Auch früher wollte man informieren – Zum Einfluss der Informationsstruktur auf die Syntax in der Geschichte des Deutschen

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Augustin Speyer
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Structural Ordering ◽  
The Past ◽  
Structural Assignment ◽  
Structural Dimensions ◽  
Special Information ◽  
Structural Category ◽  
German Syntax

AbstractTheoretical insights achieved by research on information structure in the past 30 years have recently begun to be adopted by researchers working diachronically on German syntax. Several aspects, especially to Old High German syntax, have been investigated, but there are many desiderata and a synthesis is still missing. From these studies we can say that the influence of information structure on syntax has changed: While in Old High German all ‘fields’ of the clause have a special information structural assignment (up to the point that the presence/absence of a field is correlated to the presence/absence of a certain information structural category), in Modern German the prefield and the afterfield are multifunctional, whereas information structural ordering occurs only in the middle field. Some information structural dimensions have gained importance, e. g. the old-new distinction for object order.

Responsibilities in Syntax

1989 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-132
Author(s):  
Winfred P. Lehmann
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Linguistic Study ◽  
The Past ◽  
Major Attention ◽  
Generative Approach ◽  
German Syntax

ABSTRACTSyntax has received major attention in recent linguistic study, with many efforts at formalization. Publications have taken datalargelyfrom earlier treatments characterized as traditional. In spite of claims for theoretical advances, no treatments of syntax have been produced to replace the earlier, supposedly outmoded treatments. Rather, theoretical claims, such as those advanced on the advantages of a generative approach and formah'sm, have been dismissed by leading figures in the field. More recent grammars, like Mitchell's for Old English and Engel's for modern German, generally observe the traditional approach. Among problems, those for older periods lack the historical approach, as of expression for reflexivization. Investigations into these and other syntactic categories are needed. Further, outstanding works of the past, such as those by Delbruck, should be made available. In addition, specific handbooks, as on Old High German syntax, should be undertaken; in preparation, some texts of the time require reediting.

scholarly journals STRUKTUR INFORMASI PADA KLAUSA BAHASA MINANGKABAU Sebuah telaah tipologi grammatical dan struktur informasi

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Jufrizal Jufrizal ◽  
Rusdi Rusdi ◽  
Lely Refnita
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
First Year ◽  
West Sumatra ◽  
Fundamental Research ◽  
Special Information

There are three types of clause in Minangkabaunese based on the typological analysis, namely: active, passive, and topicalization one. Accordingly, each clause has special information structure which makes they are different in communicating messages. This article tries to describe the types of clauses in Minangkabaunese based on typological analysis and then the discussion is continued in order to know the information structure in each clause. This article is derived and developed based on the result of a fundamental research conducted for the first year (2008) in West-Sumatra.

Temporal Deixis in Old Saxon and Old High German

2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-181
Author(s):  
Valentina Concu
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Old Saxon ◽  
The Past ◽  
Specific Event ◽  
Chronological Sequence ◽  
Past Tenses

Abstract Jetzt ›now‹ and bald ›soon‹ are frequently used in German to express temporal references with present and future readings, respectively. However, it is not unusual to find them combined with the Perfekt and Präteritum, which are commonly described in the literature as past tenses. Although such use of temporal deixis in Modern German is well studied, there is still little research on this topic from a historical perspective. In this paper, I attempt to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the use of the adverb nu ›now‹, ›then‹ in Old Saxon and Old High German. Textual analyses of these works reveal that the ›Hêliand‹ and the ›Evangelienbuch‹ exhibit a use of the adverb nu similar to the use of jetzt and bald in Modern German, since it was found in combination not only with the Präsens, but also with the Präteritum, and with what can be recognized as the prototype of the modern Perfekt. The analyses also show that, although nu was often used as a pragmatic marker to highlight particular passages or convey the author’s attitude in relation to a specific event, it also retained its temporal meaning, especially when combined with the past tenses, establishing the chronological sequence of the narration.

Idiome und ihre kommunikative Leistung

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martine Dalmas ◽  
Dmitrij Dobrovol’skij
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Structural Transformations ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Communicative Function ◽  
German Syntax

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to analyze the communicative function of idioms and their constituents in the information structure of an utterance. Usually idioms tend to occupy the final position in a sentence, which correlates with their inherent rhematic properties. However, structural transformations such as fronting, passivization and conversion can lead to changes in their communicative status. Among such changes, we single out (a) topicalization or thematization of the fronted sentence constituent, (b) its focusing or emphatic rhematization, (c) focusing of the postponed constituent, or (d) rhematization of the sentence as a whole, etc. In spite of their lexical stability, idioms make use of the possibilities provided by German syntax. This allows them to contribute to the communicative structuring of utterances.

On identifiability and definiteness in English and German

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-285
Author(s):  
Carsten Breul
Keyword(s):  
Structure Analysis ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Focus Structure ◽  
Structural Category ◽  
Guiding Questions

Despite increasingly numerous works dealing with issues of information structure from a cross-linguistic perspective, contrastive information structure analysis is not an established field of research yet. The paper aims at showing that it is worthwhile staking out and exploring such a field. Starting off from a brief reminder of what information structure is, as conceived of by Lambrecht (1994), the paper proposes guiding questions that contrastive information structure analysis should strive to answer. It then turns to the discussion of an example of contrastive analysis which involves the information structural category of identifiability. It is argued that the variable x in the English formula ‘as for x’ and the corresponding German formula was x {(an)betrifft / angeht} in sentence initial position can only be instantiated by expressions that have identifiable discourse referents. Results of a corpus-based comparison of expressions which instantiate x in these English and German formulas are presented. These results show contrasts between English and German in the lexicogrammatical expression of identifiable referents that go beyond the better-known differences in the use of the definite article. A methodological point to be made is that Lambrechtian categories of information structure (identifiability and activation of discourse referents, focus structure) may serve as tertia comparationis for the analysis of contrasts on the lexicogrammatical level.

scholarly journals On word order variation and informationstructure in peninsular spanish and italian ‘why’-interrogatives

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. e021025
Author(s):  
Svenja Schmid ◽  
Klaus Von Heusinger ◽  
Georg A. Kaiser
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
High Preference ◽  
Parallel Text ◽  
Peninsular Spanish ◽  
Structural Category ◽  
The Impact

In this paper, we investigate the effect of information structure on word order in Italian and Peninsular Spanish ‘why’-interrogatives, and whether these two languages differ from each other. To this end, we conducted two empirical studies. In a parallel text corpus study, we compared the frequency of the word order patterns ‘why’SV and ‘why’VS, as well as the distribution of focal and non-focal subjects in the two languages. In order to get a deeper understanding of the impact of the information structural categories focus and givenness on word order in ‘why’-interrogatives, we conducted a forced-choice experiment. The results indicate that word order is affected by focus in Italian, while it is not determined by any information structural category in Peninsular Spanish. We show that Italian and Peninsular Spanish ‘why’-interrogatives differ from each other in two ways. First, non-focal subjects occur preverbally in Italian, while they occupy the postverbal position in Peninsular Spanish. Second, Italian reveals a lower level of optionality with respect to word order patterns. Even though we find a high preference for the postverbal position in Peninsular Spanish, we argue that this limitation is related to a higher flexibility regarding word order in Peninsular Spanish than in Italian which does not allows for ‘why’VSO in contrast to Peninsular Spanish.

English and German

1982 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 38-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael G. Clyne
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Word Order ◽  
The Past ◽  
German Syntax

The past decade has witnessed intensive activity in Textlinguistik (discourse analysis) among German linguists (cf., Kallmeyer and Meyer–Herrmann 1980). This, of course, is not an entirely new phenomenon. Such basic works on German syntax as Drach (1940) and Boost (1964) paid attention to relationships between sentences within discourse and/or their impact on word order.

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