Volker Gast

Focused assertion of identity: A typology of intensifiers

Abstract Intensifiers such as himself/herself in English, ipse/ipsa in Latin, stesso/stessa in Italian, sam/samá in Russian, or selbst in German are most easily identifiable in terms of their prosodic and semantic properties. They are invariably in focus and therefore typically stressed, thus evoking specific types of alternative values. Based on a detailed discussion of the distribution and meaning of intensifiers in English, this article describes the major patterns of variation observable in the form of intensifiers across languages. Five types of intensifiers are distinguished on the basis of morpho-syntactic properties like inflection and agreement, and a number of implications and correlations between formal and distributional parameters of variation are pointed out.

Reciprocals and reflexives : theoretical and typological explorations

This collection of original papers is a representative survey of recent theoretical and cross-linguistic work on reciprocity and reflexivity. Its most remarkable feature isits combination offormal approaches, case studies on individual languages and broad typological surveys in one volume, showing that the interaction of formal approaches to grammar and typology may lead to new insights and results for both fields. Among the major issues addressed in this volume are the following: How can our current knowledge about the space and limits of variation in the relevant domain be captured in a structural typology of reciprocity? What light can such a typology shed on the facts of particular languages or groups of languages (e.g. Austronesian)? How can recent descriptive and typological insights be incorporated into a revised and more adequate version of the Binding Theory? How do verbal semantics, argument structure and reciprocal markers interact? How can we explain the pervasive patterns of ambiguity observable in these two domains, especially the use of the same forms both as reflexive and reciprocal markers? What are the major sources in the historical development of reciprocal markers? This combination of large-scale typological surveys with in-depth studies of particular languages provides new answers to old questions and raises important new questions for future research.

Human Impersonal Pronoun Uses in English, Dutch and German

The pronoun man derives from the homophonous noun meaning ‘man’. English had such a pronoun, but it disappeared in the 15 th century (Rissanen 1997: 517–521), so Modern English does not have a ‘man’ strategy for impersonal reference. Conversely, German, at least in the written register, very rarely uses a ‘you’ strategy of the type illustrated in (1). Dutch would seem to have both a ‘man’ and a ‘you’ strategy: 1

Rethinking the relationship between SELF-intensifiers and reflexives

Abstract Recent studies into the syntax and semantics of intensifying self-forms (e.g. [John himself] came) have shown that a distinction needs to be drawn between two uses of such expressions: a juxtaposed or adnominal use (cf. above), and a nonjuxtaposed use (e.g. John [came himself]). This differentiation allows us to reconsider a number of issues relating to the synchronic and diachronic relationship between SELF-intensifiers and reflexive anaphors. Assessing relevant cross linguistic data against the background of the aforementioned distinction reveals a surprising fact: patterns of “formal relatedness” suggest a particularly strong empirical as well as conceptual tie-up between reflexives and SELF-intensifiers in their nonjuxtaposed rather than adnominal use. This is remarkable because it has generally been assumed that it is always the adnominal SELF-intensifier which gives rise to the development of reflexive markers. In the light of our cross linguistic findings, we explore the synchronic and diachronic relationship between reflexives and SELF-intensifiers in their nonjuxtaposed use. We argue that the picture of a (unidirectional) development from adnominal SELF-intensifiers to reflexives needs to be modified insofar as reflexive markers often develop from nonjuxtaposed, rather than adnominal, intensi.ers. Moreover, reflexive markers often form part of a strategy of SELF-intensification, which entails that the reflexives are older than the resulting intensifiers.

Verb-noun compounds in English and German

Abstract This paper provides a comparative analysis of verb-noun compounds and their distribution in English and German. It is shown that two major generalizations are pos-sible along the endocentric/exocentric dimension: While the types of endocentric V-N compounds found in English form a subset of the relevant types found in German, exo-centric V-N compounds constitute a substantial lexical class in English but not in German. The distribution of the two major types of V-N compounds is considered against the background of competing expressions such as V-ing N compounds (in English) and synthetic compounds of the type N-V-er (in both languages under comparison). The differences in the inventories of types are related to aspects of external language history (language contact), but the role of language-internal factors is also considered, in par-ticular the greater disposition of English to allow conversion.

W(h)-Clefts im Deutschen und Englischen: eine quantitative Untersuchung auf Grundlage des Europarl-Korpus

Dieser Beitrag beschaftigt sich mit einem Vergleich der englischen wh-Clefts und deren Entsprechungen im Deutschen, den ,Sperrsatzen‘ oder ‚w-Clefts‘. Auf Grundlage einer umfangreichen Korpusstudie werden zunachst Unterschiede in der Verteilung bestimmter w/h-Cleftsatztypen ermittelt. Ein generelles quantitatives Ubergewicht der englischen wh-Clefts gegenuber den deutschen w-Clefts wird mit der flexibleren Wortstellung des Deutschen in Verbindung gebracht. Spezifisch werden die beobachteten Asymmetrien durch Unterschiede in der Moglichkeit der Erfullung bestimmter struktureller Bedingungen erklart. Vier Motivationen fur die Bildung von Cleftsatzen werden identifiziert: (i) lineare Synchronisierung von Informationsstruktur und Syntax, (ii) strukturelle Trennung von Quaestio (= im Diskurs gegebener Frage) und Responsio (= Antwort auf die Quaestio), (iii) Trennung von propositionalem Gehalt und Auserungskommentar (,Ebenentrennung‘) und (iv) Rechtslastigkeit (Behaghels ‚Gesetz der wachsenden Glieder‘). Wahrend all diese Faktoren die Bildung von wh-Cleftsatzen im Englischen zu begunstigen scheinen, sind deutsche w-Clefts meist durch den in (ii) genannten Faktor motiviert. Die anderen Motivationen fuhren seltener zur Bildung von w-Cleftsatzen als im Englischen, da die entsprechenden strukturellen Effekte auch ohne Cleftsatzbildung — z.B. in einem kanonischen Verbzweitsatz — erzielt werden konnen.

Clause linkage in cross-linguistic perspective : data-driven approaches to cross-clausal syntax

The volume is a collection of thirteen papers given at the Third Syntax of the World s Languages conference, complemented with four additional papers as well as an introduction by the editors. All contributions deal with clause combining, focusing on one or both of the following two dimensions of analysis: properties of the clauses involved, types of dependency. The studies are data-driven and have a cross-linguistic or typological orientation. In addition to survey papers the volume contains in-depth studies of particular languages, mostly based on original data collected in recent field work.