@incollection{Demske2020,
  author    = {Demske, Ulrike},
  title     = {The grammaticalization of the definite article in German},
  series = {Walking on the Grammaticalization Path of the Definite Article in German: Functional Main and Side Roads},
  booktitle = {Walking on the Grammaticalization Path of the Definite Article in German: Functional Main and Side Roads},
  editor    = {Szczepaniak, Renata and Flick, Johanna},
  publisher = {John Benjamins Publishing Company},
  address   = {Amsterdam},
  isbn      = {978-9-027204943},
  publisher      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {43 -- 73},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {The present paper looks into the grammaticalization of the definite article in the history of German. Starting with the well-known emergence of the definite article from a demonstrative pronoun over the course of Old High German (750-1050), I will consider the rise of so-called weak definites in Early New High German (1350-1650) as a new piece of evidence for the grammaticalization process. Here, the subclass of possessive weak definites is of particular interest for the grammaticalization of the definite article in German, because of a word order change affecting the position of possessor phrases. As soon as the possessor systematically follows the head noun (except for proper names), we observe three alternatives for the prenominal determiner slot: it may remain empty, or it may be filled either by the indefinite or the definite article in Early New High German. In Present-Day German, the definite article is used in the unmarked case, thus pointing to a second stage in the grammaticalization process of the definite article in German, which has so far not been acknowledged in the literature.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{DeCesare2021,
  author    = {De Cesare, Ilaria},
  title     = {Word order variability and change in German infinitival complements},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-52735},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-527358},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {xii, 231},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {The present work deals with the variation in the linearisation of German infinitival complements from a diachronic perspective. Based on the observation that in present-day German the position of infinitival complements is restricted by properties of the matrix verb (Haider, 2010, Wurmbrand, 2001), whereas this appears much more liberal in older stages of German (Demske, 2008, Mach{\´e} and Abraham, 2011, Demske, 2015), this dissertation investigates the emergence of those restrictions and the factors that have led to a reduced, yet still existing variability. The study contrasts infinitival complements of two types of matrix verbs, namely raising and control verbs. In present-day German, these show different syntactic behaviour and opposite preferences as far as the position of the infinitive is concerned: while infinitival complements of raising verbs build a single clausal domain with the with the matrix verb and occur obligatorily intraposed, infinitive complements of control verbs can form clausal constituents and occur predominantly extraposed. This correlation is not attested in older stages of German, at least not until Early New High German. Drawing on diachronic corpus data, the present work provides a description of the changes in the linearisation of infinitival complements from Early New High German to present-day German which aims at finding out when the correlation between infinitive type and word order emerged and further examines their possible causes. The study shows that word order change in German infinitival complements is not a case of syntactic change in the narrow sense, but that the diachronic variation results from the interaction of different language-internal and language-external factors and that it reflects, on the one hand, the influence of language modality on the emerging standard language and, on the other hand, a process of specialisation.},
  language  = {en}
}