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V3-Deklarativa – wie z.B. ‚Auf einmal der Hund hat sich mies erschrocken‘ – kommen sowohl bei bilingualen als auch bei monolingualen L1-Sprecher:innen des Deutschen vor. Im Rahmen einer korpuslinguistischen Analyse anhand des RUEG-Korpus (Wiese et al. 2021) untersucht diese Masterarbeit die folgende Fragestellung: In welchen Kontexten verwenden mono- und bilinguale Sprecher:innen des Deutschen genuines V3? Dabei bezieht sich der Begriff ‚Kontext‘ sowohl auf das Setting, in dem die V3-Deklarativa produziert werden (mediale und konzeptionelle Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit), als auch den linguistischen Kontext (syntaktische, semantische, informationsstrukturelle und phonologische Eigenschaften der präverbalen Konstituenten). Die Korpusuntersuchung ergibt, dass V3-Belege in allen Settings und in allen Sprecher:innengruppen auftreten. Die bilingualen Sprecher:innen verwenden insgesamt häufiger V3 als die monolingualen, wobei jedoch große Frequenzunterschiede je nach Heritage-Sprache vorliegen. Hinsichtlich der präverbalen Konstituenten bestätigt sich die bereits in der vorherigen Forschung identifizierte Tendenz zur syntaktischen Abfolge Adverbial-Subjekt und zur semantischen Abfolge Zeit-Person. Neben Temporaladverbialen erscheinen insbesondere Satzadverbiale als initiale Konstituente. Auf Ebene der Informationsstruktur kann den initialen Adverbialen zu fast 94% die Funktion eines Diskurslinkers oder Framesetters zugeschrieben werden, was die These einer informationsstrukturellen Motivation der V3-Stellung bekräftigt. Eine zweite Korpusanalyse anhand des Korpus Falko der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin zeigt, dass sich auch bei V3-Deklarativa fortgeschrittener DaF-Lernender eine informationsstrukturelle Motivation der Syntax geltend machen lässt. Insgesamt plädiert die Masterarbeit somit für einen ressourcenorientierten Blick auf V3-Strukturen.
“Chunking” spoken language
(2021)
In this introductory paper to the special issue on “Weak cesuras in talk-in-interaction”, we aim to guide the reader into current work on the “chunking” of naturally occurring talk. It is conducted in the methodological frameworks of Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics – two approaches that consider the interactional aspect of humans talking with each other to be a crucial starting point for its analysis. In doing so, we will (1) lay out the background of this special issue (what is problematic about “chunking” talk-in-interaction, the characteristics of the methodological approach chosen by the contributors, the cesura model), (2) highlight what can be gained from such a revised understanding of “chunking” in talk-in-interaction by referring to previous work with this model as well as the findings of the contributions to this special issue, and (3) indicate further directions such work could take starting from papers in this special issue. We hope to induce a fruitful exchange on the phenomena discussed, across methodological divides.
“Chunking” spoken language
(2021)
In this introductory paper to the special issue on “Weak cesuras in talk-in-interaction”, we aim to guide the reader into current work on the “chunking” of naturally occurring talk. It is conducted in the methodological frameworks of Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics – two approaches that consider the interactional aspect of humans talking with each other to be a crucial starting point for its analysis. In doing so, we will (1) lay out the background of this special issue (what is problematic about “chunking” talk-in-interaction, the characteristics of the methodological approach chosen by the contributors, the cesura model), (2) highlight what can be gained from such a revised understanding of “chunking” in talk-in-interaction by referring to previous work with this model as well as the findings of the contributions to this special issue, and (3) indicate further directions such work could take starting from papers in this special issue. We hope to induce a fruitful exchange on the phenomena discussed, across methodological divides.
Der W-Fragen-Erwerb stellt einen Teilbereich der kindlichen Syntaxentwicklung dar, die sich maßgeblich innerhalb der ersten drei Lebensjahre eines Kindes vollzieht. Eine wesentliche Rolle spielen dabei zwei Bewegungsoperationen, die sich auf die Position des Interrogativpronomens an die erste Stelle der W-Frage sowie die Position des Verbs an die zweite Stelle beziehen. In drei Studien wurde einerseits untersucht, ob deutschsprachige Kinder, die noch keine W-Fragen produzieren können, in der Lage sind, grammatische von ungrammatischen W-Fragen zu unterscheiden und andererseits, welche Leistungen sprachunauffällige und sprachauffällige deutschsprachige Kinder beim Verstehen und Korrigieren unterschiedlich komplexer W-Fragen (positive und negative W-Fragen) zeigen. Die Ergebnisse deuten auf ein frühes syntaktisches Wissen über W-Fragen im Spracherwerb hin und stützen damit die Annahme einer Kontinuität der kindlichen Grammatik zur Standardsprache. Auch scheinen sprachauffällige Kinder sich beim Erwerb von W-Fragen nicht qualitativ von sprachgesunden Kindern zu unterscheiden, sondern W-Fragen lediglich später korrekt umzusetzen. In beiden Populationen konnte ein syntaktischer Ökonomieeffekt beobachtet werden, der für eine spätere Umsetzung der Verbbewegung im Vergleich zur Bewegung des W-Elementes spricht.
This dissertation uses a common grammatical phenomenon, light verb constructions (LVCs) in English and German, to investigate how syntax-semantics mapping defaults influence the relationships between language processing, representation and conceptualization. LVCs are analyzed as a phenomenon of mismatch in the argument structure. The processing implication of this mismatch are experimentally investigated, using ERPs and a dual task. Data from these experiments point to an increase in working memory. Representational questions are investigated using structural priming. Data from this study suggest that while the syntax of LVCs is not different from other structures’, the semantics and mapping are represented differently. This hypothesis is tested with a new categorization paradigm, which reveals that the conceptual structure that LVC evoke differ in interesting, and predictable, ways from non-mismatching structures’.
The Final-over-Final Condition has emerged as a robust and explanatory generalization for a wide range of phenomena (Biberauer, Holmberg, and Roberts 2014, Sheehan et al. 2017). In this article, we argue that it also holds in another domain, nominalization. In languages that show overt nominalization of VPs, one word order is routinely unattested, namely, a head-initial VP with a suffixal nominalizer. This typological gap can be accounted for by the Final-over-Final Condition, if we allow it to hold within mixed extended projections. This view also makes correct predictions about agentive nominalizations and nominalized serial verb constructions.
Verum focus and negation
(2019)
Udmurt as an OV language
(2016)
This is the first study to investigate Hubert Haider's (2000, 2010, 2013, 2014) proposed systematic differences between OV and VO language in a family other than Germanic. Its aim is to gather evidence on whether basic word order is predictive of further properties of a language. The languages under investigation are the Finno-Ugric languages Udmurt (as an OV language) and Finnish (as a VO language). Counter to Kayne (1994), Haider proposes that the structure of a sentence with a head-final VP is fundamentally different from that of a sentence with a head-initial VP, e.g., OV languages do not exhibit a VP-shell structure, and they do not employ a TP layer with a structural subject position. Haider's proposed structural differences are said to result in the following empirically testable differences:
(a) VP: the availability of VP-internal adverbial intervention and scrambling only in OV-VPs;
(b) subjects: the lack of certain subject-object asymmetries in OV languages, i.e., lack of the subject condition and lack of superiority effects;
(c) V-complexes: the availability of partial predicate fronting only in OV languages; different orderings between selecting and selected verbs; the intervention of non-verbal material between verbs only in VO languages;
(d) V-particles: differences in the distribution of resultative phrases and verb particles.
Udmurt and Finnish behave in line with Haider's predictions with regard to the status of the subject, with regard to the order of selecting and selected verbs, and with regard to the availability of partial predicate fronting. Moreover, Udmurt allows for adverbial intervention and scrambling, as predicted, whereas the status of these properties in Finnish could not be reliably determined due to obligatory V-to-T. There is also counterevidence to Haider's predictions: Udmurt allows for non-verbal material between verbs, and the distribution of resultative phrases and verb particles is essentially as free as the distribution of adverbial phrases in both Finno-Ugric languages. As such, Haider's theory is not falsified by the data from Udmurt and Finnish (except for his theory on verb particles), but it is also not fully supported by the data.
The instrumental -er suffix
(2019)
This thesis investigates the comprehension of the passive voice in three distinct populations. First, the comprehension of passives by adult German speakers was studied, followed by an examination of how German-speaking children comprehend the structure. Finally, bilingual Mandarin-English speakers were tested on their comprehension of the passive voice in English, which is their L2. An integral part of testing the comprehension in all three populations is the use of structural priming. In each of the three distinct parts of the research, structural priming was used for a specific reason. In the study involving adult German speakers, productive and receptive structural priming was directly compared. The goal was to see the effect the two priming modalities have on language comprehension. In the study on German-acquiring children, structural priming was an important tool in answering the question regarding the delayed acquisition of the passive voice. Finally, in the study on the bilingual population, cross-linguistic priming was used to investigate the importance of word order in the priming effect, since Mandarin and English have different word orders in passive voice sentences.
Splits and Birds
(2019)
In this thesis, I develop a theoretical implementation of prosodic reconstruction and apply it to the empirical domain of German sentences in which part of a focus or contrastive topic is fronted.
Prosodic reconstruction refers to the idea that sentences involving syntactic movement show prosodic parallels with corresponding simpler structures without movement. I propose to model this recurrent observation by ordering syntax-prosody mapping before copy deletion.
In order to account for the partial fronting data, the idea is extended to the mapping between prosody and information structure. This assumption helps to explain why object-initial sentences containing a broad focus or broad contrastive topic show similar prosodic and interpretative restrictions as sentences with canonical word order.
The empirical adequacy of the model is tested against a set of gradient acceptability judgments.
This volume contains the proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Prosody, Syntax, and Information Structure (WPSI2), held at University of Potsdam on March 18, 2005. WPSI 2 was aimed to discuss issues on the interaction of prosody, syntax, and information structure, from interdisciplinary points of view. The contributors (Haruo Kubozono, Shinichiro Ishihara, Yoshihisa Kitagawa, and Satoshi Tomioka) have been recently working on relevant issues, especially looking at the phenomena related to the intonation of focus and (wh-)questions in Japanese.
Preface
(2019)