Goethe's Faust can be attained within a TEI framework. It proposes and argues for the introduction of two separate transcripts: documentary and textual. Despite the apparent disadvantages of multiple encoding, this approach recommends itself for practical reasons (e.g., avoidance of overlapping hierarchies), and it conveniently reflects the idea that any written document must be considered a material object on the one hand and a medium of textual transmission on the other. In the course of the paper, some aspects and problems of chapter 11 of version 2.0.0 of TEI P5 (the definition and use of the elements <line> and <mod> and related issues) will be discussed.
In order to understand the specific structures and features of the German surnames the most important facts about their emergence and history should be outlined and, at the same time, be compared with the Swedish surnames because there are considerable differences (for further details cf. Nubling 1997 a, b). First of all, surnames in Germany emerged rather early, with the first instances occurring in the 11th century in southern Germany; by the 16th century surnames were common all over Germany. Differences are related to geography (from south to north), social class (from the upper to the lower classes) und urban versus rural areas.
Does linguistic rhythm matter to syntax, and if so, what kinds of syntactic decisions are susceptible to rhythm? By means of two recall-based sentence production experiments and two corpus studies – one on spoken and one on written language – we investigated whether linguistic rhythm affects the choice between introduced and un-introduced complement clauses in German. Apart from the presence or absence of the complementiser dass (‘that’), these two sentence types differ with respect to the position of the tensed verb (verb-final/verb-second). Against our predictions, that were based on previously reported rhythmic effects on the use of the optional complementiser that in English, the experiments fail to obtain compelling evidence for rhythmic/prosodic influences on the structure of complement clauses in German. An overview of pertinent studies showing rhythmic influences on syntactic encoding suggests these effects to be generally restricted to syntactic domains smaller than a clause. We assume that, in the course of language production, initially, clause level syntactic projections are specified; their specification is in fact the prerequisite for phonological encoding to start. Consequently, prosodic effects may only touch upon the lower level categories that are to be integrated into the clausal projection, but not upon the syntactic makeup of the higher order projection itself.
Recent work on argument selection couched in a lexical decomposition approach (Ehrich & Rapp 2000) postulates different linking properties for verbs and nouns, challenging current views on argument inheritance. In this paper, I show that the different behavior with respect to verbal and nominal linking observed for Present-Day German does not carry over to ung-nominals in Early New High German. Deverbal nouns and corresponding verbs rather behave alike with respect to argument linking. I shall argue that this change is motivated by the growing rift between ung-nominals and their verbal bases both focussing on different parts oftheir lexicosemantic structure in Present-Day German. Evidence for the verb-like behavior of ung-nominals in Early New High German comes from the regular meaning relation between verbs and corresponding derived nouns, the actional properties of event-denoting nouns, and the patterning of ung-nominals with nominalized infinitives. Even their syntactic behavior reflects the verbal character of ung-nominals during that period of the German language. The diachronic facts can be accounted for in a straightforward way once we adopt a lexical decomposition approach to argument selection.
In this paper, we deal with the semantic interaction between ung-nominalizations of different event types and temporal prepositions like wiihrend 'during', vor 'before', nach 'after', bis 'until' and seit 'since'. According to the two-level-approach to selnantics (Bierwisch 1983, Bierwisch / Lang 1989), we will argue that the meaning of ten~poral prepositions is determined on the level of semantic form (SF). When combined with an event nominal, the period in time required by the preposition has to be inferred on the level of conceptual structure (CS). Very often, the exact nature of the period in time is determined by pragmatic factors. There are, however, some important restrictions to this inference procedure which rely on the event noun's Aktionsart. In Ehrich/Rapp (2000), it was claimed that eventive ungnominals inherit the Aktionsart of their base verb. This assumption receives strong support by the data presented in this paper.
In the following, we will discuss the acquisition of plural forms in German from the unified perspective of the two, in our opinion compatible, approaches, on the basis of a longitudinal data sample of eight children. There are at least six recordings of each child, all of whom are girls. Together, the data cover the acquisition period from 1;11 to 2;10. One may thus anticipate that the data sample under investigation reflects the transition from purely lexical memorization to the acquisition of regularities or patterns.
This paper discusses a variant of German V2 declaratives sharing properties with both subordinate relative clauses and main clauses. I argue that modal subordination failure helps decide between two rivaling accounts for this construction. Thus, a hypotactic analysis involving syntactic variable sharing must be preferred over parataxis plus anaphora resolution. The scopal behavior of the construction will be derived from its 'proto-assertional force,' which it shares with similar 'embedded root' constructions.
In this paper, a class of sentences in German is discussed that are often called whexclamatives. […]
So called wh-exclamatives can be roughly characterized as wh-clauses that are embedded under exclamative predicates like erstaunt sein/to be amazed at [...] or that are used as the basis for an exclamation [...].
One can ask if wh-exclamatives are a clause-type of their own, in particular, whether they are different from wh-clauses in question environments, that is under question predicates like to ask or to wonder or used as questions. It is often assumed that wh-clauses in exclamative contexts, both embedded and unembedded, are indeed different from wh-clauses in interrogative or question environments [...], at least regarding their semantical type, see for example Elliot (1971, 1974), Grimshaw (1979, 1981), Zaefferer (1983, 1984), Altmann (1 987, 1993). […]
I assume with Grimshaw (1979) that so called wh-exclamatives and wh-interrogatives are alike with respect to their syntactical properties. In addition, I think that they are also alike semantically. So, what I like to do here is to evaluate the following hypothesis:
So-called wh-exclamatives are of the same semantical type as wh-interrogatives.
The focus of this paper is the perspectivization of thematic roles generally and the recipient role specifically. Whereas perspective is defined here as the representation of something for someone from a given position (Sandig 1996: 37), perspectivization refers to the verbalization of a situation in the speech generation process (Storrer 1996: 233). In a prototypical act of giving, for example, the focus of perception (the attention of the external observer) may be on the person who gives (agent), the transferred object (patient) or the person who receives the transferred object (recipient). The languages of the world provide differing linguistic means to perspectivize such an act of giving, or better: to perspectivize the participants of such an action. In this article, the linguistic means of three selected continental West Germanic languages –German, Dutch and Luxembourgish– will be taken into consideration, with an emphasis on the perspectivization of the recipient role.
German linking elements are sometimes classified as inflectional affixes, sometimes as derivational affixes, and in any case as morphological units with at least seven realisations (e.g. -s-, -es-, -(e)n-, -e-). This article seeks to show that linking elements are hybrid elements situated between morphology and phonology. On the one hand, they have a clear morphological status since they occur only within compounds (and before a very small set of suffixes) and support the listener in decoding them. On the other hand, they also have to be analysed on the phonological level, as will be shown in this article. Thus, they are marginal morphological units on the pathway to phonology (including prosodics). Although some alloforms can sometimes be considered former inflectional endings and in some cases even continue to demonstrate some inflectional behaviour (such as relatedness to gender and inflection class), they are on their way to becoming markers of ill-formed phonological words. In fact, linking elements, above all the linking -s-, which is extremely productive, help the listener decode compounds containing a bad phonological word as their first constituent, such as Geburt+s+tag ‘birthday’ or Religion+s+unterricht ‘religious education’. By marking the end of a first constituent that differs from an unmarked monopedal phonological word, the linking element aids the listener in correctly decoding and analysing the compound. German compounds are known for their length and complexity, both of which have increased over time—along with the occurrence of linking elements, especially -s-. Thus, a profound instance of language change can be observed in contemporary German, one indicating its typological shift from syllable language to word language.
This study explores four German nominalization patterns (-ung; -erei; Ge- -X-e; nominalized infinitives) using corpus and web data. We conclude that they can be considered a word formation paradigm, as some functions depend on paradigmatic oppositions. Our case study supports gradual differences between inflectional and word formation paradigmaticity.
This paper deals with restitutive and repetitive 'wieder'. Proceeding from the assumption that adverbial adjuncts have base positions which reflect their semantic relations to the rest of the sentence, it is shown that repetitive 'wieder' belongs to the class of event adverbs minimally c-commanding the base positions of all arguments whereas restitutive 'wieder' has many properties in common with process adjuncts, minimally c-commanding the final verb.
This paper presents two experimental studies investigating the processing of presupposed content. Both studies employ the German additive particle auch (too). In the first study, participants were given a questionnaire containing bi-clausal, ambiguous sentences with 'auch' in the second clause. The presupposition introduced by auch was only satisfied on one of the two readings of the sentence, and this reading corresponded to a syntactically dispreferred parse of the sentence. The prospect of having the auch-presupposition satisfied made participants choose this syntactically dispreferred reading more frequently than in a control condition. The second study used the self-paced-reading paradigm and compared the reading times on clauses containing auch, which differed in whether the presupposition of auch was satisfied or not. Participants read the clause more slowly when the presupposition was not satisfied. It is argued that the two studies show that presuppositions play an important role in online sentence comprehension and affect the choice of syntactic analysis. Some theoretical implications of these findings for semantic theory and dynamic accounts of presuppositions as well as for theories of semantic processing are discussed.
Attributive participle constructions in German behave like adjectives in terms of inflection and position, but keep their verbal arguments. They can be extended by adjuncts or arguments and these extended attributive present participles mainly occur in written language (Weber, 1994). As the same content can also be expressed in a relative clause (RC), I compare both constructions in order to find out under which conditions a participle construction could lead to processing difficulties and how this relates to RC processing.
Based on previous assumptions for production (e.g. Weber, 1971; Fabricius-Hansen, 2016), three potential factors on the comprehension of prenominal modifiers and RCs are investigated: modifier length, the internal structure and multiple levels of embedding. The hypotheses for an effect on modifier length are mainly based on two processing accounts that make opposite predictions under specific circumstances: memory-based accounts such as the dependency locality theory (DLT) (e.g. Gibson, 2000) and expectation-based accounts such as surprisal (e.g. Levy, 2008). An increase in modifier length results in more intervening material between determiner and noun for the participle construction, contrary to RCs where these elements are adjacent. This separation of the DP could increase memory load. Therefore, longer participles would slow down processing of the noun, while there should be no difference for RCs. Two acceptability judgment experiments showed a tendency for longer participle phrases to receive lower ratings. The modifier length was further investigated in online processing. Contrary to the predicted locality effect, self-paced reading data reveals an anti-locality effect for participle phrases, with lower RTs on the noun when additional material was present inside the modifier. This experiment was followed up by an eye-tracking experiment which replicated the anti-locality effect, but at the participle instead at the noun.
The second factor that was investigated is the argument structure of the participle (or RC verb). My hypothesis is that more “prototypical” adjectives in terms of syntactic structure and semantics are more acceptable and easier to process. Attributive participles are considered hybrids between verbs and adjectives (e.g. Fuhrhop & Teuber, 2000; L¨ubbe & Rapp, 2011) due to their modifier internal verbal function, but adjectival position and agreement with the noun. This double role could lead to difficulties, in particular with a more complex verbal structure. Therefore, the prediction was that the presence of an accusative object inside a participle phrase would lead to lower acceptability ratings and higher reading times in online processing. In the first two acceptability experiments, this prediction was borne out. In addition, an SPR experiment was conducted which manipulated the presence of either an accusative object or adjunct for participles (of verbs that could be used intransitively and transitively) and the corresponding RCs. The experiment showed an effect of the presence of an accusative object on the participle, with higher reading times if an object was present, compared to an adjunct. No such difference was found for the RC verb, which indicates that only participles are processed more slowly when there is an accusative object. An alternative explanation for this finding is the inherent imperfective aspect of the present participle: a direct object could change the event structure in such a way that the aspect no longer matches.
The third factor I investigate is an effect of double embedding on the acceptability of participle phrases and RCs. While double embedded participles are rated lower than double embedded RCs, there is a smaller decrease from single to double embedding for participles than for RCs, contrary to the predictions calculated by the metric of the DLT.
Overall, the results provide evidence for experience-based processing, but they cannot be explained by either memory- or experience-based accounts alone. The effect concerning the presence of an accusative object suggest that properties of the participle distinguish the construction from RCs and affect its processing. The thesis suggests that the latter effect needs to be investigated further in future research. Furthermore, the findings have implications for the role of attributive present participles in German and for hypotheses about similar constructions in other languages.
We present the results of an experimental study which targets prosodic correlates of subclausal quotation marks. We found that written sentences containing passages enclosed by quotation marks were read aloud in a manner that significantly differs in prosody from spoken realizations of corresponding disquoted counterparts. However, we also observed that such prosodic marking of subclausal quotation wasn't strong enough to survive subsequent back-translation into written language: there was no correlation between the presence/absence of quotation marks in the original written examples, and the presence/absence of quotation marks in corresponding back-translations from oral renditions. We investigated three different kinds of uses of quotation marks and found no systematic difference between them with respect to prosodic marking.
Identity effects in phonology are deviations from regular phonological form (i.e. canonical patterns) which are due to the relatedness between words. More specifically, identity effects are those deviations which have the function to enhance similarity in the surface phonological form of morphologically related words. In rule-based generative phonology the effects in question are described by means of the cycle. For example, the stress on the second syllable in cond[ɛ]nsation as opposed to the stresslessness of the second syllable in comp[ǝ]nsation is described by applying the stress rules initially to the sterns thereby yielding condénse and cómpensàte. Subsequently the stress rules are reapplied to the affixed words with the initial stress assignment (i.e. stress on the second syllable in condense, but not in compensate) leaving its mark in the output form (cf. Chomsky and Halle 1968). A second example are words like lie[p]los 'unloving' in German, which shows the effects of neutralization in coda position (i.e. only voiceless obstruents may occur in coda position) even though the obstruent should 'regularly' be syllabified in head position (i.e. bl is a wellformed syllable head in German). Here the stern is syllabified on an initial cycle, obstruent devoicing applies (i.e. lie[p]) and this structure is left intact when affixation applies (i.e. lie[p ]Ios ) (cf. Hall 1992). As a result the stern of lie[p]los is identical to the base lie[p].
Quantitative approaches to linguistic variation in IRC : implications for qualitative research
(2008)
Qualitative analysis of code choice, code switching, and language style in Internet Relay Chat (IRC) can shed light on functional-pragmatic aspects of the use of different linguistic varieties. However, in a qualitative analysis, the status of varieties within a channel or for a single chatter can only be guessed at. Moreover, qualitative research on linguistic variation in IRC often fails to generalize its findings due to a restricted database or a restricted view of a database. This article introduces an approach that allows for embedding of qualitative research within a quantitative research design. The quantitative method presented here enables general statements to be made about the use of varieties or the usage of certain chatters in a chat channel. The approach is exemplified with data from Swiss IRC channels, in which Swiss German dialects and standard German are used side by side. A large corpus is analyzed for static and dynamic aspects of dialect share. It is argued that this quantitative approach can provide a background for qualitative analysis and facilitate the selection process of relevant data required for qualitative analysis.
Rate effects on aerodynamics of intervocalic stops : evidence from real speech data and model data
(2008)
This paper is a first attempt towards a better understanding of the aerodynamic properties during speech production and their potential control. In recent years, studies on intraoral pressure in speech have been rather rare, and more studies concern the air flow development. However, the intraoral pressure is a crucial factor for analysing the production of various sounds.
In this paper, we focus on the intraoral pressure development during the production of intervocalic stops.
Two experimental methodologies are presented and confronted with each other: real speech data recorded for four German native speakers, and model data, obtained by a mechanical replica which allows reproducing the main physical mechanisms occurring during phonation. The two methods are presented and applied to a study on the influence of speech rate on aerodynamic properties.
Reduction in natural speech
(2009)
Natural (conversational) speech, compared to cannonical speech, is earmarked by the tremendous amount of variation that often leads to a massive change in pronunciation. Despite many attempts to explain and theorize the variability in conversational speech, its unique characteristics have not played a significant role in linguistic modeling. One of the reasons for variation in natural speech lies in a tendency of speakers to reduce speech, which may drastically alter the phonetic shape of words. Despite the massive loss of information due to reduction, listeners are often able to understand conversational speech even in the presence of background noise. This dissertation investigates two reduction processes, namely regressive place assimilation across word boundaries, and massive reduction and provides novel data from the analyses of speech corpora combined with experimental results from perception studies to reach a better understanding of how humans handle natural speech. The successes and failures of two models dealing with data from natural speech are presented: The FUL-model (Featurally Underspecified Lexicon, Lahiri & Reetz, 2002), and X-MOD (an episodic model, Johnson, 1997). Based on different assumptions, both models make different predictions for the two types of reduction processes under investigation. This dissertation explores the nature and dynamics of these processes in speech production and discusses its consequences for speech perception. More specifically, data from analyses of running speech are presented investigating the amount of reduction that occurs in naturally spoken German. Concerning production, the corpus analysis of regressive place assimilation reveals that it is not an obligatory process. At the same time, there emerges a clear asymmetry: With only very few exceptions, only [coronal] segments undergo assimilation, [labial] and [dorsal] segments usually do not. Furthermore, there seem to be cases of complete neutralization where the underlying Place of Articulation feature has undergone complete assimilation to the Place of Articulation feature of the upcoming segment. Phonetic analyses further underpin these findings. Concerning deletions and massive reductions, the results clearly indicate that phonological rules in the classical generative tradition are not able to explain the reduction patterns attested in conversational speech. Overall, the analyses of deletion and massive reduction in natural speech did not exhibit clear-cut patterns. For a more in-depth examination of reduction factors, the case of final /t/ deletion is examined by means of a new corpus constructed for this purpose. The analysis of this corpus indicates that although phonological context plays an important role on the deletion of segments (i.e. /t/), this arises in the form of tendencies, not absolute conditions. This is true for other deletion processes, too. Concerning speech perception, a crucial part for both models under investigation (X-MOD and FUL) is how listeners handle reduced speech. Five experiments investigate the way reduced speech is perceived by human listeners. Results from two experiments show that regressive place assimilations can be treated as instances of complete neutralizations by German listeners. Concerning massively reduced words, the outcome of transcription and priming experiments suggest that such words are not acceptable candidates of the intended lexical items for listeners in the absence of their proper phrasal context. Overall, the abstractionist FUL-model is found to be superior in explaining the data. While at first sight, X-MOD deals with the production data more readily, FUL provides a better fit for the perception results. Another important finding concerns the role of phonology and phonetics in general. The results presented in this dissertation make a strong case for models, such as FUL, where phonology and phonetics operate at different levels of the mental lexicon, rather than being integrated into one. The findings suggest that phonetic variation is not part of the representation in the mental lexicon.
This paper discusses results from a corpus study of German demonstrative and personal pronouns and from a reading time experiment in which we compared the interpretation options of the two types of pronouns (Bosch et al. 2003, 2007). A careful review of exceptions to a generalisation we had been suggesting in those papers (the Subject Hypothesis: "Personal pronouns prefer subject antecedents and demonstratives prefer non-subject antecedents") shows that, although this generalisation correctly describes a tendency in the data, it is quite wrong in claiming that the grammatical role of antecedents is the relevant parameter. In the current paper we argue that the generalisation should be formulated in terms of in-formation-structural properties of referents rather than in terms of the grammatical role of antecedent expressions.
Although the linear order of arguments (and adverbials) in German is relatively free, it underlies certain restrictions; these don’t apply to the so-called unmarked order for arguments (Lenerz 1977) and adverbials (Frey/Pittner 1998). It is a common assumption to take the unmarked order as basic and derive all other orders from it by scrambling, whatever its specific characteristics may be (cf., amongst others, Haider/Rosengren 1998). The observable restrictions obtaining for some linear ordering may then be considered as constraints on a movement operation (scrambling). [...] In the following, I will try to present the outlines of a possible explanation for the restriction, based on a proposal governing the proper referential interpretation of indefinite NPs.
Sentence mood in German is a complex category that is determined by various components of the grammatical system. In particular, verbal mood, the position of the finite verb and the wh-characteristics of the so called 'Vorfeld'-phrase are responsible for the constitution of sentence mood in German. This article proposes a theory of sentence mood constitution in German and investigates the interaction between the pronominal binding of indefinite noun phrases which are semantically analyzed as choice functions. It is shown that the semantic objects determined by sentence mood define different kinds of domains which have to be uniquely accessible as the range of the choice function. The various properties of the pronominal binding of indefinites can be derived by the interplay of the proposed theoretical notions.
Extremely short verbs can be found in various Genn::.,nic languages and dialects; the sterns of these verbs do not have a fInal consonant «C-)C-V), and they always have a monosyllabic infinitive and usually monosyllabic fInite forms as weIl. Examples for these 'kinds of short verbs are Swiss Gennan hä 'to have', gö 'to go', g~ 'to give', n~ 'to take' which correspond to the Swedish verbs ha, gä, ge and tao The last example shows that such short verb formations also occur with verbs having (nearly) identical meanings but which do not share the same etymology. Apart from their shortness, these verbs are characterized by a high degree of irregularity, often even by suppletion, which sometimes develops contrary to regular sound laws. Furthermore they are among the most-used verbs and often tend towards grammaticalization. The present paper compares the short verbs of seven Germanic languages; in addition, it describes their various ways of development and strategies of differentiation. Moreover, it examines the question of why some languages and dialects (e.g. Swiss German, Frisian, Swedish, Norwegian) have many short verbs while others (New High German, Icelandic, Faroese) only have few, the paper discusses the contribution of short verbs to questions concerning linguistic change and the morphological organization of languages.
This study investigates supralaryngeal mechanisms of the two way voicing contrast among German velar stops and the three way contrast among Korean velar stops, both in intervocalic position. Articulatory data won via electromagnetic articulography of three Korean speakers and acoustic recordings of three Korean and three German speakers are analysed. It was found that in both languages the voicing contrast is created by more than one mechanism. However, one can say that for Korean velar stops in intervocalic position stop closure duration is the most important parameter. For German it is closure voicing. The results support the phonological description proposed by Kohler (1984).
Proportional determiner quantifiers in German allow interpretations that violate the conservativity universal of Keenan and Stavi (1986). I argue for an analysis that distinguishes between surface syntax and the logical form of sentences. I show that in surface syntax, German non-conservative quantifiers are determiners that form a constituent with a noun phrase and share case and agreement properties with the noun phrase. But I propose that at logical form the non-conservative determiners undergo an adverbialization movement and are interpreted by a mechanism that generalizes focus-a ected quantification of Herburger (2000). This result refines the understanding of conservativity as a constraint on interpretation.
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.
Temporal development of compensation strategies for perturbed palate shape in German /S/-production
(2006)
The palate shape of four speakers was changed by a prosthesis which either lowered the palate or retracted the alveoles. Subjects wore the prosthesis for two weeks and were recorded several times via EMA. Results of articulatory measurements show that speakers use different compensation methods at different stages of the adaptation. They lower the tongue immediately after the insertion of the prosthesis. Other compensation methods as for example lip protrusion are only acquired after longer practising periods. The results are interpreted as supporting the existence of different mappings between motor commands, vocal tract shape and auditory-acoustic target.
In my paper, I show that the so-called German right dislocation actually comprises two distinct constructions, which I label 'right dislocation proper' and 'afterthought'. These differ in their prosodic and syntactic properties, as well as in their discourse functions. The paper is primarily concerned with the right dislocation proper (RD). I present a semantic analysis of RD based on the 'separate performative' account of Potts (2004, 2005) and Portner (forthc.). This analysis allows a description of the semantic contribution of RD to its host sentence, as well as explaining certain semantic constraints on the kind of NP in the RD construction.
The German word also, similar to English so, is traditionally considered to be a sentence adverb with a consecutive meaning, i.e. it indicates that the propositional content of the clause containing it is some kind of consequence of what has previously been said. As a sentence adverb, also has its place within the core of the German sentence, since this is the proper place for an adverb to occur in German. The sentence core offers two proper positions for adverbs: the so-called front field and the middle field. In spoken German, however, also often occurs in sentence-initial position, outside the sentence itself. In this paper, I will use excerpts of German conversations to discuss and illustrate the importance of the sentence positions and the discourse positions for the functions of also on the basis of some German conversations.
The objective of this thesis is to explore the German language needs of Irish industry and to draw implications for German for Business curricula development at Third Level. The dramatic increase in the need for foreign language knowledge in Europe is analysed. Specifically, the upsurge in demand for German in Ireland is put in context. On the supply side, the type of courses where German is offered by the various strands of Third Level institutions (RTCs, DITs, Universities and Private Colleges) is reviewed. General and Special Language are contrasted and the relative weighting of Language for Special Purposes is then examined. Drawing on research studies and on the literature, an attempt is made on the one hand to pinpoint the nature of the special German language skills necessary for Irish Exporting Industry. Three interwoven strands emerge as essential: general language skills, mastery of commercial tasks and the hitherto under-recognised area of intercultural competence. From these findings, implications are put forward for an approach to the content of German for Business curricula which meets the challenges of the multicultural European business environment.
The paper explores factors that influence the distribution of constituent words of compounds over the head and modifier position. The empirical basis for the study is a large database of German compounds, annotated with respect to the morphological structure of the compound and the semantic category of the constituents. The study shows that the polysemy of the constituent word, its constituent family size, and its semantic category account for tendencies of the constituent word to occur in either modifier or head position. Furthermore, the paper explores the degree to which the semantic category combination of head and modifier word, e.g., x=substance and y=artifact, indicates the semantic relation between the constituents, e.g., y_consists_of_x.
In this study, we investigated the impact of two constraints on the linear order of constituents in German preschool children’s and adults’ speech production: a rhythmic (*LAPSE, militating against sequences of unstressed syllables) and a semantic one (ANIM, requiring animate referents to be named before inanimate ones). Participants were asked to produce coordinated bare noun phrases in response to picture stimuli (e.g., Delfin und Planet, ‘dolphin and planet’) without any predefined word order. Overall, children and adults preferably produced animate items before inanimate ones, confirming findings of Prat-Sala, Shillcock, and Sorace (2000). In the group of preschoolers, the strength of the animacy effect correlated positively with age. Furthermore, the order of the conjuncts was affected by the rhythmic constraint, such that disrhythmic sequences, i.e., stress lapses, were avoided. In both groups, the latter result was significant when the two stimulus pictures did not vary with respect to animacy. In sum, our findings suggest a stronger influence of animacy compared to rhythmic well-formedness on conjunct ordering for German speaking children and adults, in line with findings by McDonald, Bock, and Kelly (1993) who investigated English speaking adults.
The present investigation steps back to the claims of the 1990s by assuming that there is a functional opposition in the use of P- and D-PRO which affects the status of the pronoun's referent in the mental model of the discourse. We interpret the earlier findings as an indication of an information structural difference which is specifically relevant on the discourse level. The question we address here is twofold. Firstly, we ask whether the assumed opposition in the information status of P- and D-PRO referents has consequences on referent continuation in the ongoing discourse. So far, the effects of P- vs. D-PRO use were determined concerning the status of the pronoun referent in the actual sequence of discourse, i.e. they were determined by a judgement on the salience or the topic/focus status of the pronominal DP. As far as we can see, this determination has not been operationalized further. Since there are contexts in which both P- and D-PRO would fit in with only a feeling of a difference but without clear-cut exclusiveness, the opposition is empirically not well validated. If we could show that there are effects of type of pronoun on the ongoing discourse this would, in our view, provide the lacking empirical validation. Secondly, we ask whether there are effects of the narrator's point of view on P- and D-PRO use. The idea behind this question is that the way of information unfolding in discourse depends on the speaker. S/he decides which pieces of information come next, what is foreground and what is background information. If type of pronoun choice is related to the processes of discourse organization by the speaker – via fore- and backgrounding of information – and if internal or external location of the narrator's point of view influences the organization strategies of the speaker/narrator this might have an ffect on the use of P- and D-PRO.
Three experiments investigated the interpretation and production of pronouns in German. The first two experiments probed the preferred interpretation of a pronoun in contexts containing two potential antecedents by having participants complete a sentence fragment starting either with a personal pronoun or a d-pronoun. We systematically varied three properties of the potential antecedents: syntactic function, linear position, and topicality. The results confirm a subject preference for personal pronouns. The preferred interpretation of d-pronouns cannot be captured by any of the three factors alone. Although a d-pronoun preferentially refers to the non-topic in many cases, this preference can be overridden by the other two factors, linear position and syntactic function. In order to test whether interpretive preferences follow from production biases as proposed by the Bayesian theory of Kehler et al. (2008), a third experiment had participants freely produce a continuation sentence for the contexts of the first two experiments. The results show that personal pronouns are used more often to refer to a subject than to an object, recapitulating the subject preference found for interpretation and thereby confirming the account of Kehler et al. (2008). The interpretation results for the d-pronoun likewise follow from the corresponding production data.
This paper presents three acceptability experiments investigating German verb-final clauses in order to explore possible sources of sentence complexity during human parsing. The point of departure was De Vries et al.'s (2011) generalization that sentences with three or more crossed or nested dependencies are too complex for being processed by the human parsing mechanism without difficulties. This generalization is partially based on findings from Bach et al. (1986) concerning the acceptability of complex verb clusters in German and Dutch. The first experiment tests this generalization by comparing two sentence types: (i) sentences with three nested dependencies within a single clause that contains three verbs in a complex verb cluster; (ii) sentences with four nested dependencies distributed across two embedded clauses, one center-embedded within the other, each containing a two-verb cluster. The results show that sentences with four nested dependencies are judged as acceptable as control sentences with only two nested dependencies, whereas sentences with three nested dependencies are judged as only marginally acceptable. This argues against De Vries et al.'s (2011) claim that the human parser can process no more than two nested dependencies. The results are used to refine the Verb-Cluster Complexity Hypothesis of Bader and Schmid (2009a). The second and the third experiment investigate sentences with four nested dependencies in more detail in order to explore alternative sources of sentence complexity: the number of predicted heads to be held in working memory (storage cost in terms of the Dependency Locality Theory [DLT], Gibson, 2000) and the length of the involved dependencies (integration cost in terms of the DLT). Experiment 2 investigates sentences for which storage cost and integration cost make conflicting predictions. The results show that storage cost outweighs integration cost. Experiment 3 shows that increasing integration cost in sentences with two degrees of center embedding leads to decreased acceptability. Taken together, the results argue in favor of a multifactorial account of the limitations on center embedding in natural languages.
The unfolding discussion will focus on the internal representation of turbulent sounds in the phonology of German as well as pinpoint the special status of the prime defining the quality of turbulence. It will also be argued that this prime is capable of entering into special types of licensing relations, which results in specific phonetic manifestations of forms. We shall compare the effects of two processes attested in German: consonant degemination and spirantisation with a view to revealing the role of the turbulence-defining element in the two operations. Furthermore, our attention will be focused on the workings of the Obligatory Contour Principle which, as will be shown below, exerts decisive impact on prime interplay and consequently the phonetic realization of sounds and words. We shall see that segmental identity is contingent on the languagespecific interpretation of inter-element bonds.
Aware of the importance of prime autonomy in determining the manifestation of sounds, let us start with a brief outline of the fundamental segment structure principles offered by the theory of Phonological Government.
This dissertation explores the language of three German grammar books and accompanying exercise books which are produced in Germany for international students of German. It examines how the examples and exercises presented in these books constitute ‘colony texts’ which convey different representations of human activity to the reader. Analysis of the language used in the German grammar books centres on the Linguistics of Representation and borrows techniques used normally in Corpus Linguistics. By using WordSmith Tools this study shows how particular terms (nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives) occur with greater frequency than others in the books under analysis thereby representing certain human activities more strongly than others. The activity of ‘work*, in particular, emerges in the grammar books as a key human activity and consequently provides the main focus for analysis in this study. Concordances relating to ‘work’ are grouped and analysed in terms of what they reveal about popular professions, workplace hierarchy and attitudes and approaches to work. Findings are considered from three perspectives: what they reveal to the researcher and learners of German about the representation of ‘work’ in the chosen context, how they compare to findings from comparative analyses of German textbooks and how they can contribute to our overall understanding of ‘text*. Grammar book examples and exercises emerge as ‘texts’ which have significant potential to reflect cultural norms and attitudes despite being considered generally as a source of innocuous and unremarkable language.
This paper studies the morphological productivity of German N+N compounding patterns from a diachronic perspective. It argues that the productivity of compounds increases due to syntactic influence from genitive constructions ("improper compounds") in Early New High German. Both quantitative and qualitative productivity measures are adapted from derivational morphology and tested on compound data from the Mainz Corpus of (Early) New High German (1500–1710).
In this paper I investigate the usage of the adverb and particle 'so' in spontaneous speech (interviews) collected from 21 speakers of the urban multi-ethnolectal youth language Kiezdeutsch. Speakers from the neighborhoods Kreuzberg and Wedding in Berlin are ranging in age from 14 to 18. The 1454 tokens of so available in the corpus (about 5 hours of speech) were classified into 10 different categories; some were structurally defined while others were defined along dimensions of meaning. Our current results indicate that there are differential usages patterns depending on the speaker's gender and age for some of these categories. Further, it appears that some patterns that have been attributed grammatical meaning may not appear frequently enough to establish a separate meaningful grammatical category. Rather, most instances of this kind of use of so appear to have a hedging function, indicating speakers' non-commitance to a specific circumstance.
In this paper I argue that there are three distinct constructions in Modern German in which a 'topic constituent' is detached to the left: (left-)dislocated topic ('left dislocation'), (left-)attached topic ('mixed left dislocation'), and (left-)hanging topic ('hanging topic'). Presupposing the framework of Integrational Linguistics, I provide syntactic and semantic analyses for them. In particular, I propose that these constructions involve the syntactic function (syntactic) topic, which relates the topic constituent to the remaining part of the sentence. Dislocated and attached topic constituents function in addition as a strong or weak (syntactic) antecedent of some resumptive 'd-pronoun' form.
Dislocated topic, attached topic, and hanging topic are in turn contrasted with 'free topics'. Being sentential units of their own, the latter are syntactically unconnected to the following sentence. In particular, they are not topic constituents.
Towards a German grammar programme for post-leaving certificate students at Dublin City University
(1999)
With the introduction of the communicative method of language learning, overall standards of grammatical competence and performance among Irish second level students would appear to have been significantly reduced. As a consequence, learners who continue to study a given language at third level apparently no longer possess the knowledge which, under the grammar-translation methodology, further education institutions were able to build upon. This thesis examines the basis for the above perceptions, investigates the role of formal grammar instruction in the second language acquisition process and reports on a programme which was developed at Dublin City University (DCU) in order to ease, for Irish university students of German, the transition from a primarily memory-based approach to language acquisition to the analytical approach which is still being considered crucial to a university student's linguistic education. While the research was undertaken in response to locally existing difficulties, it may also be considered as a case study of more general interest, and as such serve as an exemplar to German departments in other universities as well as to other foreign language departments both within DCU or outside. The aim of the programme under investigation was to ease the transition on a socio-affective, cognitive and metacognitive level without lowering overall proficiency expectations and standards. Primary research was conducted among secondary school teachers, post-Leaving Certificate students on entry into DCU and among third level lecturers. The purpose of this research was to identify and define the programme’s content and progression. To this effect, the German junior and senior cycle syllabi at second level were also taken into consideration. The subsequent German grammar programme was implemented at DCU in the academic year 1996/7. While the programme would appear to have been judged favourably regarding some affective and cognitive-motivational aspects, results show mixed success rates for the other two factors under investigation, cognitive-analytical and metacognitive skills. Thus, some degree courses and some language combinations clearly benefited more from the programme than others. One of the conclusions drawn from this research suggests that unless certain changes are introduced prior to students’ entry into third level, university graduates are likely to remain well below the standards of accuracy and overall proficiency which were previously achieved.
It is the aim of this paper to evaluate the various types of sentential complementation available in terms of complement control cross-linguistically. I will propose a lexical classification of control classes on the basis of the instantiated subordination patterns. I want to focus on an important distinction, namely that of structural vs. inherent control. Structural control is found with predicates that select a clausal complement whose structure requires argument identification and thus 'induces' control. Infinitival complements are prototypical cases for this kind of control because in most languages infinitival complements can only 'survive' in structures of control or raising. The interesting question is which predicates license structural control and which cross-linguistic differences emerge between potential licensors. Inherent control is found with predicates that require control readings independent of the instantiated structure of sentential complementation (e.g. a directive predicate such as zwingen 'force'). In addition, I will recapitulate and add arguments for the dual lexical-syntactic nature of complement control.
This thesis investigates how students with Cantonese (L1) and English (L2) backgrounds acquire German as a third language (L3), with a focus on the acquisition of the Vorfeld (fronting) constructions of German. In L3 studies, the roles played by mother tongue, L2 and developmental grammar may be distinguished. Previous L3 studies have suggested that the role of L2 seems to be prominent in L3 strategy building, including interlanguage transfer from L2 to L3. Pursuing a cognitive approach, we argue that incremental production and language processing strategies are significant factors in accounting for third language acquisition and production.
A total of 45 university students of German completed a questionnaire and submitted copies of their compositions, followed by picture elicitation tasks. Three typical fronting types were found to be common amongst the learners:
1. Für mich, jede Familie hat eigene Situation und Probleme.
2. Obwohl gibt es viele Probleme mit alten Leuten zusammen lebt, finde ich gut dafür.
3. Jetzt die meisterns haben schon nach Hong Kong zurückgekommen.
Type 1 is argued to reflect indirect transfer of native language function-form characteristics. Type two is argued to be an intralingual error in which the learners have overgeneralized the verb second (V2) rule, without acquiring the correct function of the Vorfeld construction. The third type shows that apart from the influence of English in adverb fronting constructions, adverbs of stance or perspective adverbs like ‘jetzt’ semantically do not form part of the proposition and they are therefore treated as “extra-sentential” constituents which do not affect the basic V2 construction.
The findings suggest that learners may have primarily acquired the topic function of German fronting, while failing to fully acquire the focus function. For the focus function, learners seem to prefer alternative constructions such as existential sentences using ‘es gibt’. Both of these findings implicate L1 Chinese influence.
As an overall perspective on the incipient field of third language acquisition research I propose a holistic and coherent view which encompasses syntax, semantics and pragmatics at all levels of language development. By probing an independent paradigm of L3 studies, we aim to contribute to a new dynamic research space as well to ongoing debates in the SLA field by attributing greater autonomy and consciousness to the learner, even on the level of grammatical interaction.