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A corpus-based analysis of pronoun choice in German relative clauses

  • This paper investigates the conditions that govern the choice between the German neuter singular relative pronouns das ‘that’ and was ‘what’. We show that das requires a lexical head noun, while in all other cases was is usually the preferred option; therefore, the distribution of das and was is most successfully captured by an approach that does not treat was as an exception but analyzes it as the elsewhere case that applies when the relativizer fails to pick up a lexical gender feature from the head noun. We furthermore show how the non-uniform behavior of different types of nominalized adjectives (positives allow both options, while superlatives trigger was) can be attributed to semantic differences rooted in syntactic structure. In particular, we argue that superlatives select was due to the presence of a silent counterpart of the quantifier alles ‘all’ that is part of the superlative structure.

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Metadaten
Author:Patrick BrandtGND, Eric Fuß
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.00008.bra
ISSN:0774-5141
Parent Title (English):Belgian journal of linguistics
Publisher:John Benjamins Publishing
Place of publication:Amsterdam
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Year of first Publication:2018
Date of Publication (online):2018/06/27
Reviewstate:Peer-Review
Volume:31
Issue:1
First Page:194
Last Page:217
DDC classes:400 Sprache / 430 Deutsch
Program areas:Grammatik
Licence (German):License LogoUrheberrechtlich geschützt