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Open Access
October 25, 2011
Abstract
The aim of the present paper is to study and account for the scopal interaction between modal verbs and sentential negation in historical Low German. A number of proposals concerning the scope of negation in clauses with modal verbs for other languages (mainly English) will be evaluated against the empirical findings from historical Low German. It will be argued that syntactic accounts of this interaction are not empirically adequate, and that a lexical account will have to be complemented by a pragmatic one in order to account for the behaviour and development of some modal verbs.
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Open Access
October 25, 2011
Abstract
The prepositional phrase (PP) in German has complex morpho-syntactic properties and therefore constitutes a challenge for children both in first and in second language acquisition. The prototypical German PP is headed by a preposition selecting for a determiner phrase (DP). Beside using a determiner and correctly marking the morpho-syntactic features inside the DP, the children have to learn that there is a prepositional element that is the head of the PP. Since the structure of the PP can be divided further into functional projections for local and directional PPs, there are at least three functional elements for the children to be learned. We conducted an empirical study with 40 Turkish speaking primary school children in L2 acquisition together with two control groups of children in L1 acquisition to examine how the functional categories inside the PP are acquired and whether their acquisition concurs to the hierarchical ordering and acquisition pattern attested for the first language acquisition of German, or whether a transfer from their L1 can be observed. Our data shows similarities to the attested acquisition order, at least to its later stages, but does not concur to the hierarchical ordering since local PPs seem to be acquired later than directional ones even if the latter are ordered higher in the phrasal hierarchy. Furthermore, we observe no transfer from the subjects' L1 regarding the linearization of the preposition, even though Turkish PPs are head final.
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Open Access
October 25, 2011
Abstract
Grammatical illusions are linguistic equivalents of optical illusions in visual processing. A grammatical illusion amounts to an expression that is judged acceptable in spite of its grammatical deviance. It is the hitherto insufficiently appreciated fourth “aggregate state”, that completes the set of four logical pairings of the properties “(un-)grammatical” and “(un-)acceptable”. A typical source of syntactic illusions is the mental processor's attempt to repair grammatical inconsistencies resulting from contradicting requirements of syntactic regularities. The resulting pseudo-solutions tend to be appraised as acceptable, although they remain patently ungrammatical. The consequences of this phenomenon, when acknowledged, are evident: Acceptability turns out to be neither a necessary nor a sufficient property of a grammatical construction. The attempt of modeling any construction that is (introspectively) judged acceptable as grammatically well-formed is tantamount to the attempt of devising a grammatical derivation for constructions of arbitrary (un)grammaticality. Informant consultation results are contaminated and of limited value. Syntactic investigations (and semantic ones as well) deserve more reliable standards of data assessment than mere sampling of self-perception testimonies and corpus search.
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Open Access
October 25, 2011
Abstract
German has two participles, both of which occur in prenominal position. Traditionally, both participles are considered to be associated with particular semantic and syntactic features. The present participle ( malend ‘painting’) is subject-oriented; it has imperfective aspect and indicates simultaneity of the participle event and the matrix clause event. The past participle ( gemalt ‘painted’) is object-oriented; it has perfective aspect and indicates that the participle event precedes the event of the matrix clause. In this paper, we will first argue that aspect is indeed an inherent – hence invariant – feature of the participle morphology: The present participle always presents an event as ongoing, whereas the past participle presents it as completed. Secondly, we will show that participles – as non-finite verb forms – lack tense. Hence, their temporal properties vary according to lexical, syntactic and pragmatic factors. It will be demonstrated that the unmarked temporal readings of the participles are due to the maxim of relation. Finally, we will argue that the argument selection properties of both participles are grammatically determined; however, these properties can be altered if certain conditions are met.
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Open Access
October 25, 2011
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October 25, 2011
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October 25, 2011
