Linguistics in Potsdam
ISSN (print) 1616-7392
ISSN (online) 1864-1857
URN urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-series-301
Herausgegeben von
Susann Fischer, Ruben van de Vijver, Ralf Vogel
Institut für Linguistik / Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft
Universität Potsdam
ISSN (online) 1864-1857
URN urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-series-301
Herausgegeben von
Susann Fischer, Ruben van de Vijver, Ralf Vogel
Institut für Linguistik / Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft
Universität Potsdam
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28
The papers contained in this issue share the insight that the different components of the grammar sometimes impose conflicting requirements on the grammar’s output, and that, in order to handle such conflicts, it seems advantageous to combine aspects from minimalist and OT modelling. The papers show that this can be undertaken in a multiplicity of ways, by using varying proportions of each framework, and offer a broad range of perspectives for future research.
25
This issue of Linguistics in Potsdam contains a number of papers that grew out of the workshop Descriptive and Empirical Adequacy in Linguistics held in Berlin on December 17-19 December, 2005. One of the goals of this meeting was to bring together scholars working in various frameworks (with emphasis on the Minimalist Program and Optimality Theory) and to discuss matters concerning descriptive and empirical adequacy. Another explicit goal was to discuss the question whether Minimalism and Optimality Theory should be considered incompatible and, hence, competing theories, or whether the two frameworks should rather be considered complementary in certain respects (see http://let.uvt.nl/deal05/call.html for the call for papers). Five of the seven papers in this volume directly grew out of the oral presentations given at the workshop. Although Vieri Samek-Lodovici’s paper was not part of the workshop, it can also be considered a result of the workshop since it pulls together some of his many comments during the discussion time. The paper by Eva Engels and Sten Vikner discusses a phenomenon that received much interest from both minimalist and optimality theoretic syntax in the recent years, Scandinavian object shift. The paper may serve as a practical example for a claim that is repeatedly made in this volume: minimalist and OT analyses, even where they might be competing, can fruitfully inform each other in a constructive manner, leading to a deeper understanding of syntactic phenomena.
24
One type of internal diachronic change that has been extensively studied for spoken languages is grammaticalization whereby lexical elements develop into free or bound grammatical elements. Based on a wealth of spoken languages, a large amount of prototypical grammaticalization pathways has been identified. Moreover, it has been shown that desemanticization, decategorialization, and phonetic erosion are typical characteristics of grammaticalization processes. Not surprisingly, grammaticalization is also responsible for diachronic change in sign languages. Drawing data from a fair number of sign languages, we show that grammaticalization in visual-gestural languages – as far as the development from lexical to grammatical element is concerned – follows the same developmental pathways as in spoken languages. That is, the proposed pathways are modalityindependent. Besides these intriguing parallels, however, sign languages have the possibility of developing grammatical markers from manual and non-manual co-speech gestures. We will discuss various instances of grammaticalized gestures and we will also briefly address the issue of the modality-specificity of this phenomenon.
22
This volume offers new arguments and perspectives in the ongoing debate about the optimal analysis of verb movement, mainly, but not exclusively, in German. Fanselow and Meinunger deal with verb second (V2) movement in German main clauses. Fanselow argues that head movement of the substitution type follows the standard minimalist conceptions of Merge and Move and is therefore not subject to the same objections as head movement as head adjunction which violates Chomsky's minimalist extension condition, operates countercyclically, and fails to let the moved head c-command its trace. Fanselow argues for V2 movement as head movement of the substitution type. Meinunger discusses a restriction on V2 movement imposed by phrases like "mehr als" ('more than'), as in "Der Wert hat sich weit mehr als verdreifacht" ('the value has far more than tripled') where V2 movement is ruled out (cf. *"Der Wert verdreifachte sich mehr als"). Meinunger claims that this restriction is best analysed in phonological terms: the preposition/complementiser "als" acts as a prefixal clitic to its host, the finite verb, which therefore may not move without it. With respect to the V2 debate, Meinunger argues for an interface perspective. He shows that V2 is restricted from both the conceptual and the phonological interface. Vogel, finally, discusses the syntax of clause-final verbal complexes and their dialectal variation in German. He compares three different syntactic analyses, a minimalist head movement analysis, a minimalist XP movement analysis, and an Optimality theoretic PF movement analysis. The three accounts are evaluated relative to the additional assumptions they have to make, the complications they face and how they fit the observations. Vogel argues in favour of the phonologically oriented OT analysis because of its ability to create a direct link between the coming about of a particular word order pattern and its basically phonological trigger. Each of the three papers recognises the relevance of surface forms in the analysis of German verb movement. They differ, however in the extent to which phonological aspects take part in the explanations they offer.
21
This is the first issue of a series in which affiliates of the Institute of Linguistics report the results of their experimental work. Generative linguistics usually rely on the method of native speaker judgements in order to test their hypotheses. If a hypothesis rules out a set of sentences, linguistics can ask native speakers whether they feel these sentences are indeed ungrammatical in their language. There are, however, circumstances where this method is unreliable. In such cases a more elaborate method to test a hypothesis is called. All papes in this series, and hence, all papers in this volume deal with issues that cannot be reliably tested with native speaker judgements. This volume contains 7 papers, all using different methods and finding answers to very different questions. This heterogenity, by the way, reflects the various interests and research programs of the institute. The paper, by Trutkowski, Zugck, Blaszczak, Fanselow, Fischer and Vogel deals with superiority in 10 Indo-European languages. The paper by Schlesewsky, Fanselow and Frisch and by Schlesewsky and Frisch, deal with the role of case in processing German sentences. The paper by Vogel and Frisch deals with resolving case conflicts, as does the paper by Vogel and Zugck. The nature of partitive case is the topic of the paper by Fischer. The paper by K?gler deals with the realization of question intonation in two German dialects. We hope that you enjoy reading the papers!