{"title":"Pseudo-Coordinated Sitzen and Stehen in Spoken German: A Case of Emergent Progressive Aspect?","authors":"Nadine Proske","doi":"10.1017/s1470542722000216","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1470542722000216","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates the aspectual potential of posture verb pseudo-coordination in spoken German. In a corpus study of <jats:italic>sitzen</jats:italic> ‘sit’ and <jats:italic>stehen</jats:italic> ‘stand’, it is shown that despite a preference for activity verbs, verbs of all aspectual classes occur in the second conjunct. The posture verb imposes its durative meaning component on the second verb, thus making a progressive interpretation of the construction possible. Apart from this emergent aspectual function, German posture verb pseudo-coordination has a subjective function (conveying the speaker’s beliefs about the subject referent’s stance), and a discourse pragmatic function (information packaging).*","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"47 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138514331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mass, Iteration, and Pejoration: On the Evolution of Iterative Adverbs from Indefinite Quantifiers in German Varieties","authors":"Sophie Ellsäßer","doi":"10.1017/s1470542722000186","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1470542722000186","url":null,"abstract":"This article deals with the formal and functional development of aspectual adverbs from indefinite quantifiers in German. More specifically, it focuses on the functions of adverbs that prompted their development into different iterative markers. Through a corpus analysis of spoken language data, insights were gained into the semantic spectrum of the nonstandard adverb <jats:italic>als</jats:italic> ‘always’. This adverb can be classified as an iterative and, in certain contexts, as a habitual marker, which has undergone a similar development to the standard language adverb <jats:italic>viel</jats:italic> ‘much’. The article shows that lexical markers of iterativity and—to some extent—habituality may suggest new avenues for variation and change research. It traces the development of the habitual function of <jats:italic>als</jats:italic> and offers new perspectives for in-depth analyses of the evolution of lexical aspectuality marking.*","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"13 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138514337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Old Saxon and Middle Low German Adverbs of Degree: A Case of Diachronic Discontinuity?","authors":"Lourens Visser","doi":"10.1017/S1470542722000162","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1470542722000162","url":null,"abstract":"Middle Low German is generally considered to be a direct successor to Old Saxon. However, later dialects, including Middle Low German, differ from Old Saxon with respect to a number of features, which is unexpected under a direct succession relationship. To account for the presence of such features, some scholars attribute them to High German influence on Middle Low German (Wolff 1934, Stiles 1995, Stiles 2013). Others, however, hypothesize that written Old Saxon (which provides the basis for the comparison) was an artificial grapholect that reflected Old English and Franconian conventions rather than a genuine spoken language (Collitz 1901, Rooth 1973, Doane 1991:45–46). This paper further contributes to this discussion by examining the systems of degree adverbs in Old Saxon and Middle Low German. Based on data from different corpora, it is shown that the system in Old Saxon resembles the one in Old English, while the Middle Low German system is comparable to the systems in Middle High German and Early Middle Dutch. It is concluded that an explanation based solely on language contact is problematic, and that the grapholect hypothesis has more explanatory power.*","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"35 1","pages":"266 - 306"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47830189","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Grammatical Innovations in German in Multilingual Namibia: The Expanded Use of Linking Elements and Gehen ‘Go’ as a Future Auxiliary","authors":"Sheena Shah, C. Zimmer","doi":"10.1017/S1470542722000150","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1470542722000150","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we provide an overview of the history and sociolinguistic setting of Germans and German in Namibia, which serves as a backdrop for our discussion of two grammatical innovations in Namibian German. German has been actively used in Namibia since the 1880s, having been brought to the country through colonization, and it remains linguistically vital today. Via a questionnaire study, we investigate the expanded use of two grammatical innovations in Namibian German, namely, i) linking elements and ii) gehen as a future auxiliary. We explore various factors that could have contributed to the emergence of these innovations in order to better understand the dynamics of German in multilingual Namibia.*","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"35 1","pages":"205 - 265"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"56918896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Je-Desto, Je-Umso: An Analysis of the German Comparative Correlative Construction","authors":"André Meinunger","doi":"10.1017/S1470542722000101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1470542722000101","url":null,"abstract":"This paper argues that German je-desto-sentences are regular verb-second structures. Unlike left-dislocation(-like) structures (such as wenn-dann-clauses or free relative clause constructions with case mis-match and resumption), je-desto-strings are normal, regular prefield structures. A proposal from the literature is developed further, accord-ing to which je-clauses, like relative clauses, belong structurally to the clausal constituent into which they are integrated. The head of these constituents remains in its canonical middle field position, whereas relative as well as je-clauses usually extrapose to the right. If the host constituent is moved to the prefield, the attributive clause is carried along with it, with the je-clause realized initially and the relative clause usually finally. However, relatives may also precede their head noun. Such an analysis highlights the common features of clause types that are otherwise treated as fundamentally distinct from one another, without denying the differences and postulating construction-specific verb-third realizations. In addition, various other realization options are discussed and dismissed as grammatical illusions.*","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"35 1","pages":"148 - 204"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46853999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Naming Verb to Copula: The Case of Wangerooge Frisian Heit","authors":"J. Hoekstra","doi":"10.1017/S1470542722000113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1470542722000113","url":null,"abstract":"In the now extinct Frisian dialect of the island of Wangerooge, the naming verb heit ‘to be called’ had partially grammaticalized into a copular verb ‘to be’ competing, to some extent, with the original copula wízze ‘to be’. In this paper, I discuss the development and the status of the copula heit in some detail and consider what it might tell one about the taxonomy of copular clauses (Higgins 1979). I show that the functional change from naming verb to copula initially occurred in identificational copular clauses. From there heit spread to classifi-cational and specificational copular clauses, but not to predicational ones. This development suggests a principled distinction between predicational copular clauses on the one hand and identificational copular clauses (conceived as comprising classifying, specifying, and equating ones) on the other. This does not imply, however, that heit is an identificational copula or that it selects an identificational small clause. I analyze copular heit used with an identificational small clause as a suppletive allomorph of wízze ‘to be’.*","PeriodicalId":42927,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Germanic Linguistics","volume":"35 1","pages":"97 - 147"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46120507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}