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Electronic corpora play an ever growing role in lexicography. On the one hand, new access to linguistic usage is made possible through the use of text corpora and intelligent corpus-based query tools; however, the final results are still interpreted and described by lexicographers. In this case corpora are used for data acquisition. On the other hand, there are also projects that provide purely automatically acquired data in the form of "dictionaries". Lexicographers play only a minor role here. This latter type of corpus use creates a completely new kind of electronic dictionary. This article addresses the questions as to what extent these dictionaries differ from lexicographic tradition and whether they must be considered in metalexicography. Starting from previously compiled electronic dictionary typologies, we try to supplement the formulation of lexicographic data as a distinguishing feature. Finally, based on the findings of the project elexiko (Institute for the German Language - IDS), we demonstrate that the distinction between electronic versus man-made lexicographic data is also relevant to lexicographical practice.
In usage-based Construction Grammar, grammatical structure is assumed to ‘sedimenl’ from concrete linguistic experience as an automatic by-product o f repeated similar categorisation judgments (a process known as schematisation). At the same time, there is functional pressure on prospective inputs to such schematisations to retain or develop specialised properties that differentiate them from their near neighbours, i.e. other stored units in the constructicon (Goldberg: 1995). Moreover, Speakers are not assumed to necessarily extract all possible generalisations from their input. Using the example o f a group of German support verb constructions, the present study outlines a corpus-linguistic approach to identifying those Schemas that really seem to be formed by Speakers, and how they can be kept apart from mere potential generalisations.
Using different constructions with the German item vcrstchcn (engl. understand), the current study addresses the relationship between lexical and constructional meaning. Construction grammar and cognitive grammar reject the theoretical distinction between (a semantic) lexicon and (a formal) syntax (e.g., Langacker: 2000). Instead, they take constructions to be the units of linguistic competence. It is claimed that constructions consist of form-meaning-pairings (e.g. Goldberg: 1995; Croft: 2001). From this view, it follows that formal variation should result in functional variation. Lexical items should therefore acquire different meanings depending on the constructions in which they occur. To test this claim, 300 instances of uses of the German lexical item verstehen in talk-in-interaction were inspected for the local meanings verstehen acquires in each case. The article compares the semantics of verstehen in two different constructions: The discourse marker verstehst du? (engl. do you understand?) and the negative construction [NP] nicht verstehen [COMP], The data show a poly- semic spectrum of meanings of verstehen, which is similar for both constructions. The precise local meaning of verstehen in most cases depends on pragmatic and discursive factors and is not provided for by the constructions themselves. There are, however, subtypes of the two constructions that satisfy the condition of being a form-meaning-pair. As a conclusion, some prospects for the conceptualization of different sources of meaning within a construction grammar approach are suggested.
In English and French relational adjectives occurring in construction with deverbal nominalizations can be thematically associated with subject as well as object arguments. By contrast, in German object-related readings of relational adjectives seem to be inadmissible. The greater flexibility of English and French in terms of the thematic interpretability of relational adjectives also shows up with respect to "circumstantial" thematic roles like directionals, locatives and instrumentals. It is arguably due to the common Latin heritage of English and French, since in Latin relational adjectives representing subject or object arguments of nominalizations are widely attested. However, even in English and French object-related readings are confined to result nominalizations, a restriction we suggest to account for in terms of the more "noun-like" character of result nominalizations in contrast to process nominalizations. Moreover, since argument-related interpretations of relational adjectives can always be overridden by appropriate agentive/ patientive phrases, relational adjectives cannot be analyzed as occupying an argument position, but rather as modifying the semantic role associated with it.