TY - THES A1 - Pauly, Dennis Nikolas T1 - The effect of noun capitalization when reading German and English N2 - Das Promotionsprojekt hatte als Ziel, die Fragestellung zu beantworten, ob die strukturelle wortinitiale Substantivgroßschreibung, wie sie sich neben dem Deutschen sonst nur noch im Luxemburgischen finden lässt, über eine Funktion verfügt, die dem Leser einen Vorteil bringt. Die übergeordnete Hypothese war, dass ein Vorteil dadurch erreicht wird, dass durch die parafoveale Wahrnehmung der Majuskel bereits eine syntaktische Kategorie, nämlich der Kern einer Nominalgruppe, aktiviert wird. Durch diese Wahrnehmung aus dem Augenwinkel sollte das nachfolgende Substantiv schon vorverarbeitet werden können. Im Ergebnis sollte eine Erleichterung der Satzverarbeitung bewirkt werden, was sich letztlich in insgesamt schnelleren Lese- bzw. Fixationszeiten zeigen sollte. Die Struktur des Projekts beinhaltet drei Studien, die teilweise jeweils unterschiedliche Versuchspersonengruppen umfassten: Studie 1: - Studiendesign: Semantisches Priming mittels sogenannter Holzwegsätze sollten die Funktionsweise der Substantivgroßschreibung für den Leser hervorbringen - Versuchspersonen: Deutsche L1-Sprecher lesen Deutsch Studie 2: - Studiendesign: gleiches Design wie Studie 1, allerdings auf Englisch - Versuchspersonengruppen: Studie 3: 1. Englische L1-Sprecher gänzlich ohne Deutschkenntnisse, 2. englische L1-Sprecher, die regelmäßig deutsche Texte lesen, 3. deutsche L1-Sprecher mit exzellenten Englischkenntnissen. - Studiendesign: Einfluss der Substantivfrequenz auf eine potentielle Vorverarbeitung mittels boundary paradigm; Untersuchungsprachen: Deutsch und Englisch - Versuchspersonengruppen: 1. Deutsche L1-Sprecher lesen Deutsch, 2. englische L1-Sprecher gänzlich ohne Deutschkenntnisse lesen Englisch, 3. deutsche L1-Sprecher mit exzellenten Englischkenntnissen lesen Englisch. Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse: Die Substantivgroßschreibung hat eindeutig einen Einfluss auf die Satzverarbeitung sowohl im Deutschen als auch im Englischen. Dass dieser einen substanziell entscheidenden Vorteil bringt, kann nicht bestätigt werden. N2 - The aim of the doctoral project was to answer the question of whether the structural word-initial noun capitalization, as it can otherwise only be found in Luxembourgish alongside German, has a function that is advantageous for the reader. The overriding hypothesis was that an advantage is achieved by activating a syntactic category, namely the core of a noun phrase, through the parafoveal perception of the capital letters. This perception from the corner of the eye should make it possible to preprocess the following noun. As a result, sentence processing should be facilitated, which should ultimately be reflected in overall faster reading times and fixation durations. The structure of the project includes three studies, some of which included different participant groups: Study 1: Study design: Semantic priming using garden-path sentences should bring out the functionality of noun capitalization for the reader Participant groups: German natives reading German Study 2: Study design: same design as study 1, but in English Participant groups: English natives without any knowledge of German reading English English natives who regularly read German reading English German with high proficiency in English reading English Study 3: Study design: Influence of the noun frequency on a potential preprocessing using the boundary paradigm; Study languages: German and English Participant groups: German natives reading German English natives without any knowledge of German reading English German with high proficiency in English reading English Brief summary: The noun capitalization clearly has an impact on sentence processing in both German and English. It cannot be confirmed that this has a substantial, decisive advantage. T2 - Der Einfluss der Substantivgroßschreibung beim Lesen von Deutsch und Englisch KW - Eye-tracking KW - Noun capitalization KW - Orthography KW - Blickbewegungen KW - Orthographie KW - Lesen KW - Substantivgroßschreibung Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-498031 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fiedler, Ines A1 - Schwarz, Anne T1 - Out-of-focus encoding in Gur and Kwa JF - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 N2 - This paper investigates the structural properties of morphosyntactically marked focus constructions, focussing on the often neglected non-focal sentence part in African tone languages. Based on new empirical evidence from five Gur and Kwa languages, we claim that these focus expressions have to be analysed as biclausal constructions even though they do not represent clefts containing restrictive relative clauses. First, we relativize the partly overgeneralized assumptions about structural correspondences between the out-of-focus part and relative clauses, and second, we show that our data do in fact support the hypothesis of a clause coordinating pattern as present in clause sequences in narration. It is argued that we deal with a non-accidental, systematic feature and that grammaticalization may conceal such basic narrative structures. KW - ex-situ focus KW - focus marker KW - relative clause KW - conjunction KW - grammaticalization Y1 - 2005 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8739 SN - 1866-4725 SN - 1614-4708 IS - 3 SP - 111 EP - 142 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jannedy, Stefanie A1 - Mendoza-Denton, Norma T1 - Structuring information through gesture and intonation JF - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 N2 - Face-to-face communication is multimodal. In unscripted spoken discourse we can observe the interaction of several "semiotic layers", modalities of information such as syntax, discourse structure, gesture, and intonation. We explore the role of gesture and intonation in structuring and aligning information in spoken discourse through a study of the co-occurrence of pitch accents and gestural apices. Metaphorical spatialization through gesture also plays a role in conveying the contextual relationships between the speaker, the government and other external forces in a naturally-occurring political speech setting. KW - gesture KW - intonation KW - spoken discourse KW - narrative structure KW - political speech KW - affect Y1 - 2005 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8774 SN - 1866-4725 SN - 1614-4708 IS - 3 SP - 199 EP - 244 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hinterhölzl, Roland A1 - Petrova, Svetlana A1 - Solf, Michael T1 - Diskurspragmatische Faktoren für Topikalität und Verbstellung in der ahd. Tatianübersetzung (9. Jh.) JF - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 N2 - The paper presents work in progress on the interaction between information structure and word order in Old High German based on data from the Tatian translation (9th century). The examination of the position of the finite verb in correspondence with the pragmatic status of discourse referents reveals an overall tendency for verb-initial order in thetic/all-focus sentences, whereas in categorical/topic-comment sentences verb-second placement with an initial topic constituent is preferred. This conclusion provides support for the hypothesis stated in Donhauser & Hinterhölzl (2003) that the finite verb form in Early Germanic serves to distinguish the information-structural domains of Topic and Focus. Finally, the investigation sheds light on the process of language change that led to the overall spread of verb-second in main clauses of modern German. KW - information structure KW - verb placement in Germanic KW - language change Y1 - 2005 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8743 SN - 1866-4725 SN - 1614-4708 IS - 3 SP - 143 EP - 182 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kasimir, Elke T1 - Question-answer test and givenness BT - some question marks JF - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 N2 - In order to investigate the empirical properties of focus, it is necessary to diagnose focus (or: "what is focused") in particular linguistic examples. It is often taken for granted that the application of one single diagnostic tool, the so-called question-answer test, which roughly says that whatever a question asks for is focused in the answer, is a fool-proof test for focus. This paper investigates one example class where such uncritical belief in the question-answer test has led to the assumption of rather complex focus projection rules: in these examples, pitch accent placement has been claimed to depend on certain parts of the focused constituents being given or not. It is demonstrated that such focus projection rules are unnecessarily complex and in turn require the assumption of unnecessarily complicated meaning rules, not to speak of the difficulties to give a precise semantic/pragmatic definition of the allegedly involved givenness property. For the sake of the argument, an alternative analysis is put forward which relies solely on alternative sets following Mats Rooth's work, and avoids any recourse to givenness. As it turns out, this alternative analysis is not only simpler but also makes in a critical case the better predictions. KW - focus KW - givenness Y1 - 2005 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8698 SN - 1866-4725 SN - 1614-4708 IS - 3 SP - 1 EP - 52 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Teich, Elke A1 - Fankhauser, Peter T1 - Exploring lexical patterns in text BT - lexical cohesion analysis with WordNet JF - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 N2 - We present a system for the linguistic exploration and analysis of lexical cohesion in English texts. Using an electronic thesaurus-like resource, Princeton WordNet, and the Brown Corpus of English, we have implemented a process of annotating text with lexical chains and a graphical user interface for inspection of the annotated text. We describe the system and report on some sample linguistic analyses carried out using the combined thesaurus-corpus resource. Y1 - 2005 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8685 SN - 1866-4725 SN - 1614-4708 IS - 2 SP - 129 EP - 145 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Weskott, Thomas T1 - Stop bashing givenness! BT - A note on Elke Kasimir's "Questions-Answers Test and Givenness" JF - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 N2 - Elke Kasimir’s paper (in this volume) argues against employing the notion of Givenness in the explanation of accent assignment. I will claim that the arguments against Givenness put forward by Kasimir are inconclusive because they beg the question of the role of Givenness. It is concluded that, more generally, arguments against Givenness as a diagnostic for information structural partitions should not be accepted offhand, since the notion of Givenness of discourse referents is (a) theoretically simple, (b) readily observable and quantifiable, and (c) bears cognitive significance. KW - givenness Y1 - 2005 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8718 SN - 1866-4725 SN - 1614-4708 IS - 3 SP - 53 EP - 62 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fanselow, Gisbert T1 - Cyclic phonology-syntax-interaction BT - movement to first position in German JF - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 N2 - This paper investigates the nature of the attraction of XPs to clauseinitial position in German (and other languages). It argues that there are two different types of preposing. First, an XP can move when it is attracted by an EPP-like feature of Comp. Comp can, however, also attract elements that bear the formal marker of some semantic or pragmatic (information theoretic) function. This second type of movement is driven by the attraction of a formal property of the moved element. It has often been misanalysed as “operator” movement in the past. Japanese wh-questions always exhibit focus intonation (FI). Furthermore, the domain of FI exhibits a correspondence to the wh-scope. I propose that this phonology-semantics correspondence is a result of the cyclic computation of FI, which is explained under the notion of Multiple Spell-Out in the recent Minimalist framework. The proposed analysis makes two predictions: (1) embedding of an FI into another is possible; (2) (overt) movement of a wh-phrase to a phase edge position causes a mismatch between FI and wh-scope. Both predictions are tested experimentally, and shown to be borne out. KW - topicalization KW - focus movement KW - operator movement KW - A-bar-movement Y1 - 2004 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8264 SN - 1866-4725 SN - 1614-4708 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 42 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ishihara, Shinichiro T1 - Prosody by phase BT - evidence from focus intonation wh-scope correspondence in Japanese JF - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 N2 - Japanese wh-questions always exhibit focus intonation (FI). Furthermore, the domain of FI exhibits a correspondence to the wh-scope. I propose that this phonology-semantics correspondence is a result of the cyclic computation of FI, which is explained under the notion of Multiple Spell-Out in the recent Minimalist framework. The proposed analysis makes two predictions: (1) embedding of an FI into another is possible; (2) (overt) movement of a wh-phrase to a phase edge position causes a mismatch between FI and wh-scope. Both predictions are tested experimentally, and shown to be borne out. KW - Japanese KW - wh-question KW - prosody KW - focus intonation KW - wh-scope KW - cyclicity KW - phase KW - Multiple Spell-Out Y1 - 2004 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8391 SN - 1866-4725 SN - 1614-4708 IS - 1 SP - 77 EP - 119 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hartmann, Katharina A1 - Zimmermann, Malte T1 - Focus strategies in chadic BT - the case of tangale revisited JF - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 N2 - We argue that the standard focus theories reach their limits when confronted with the focus systems of the Chadic languages. The backbone of the standard focus theories consists of two assumptions, both called into question by the languages under consideration. Firstly, it is standardly assumed that focus is generally marked by stress. The Chadic languages, however, exhibit a variety of different devices for focus marking. Secondly, it is assumed that focus is always marked. In Tangale, at least, focus is not marked consistently on all types of constituents. The paper offers two possible solutions to this dilemma. KW - tone languages KW - focus marking KW - focus movement Y1 - 2004 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8423 SN - 1866-4725 SN - 1614-4708 IS - 1 SP - 207 EP - 243 ER -