Linguistische Berichte - Sonderhefte
Hamburg: Buske
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33
We argue that properties with a nominal origin get transferred regularly in certain Gentian particle verb constructions to properties that are propositional insofar as they characterize the temporal structure of eventualities, understood to be described by propositional (= truth-assessable) representations of state changes. Accordingly, the oft-noted perfectivizing function of certain verbal particles like ein- in einfahren ('pull in', cf. Kühnhold 1972) is the effect of redressing a conflict at the syntax-semantics interface: On the one hand, constructions like in [die Grube]acc einfahren ('pull into the mine’) exhibit transitive syntax (Gehrke 2008), requiring that the syntactic arguments be mapped onto well-distinguished or DIFFERENT referents in the semantics (Kemmer 1993). On the other hand, in/ein codes a spatio-temporal inclusion relation between its relata, contradicting the requirement imposed by the transitive syntax. Following Brandt (2019), we submit that the interface executes a manoeuvre that delays the interpretation of part of the contradiction-inducing DIFFERENCE feature. It is not locally interpreted (semantically represented) in toto but in part passed on to the next syntactic-semantic computational cycle. Here, the passed-on meaning is interpreted in the locally customary terms, in the case at hand, as a temporal index where the post-state of the depicted eventuality does not hold.
21
The present investigation targets the phenomenon commonly called control. Many languages including German and Polish employ non-finite clauses (besides finite clauses) as propositional complements. The subject of these complement clauses is left unexpressed and must generally be interpreted co-referentially with the subject or object of the matrix clause (subject or object control). However. there are also infinitive-selecting verbs that do not allow for a co- referential interpretation of the embedded subject - semantically, the embedded infinitives of these anti-control verbs are thus less dependent on or less unifiable with the matrix proposition. In Polish anti-control constructions, non-finite complements are overtly marked with the complementizer zeby, suggesting that they are structurally more complex (namely. containing a C-projection) than the non-finite complements in control constructions lacking zeby (modulo special contexts. viz. 'control switch'). In a comparative perspective, the paper brings corpuslinguistic and experimental evidence to bear on the question whether surface appearances notwithstanding, the infinitival complements of anti-control verbs in German should similarly be analyzed as truly sentential, i.e., C-headed structures.