Refine
Document Type
- Part of a Book (3)
- Article (2)
- Conference Proceeding (1)
- Review (1)
Has Fulltext
- yes (7)
Keywords
- Konjunktion (7) (remove)
Publicationstate
Reviewstate
- (Verlags)-Lektorat (4)
- Peer-Review (1)
Publisher
- de Gruyter (2)
- Benjamins (1)
- Edusp/Monferrer Produções (1)
- Narr (1)
This article discusses the question whether the distinction between subordination and coordination is parallel in syntax and discourse. Its main thesis is that subordination and coordination, as they are commonly understood in the linguistic literature, are genuinely syntactic concepts. The distinction between hierarchical and non-hierarchical connection in discourse structure, as far as it is defined clearly in the literature, is of a quite different nature. The syntax and semantics of connectives (as the most prominent morphosyntactic means by which subordination and coordination are encoded) offers little evidence to support the assumption of a structural parallelism between syntax and discourse. As a methodological consequence, sentence and discourse structure should not be mixed up in linguistic analysis.
This paper develops a theoretical model for the semantics of connectives, following central ideas of Reichenbachian tense semantics.
In a first step, the terminological and conceptual framework is presented and illustrated with German da. The meaning of a connective is modeled as a four-place-relation between the situated object E, a reference object R, a discourse anchor S and the speaker O. The relata can belong to one of four different classes of entities: physical object, event, proposition or act. Correspondingly, the relations are divided into four cognitive domains: space, time, alethics/epistemics, and deontics. In each domain, relations can be treated under three different perspectives: situation, condition or causation. A cross-classification of relational domains and perspectives provides a typology of connectives which is more consistent than the ones available in traditional grammar.
In the second part of the article, the analytic apparatus is refined, using German so as the main example. Following Roman Jakobson, a distinction is made between contiguity and similarity relations. Contiguity relations are typically encoded by functional categories, whereas similarity relations are encoded by lexical categories. However, there are a few connectives like so which encode similarity relations. A structural isomorphism between similarity and contiguity relations makes it possible to reinterpret so in certain contexts as an indicator of contiguity. In these cases, so is semantically weakened, particularly in relation to its definiteness. The model is extended to also, from which als descends etymologically.
The third part of the article contains the semantic characterization of als in its variants as an intransitive and transitive connective. Als is described paradigmatically, in terms of the semantic oppositions that distinguish it from da, so, wie and wenn. Like so, it originally encodes similarity relations, but in present day German its use has been extended, so that it may indicate contiguity relations as well. With da and so it shares the abstract relational meaning O-S,R,E. The main difference from da is its lesser degree of definiteness; in contrast to so, its use is almost exclusively temporal. Wie and wenn are indefinites, i.e. they do not establish a deictic backlink to the speaker and discourse context. Als indicates that the situated event temporally overlaps with a specific event of reference, whose factivity is presupposed. The reference event must be categorically predictable in the context of utterance. Als does not indicate temporal antecedence of the reference event in relation to the speech event; it only requires the identifiability of the reference event and its non-coincidence with the speech event.
In the last section, so-called "peripheral temporal clauses" are examined with respect to the syntagmatic interaction between aspectuality, intonational focus, serialization of clauses and the abstract relational meaning of als. The proposed semantic formula is shown to be capable not only of clarifying the paradigmatic structure of a subset of German connectives but also of explaining the semantic and stylistic properties of complex sentences.
Die Kausalkonjunktionen denn, weil, da im Deutschen und perché, poiché, siccome im Italienischen
(2011)
Gegenstand des vorliegenden Aufsatzes sind die deutschen Kausalkonjunktionen denn, weil und da und ihre (partiellen) italienischen Äquivalente perché, poiché und siccome. Sie werden vergleichend in syntaktischer und semantischer Hinsicht untersucht, mit dem Ziel, Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede zwischen ihnen aufzuweisen.
Auf sprachvergleichende Untersuchungen wirken sich gerade bei den Konzessivverknüpfungen die teilweise sehr unterschiedlichen einzelsprachlichen Darstellungstraditionen unvorteilhaft aus, weil sie den Blick auf ein mögliches tertium comparationis verstellen. Dies betrifft auch den Vergleich zwischen dem Deutschen und dem Russischen. Der vorliegende Aufsatz gibt einen Überblick über die Konzessivkonnektoren dieser beiden Sprachen, wobei die semantischen, syntaktischen und morphologischen Ähnlichkeiten zwischen den betreffenden Sprachmitteln besonders hervorgehoben werden. Damit wird eine Vergleichsbasis erarbeitet, die für zukünftige Detail-Untersuchungen als Ausgangspunkt dienen kann.