Ralf Vogel

Dialectal variation in German 3-verb clusters: A surface-oriented optimality theoretic account

We present data from an empirical investigation on the dialectal variation in the syntax of German 3-verb clusters, consisting of a temporal auxiliary, a modal verb, and a predicative verb. The ordering possibilities vary greatly among the dialects. Some of the orders that we found occur only under particular stress assignments. We assume that these orders fulfil an information structural purpose and that the reordering processes are changes only in the linear order of the elements which is represented exclusively at the surface syntactic level, PF (Phonetic Form). Our Optimality theoretic account offers a multifactorial perspective on the phenomenon.

Weak function word shift

Abstract The fact that object shift only affects weak pronouns in mainland Scandinavian is seen as an instance of a more general observation that can be made in all Germanic languages: weak function words tend to avoid the edges of larger prosodic domains. This generalization has been formulated within optimality theory in terms of alignment constraints on prosodic structure by Selkirk (1996) in explaining the distribution of prosodically strong and weak forms of English function words, especially modal verbs, prepositions, and pronouns. But a purely phonological account fails to integrate the syntactic licensing conditions for object shift in an appropriate way. The standard semantico-syntactic accounts of object shift, however, fail to explain why it is only weak pronouns that undergo object shift. This paper uses an optimality theoretic model of the syntax-phonology interface which determines linear order by the interaction of syntactic and prosodic factors. The account can successfully be applied to further related phenomena in English and German.

Skandal im Verbkomplex. Betrachtungen zur scheinbar inkorrekten Morphologie in infiniten Verbkomplexen des Deutschen

Abstract In German infinite verbal complexes with three verbs we can observe a phenomenon which so far has been treated as an irregular exception, because in a particular order, so-called ‘312 order’, all three verbs seem to occur in a wrong form. Corpus research shows, however, that the putative exception has a systematic character and can be observed over a longer time in German. This article therefore tries to take a different perspective: the problem does not lie in the exceptional expressions, but rather in our theory of German grammar which so far has not been able to derive the structures as regular. We present an optimality theoretic account of sentence final verbal complexes in German which is able to derive all systematically occurring expressions. The account comes with the cost that some thus far widely shared assumptions have to be revised. These assumptions concern the role of the infinitive marker ‘zu’ as well as the role of participial and infinitival morphology.

Remarks on the Architecture of Optimality Theoretic Syntax Grammars

This chapter argues for a particular architecture of Optimality Theory (OT) syntax. This architecture has three core features: (i) it is bidirectional, the usual production-oriented optimization (called ‘first optimization’ here) is accompanied by a second step that checks the recoverability of an underlying form; (ii) this underlying form already contains a full-fledged syntactic specification; (iii) the procedure checking for recoverability especially makes crucial use of semantic and pragmatic factors.

Animacy effects on crossing wh-movement in German

Abstract This article presents several acceptability rating experiments concerned with crossing wh-movement in German multiple questions. Our results show that there is no general superiority effect in German, thus refuting claims to the contrary by Featherston (Linguistics 43: 667–711, 2005). However, acceptability is reduced when a wh-phrase crosses a wh-subject with which it agrees in animacy. We explain this finding in terms of the availability of different sorting keys for the answers to the multiple questions.

Derivations (MP) and Evaluations (OT)

The main claim of this paper is that the minimalist framework and optimality theory adopt more or less the same architecture of grammar: both assume that a generator defines a set S of potentially well-formed expressions that can be generated on the basis of a given input, and that there is an evaluator that selects the expressions from S that are actually grammatical in a given language L. The paper therefore proposes a model of grammar in which the strengths of the two frameworks are combined: more specifically, it is argued that the computational system of human language CHL from MP creates a set S of potentially well-formed expressions, and that these are subsequently evaluated in an optimality theoretic fashion.

The Simple Generator

I argue that the shift of explanatory burden from the generator to the evaluator in OT syntax – together with the difficulties that arise when we try to formulate a working theory of the interfaces of syntax – leads to a number of assumptions about syntactic structures in OT which are quite different from those typical of minimalist syntax: formal features, as driving forces behind syntactic movement, are useless, and derivational and representational economy are problematic for both empirical and conceptual reasons. The notion of markedness, central in Optimality Theory, is not fully compatible with the idea of synactic economy. Even more so, seemingly obvious cases of blocking by structural economy do not seem to result from grammar proper, but reflect (economical) aspects of language use.

Rhythm in cognition and grammar : a Germanic perspective

The book contains a collection of papers dealing with the question of how rhythm shapes language. Until now, there was no comprehensive theory that addressed these findings adequately. By bringing together researchers from many different fields, this book will make a first attempt to fill this gap.

Wh-Islands: A View from Correspondence Theory

This paper discusses a family of restrictions on syntactic extraction, socalled wh-islands. The analysis will be based on the OT syntax model developed in Vogel (2004a,b) which focuses on the correspondence between semantic, syntactic and phonological representations, in the spirit of work by Jackendoff (1997), Williams (2003) and Culicover & Jackendoff (2005). I will argue that the wh-island restriction results from the impossibility to establish a perfect semantics-syntax mapping in the relevant structures. The resulting constraint violations add up to yield the wh-island effect. Exceptions to the wh-island restrictions in English are argued to be prosodically licensed. Section 2 introduces the model I am using, and presents examples of some accounts of ineffability which I developed elsewhere. That section also introduces the basics of my treatment of wh-movement. Section 3 develops the account of wh-islands. Section 4 discusses the exceptions to the wh-island restriction that we see in English, and extends my account to handle these cases. The OT implementation of this account is presented in Section 5.

Function words in rhythmic optimisation

The complex interplay between rhythm and word order has only rarely beenaddressed in linguistics. For many scholars, it might even be questionable,whether there is any interaction. Following Hayes (1995), we assume that therhythmic flow of a sentence depends on the equal distribution of stressed andunstressed syllables and we will argue that the spoken form of a sentencedepends, among other factors, on rhythm. Furthermore, we will present ev-idence that rhythmic principles govern word order in speech which leads tothe proposal that rhythm is a syntactic constraint.We will present three case studies, one concerning pronouns, one concerningauxiliary verbs and one concerning prepositional adverbs in German withwhich we explore several aspects of this claim. In particular, we will showthat function words play a crucial role in the organisation of the rhythmic flowin speech. It affects their phonetic shape as well as their syntactic position.Linguistic rhythm is manifested by the regular succession of stressed and un-stressed syllables (Liberman & Prince, 1977). The location of main stress ina word is lexically determined in German, but there are some common andpredictable trends and stress is thus part of the word’s phonology (Kiparsky,1966; Wiese, 1996; Fery, 2000; Hall, 2000). The lexicon is quite heteroge-´neous in this respect: lexical items may vary in number of syllables as wellas in the location of word stress. Therefore, rhythmic regularity is never au-tomatically given for a sentence by just concatenating words. If rhythmicregularity is actively sought after, it has to be produced on the fly for everysentence or utterance.The rhythm in a phonological phrase may be adjusted in two ways, bothof which result in an even distribution of stressed and unstressed syllables(Prince, 1983; Nespor & Vogel, 1986; Halle & Vergnaud, 1987; Selkirk,1984; Hayes, 1995). In one case a syllable which is weakly stressed is givena stronger stress under embedding, and in the other case a syllable which isstrongly stressed is given a weaker stress under embedding. Often, the twoprocesses occur in combination. A typical example is the German phrase“Universit´ at P¨ otsdam”, in which` Universitat¨ is stressed on the first syllablewhereas it would be stressed on the last syllable in isolation (with the firstsyllable receiving secondary stress).These processes do not influence the word order, though. An example ofa rhythmic word order change comes from English and has been given by