Sprachvariation in Online-Minderheitenzeitungen. Am Beispiel der „Deutschen Allgemeinen Zeitung“ in Kasachstan

This article discusses the online edition of the “Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung” (DAZ, German General Newspaper), an exceptional media product in Kazakhstan. This medium was chosen mainly for its very complex linguistic and cultural configuration. The linguistic forms are German, while the discourse and text traditions suggest a Russian influence due to the long hegemony of Russian as the language of culture and education in Kazakhstan. Additionally, the current sociocultural frame of reference is of genuine Kazakh origin.The central aim of this evidence-based media linguistic analysis was to describe the unique features in the language of this online medium, i.e. the multilingual aspects of language variation and aspects related to language and cultural contact.The methodology is based on a linguistic concept of saliency and used interrater reliability in the linguistic assessment. The study showed that the online version and the print version differ not only on a technical level, but also in their journalistic and linguistic design. The digital version is marked by livelier, more idiomatic, and more colorful texts than the print version. These differences can likely not just be attributed to the greater range of options provided by the new medium, but possibly also to the larger share of contributions by authors from Germany in the online version compared to the print version. In the written practices examined in this article it could be shown that authors from Kazakhstan generally used ‘multiliteracy’ form that also generated emergent forms

Intensivierer und epistemische Adverbiale – Zur Geschichte von echt

Adverbials of truth or reality such as really (en.), wirklich (de.), verdaderamente (sp.) are cross-linguistically assumed to be a rich source for intensifiers (degree words) as in: (i) Peter is really nice. The epistemic adverbial is reanalysed as a modifier of a predicative adjective in a syntactically ambiguous sentence as in (i). At the same time the emphasis on the truth of the proposition invites the inference that the property in question is amply present. This view on the emergence of intensifiers from adverbials of truth is challenged by the German intensifier echt ‘really, lit. genuine/real’ as in: (ii) Peter ist echt nett ‘Peter is really nice’. In contemporary German echt is very popular as an intensifier, a proposition modifier, a speech-act modifier and a response particle. However, a diachronic analysis of the use of echt as an adverbial in New High German reveals that the intensifier reading develops much earlier than the reading as a proposition modifier, i.e. an epistemic adverbial. The article offers a discussion of the development of echt which sheds a somewhat different light on the relation between intensifiers and epistemic adverbials, and it suggests a unified analysis of the uses of echt in contemporary German which supports Traugott’s view of grammaticalisation as also encompassing an extension of structural scope

Looking for the Articloid: Ille and ipse in the Itinerarium Egeriae

This paper examines the status of the Latin demonstrative ille and the intensifier ipse, which are the sources of definite articles in modern Romance languages. My analysis is based on the text of the Itinerarium Egeriae from the end of the fourth century AD. Using the approach of cognitive linguistics, I suggest how the articloid could be defined and how it could be distinguished semantically from its source element. I argue that both ille and ipse are used as articloids in the text. However, the original demonstrative meaning of ille and the original intensifying meaning of ipse are also attested, and in certain cases; though redundant, their use can be caused by the specific stylistics of the text. Furthermore, ipse has developed an additional meaning that establishes identity through similarity, and which might have led the path to its further grammaticalization. Therefore, both ille and ipse have a spectrum of interrelated meanings that range from those attested in Classical Latin to grammatical usage as articloids. However, as definiteness markers, their usage is not extended into contexts reserved for definite articles in languages with fully grammaticalized definiteness markers and hence its use as an articloid in the Latin of the fourth century AD could have been typologically equivalent to that of the articloid in the Baltic languages

Le verbe français tomber : sa plurivocité sémantique et ses équivalents en polonais et en lituanien. Étude basée sur le corpus parallèle français-polonais-lituanien

The analysis presented in this article is based on the trilingual parallel corpus CTLFR-PL-LT, composed of original French literary texts and their translations into Polish and Lithuanian. The undeniable usefulness of parallel corpora for studies in contrastive linguistics has already been established (Teubert 1996; Kraif 2011; Altenberg and Granger 2002 et al.). The corpora offer rich and reliable data, they [...] “allow us to see meaning through translation” (Johansson 2007, 57).The purpose of this study is twofold: we first aim to analyse the semantic plurivocity of the French verb tomber ‘to fall’ in literary texts. Secondly, we propose to examine the heterogeneity of the equivalents of tomber ‘to fall’ in Polish and Lithuanian, which will allow us to specify which strategies (verbal or other) are used to translate the meanings of the chosen verb. We also check whether the selected verbs in the Lithuanian and Polish translations express the same meaning element of tomber ‘to fall’. It will be particularly interesting to be able to observe whether strategies adopted by translators are specific to each of the target languages, genetically different, or common to both. Thus, we hope to contribute to contrastive French-Polish-Lithuanian research, which has so far been quite scare.L’analyse présentée dans cet article se base sur le corpus parallèle trilingue CTLFR-PL-LT composé de textes littéraires originaux français datant du milieu du XXème siècle jusqu’au début du XXIème siècle et de leurs traductions en polonais et en lituanien. L’utilité indéniable des corpus parallèles pour des études de linguistique contrastive a déjà été maintes fois prouvée (Teubert 1996 ; Kraif 2011 ; Altenberg et Granger 2002 et al.). Les corpus en question proposent des données riches et fiables, ils [...] « permettent de voir le sens à travers la traduction » (Johansson 2007, 57).Le but de la présente étude est double : nous visons tout d’abord à analyser la plurivocité sémantique du verbe français tomber dans les textes littéraires français. Dans un deuxième temps, nous nous proposons d’examiner l’hétérogénéité des équivalents de tomber en polonais et en lituanien, ce qui nous permettra de préciser quelles stratégies (verbales ou autres) sont utilisées pour traduire les valeurs du verbe choisi. Nous envisageons aussi de vérifier si les verbes sélectionnés dans la traduction en lituanien et en polonais expriment le même élément de sens que tomber. Il sera notamment intéressant de pouvoir constater si certaines stratégies, adoptées par les traducteurs, sont propres à chacune des langues cibles, génétiquement différentes, ou communes pour les deux. Ainsi, nous espérons contribuer aux recherches contrastives françaises – polonaises – lituaniennes très peu menées jusqu’à aujourd’hui

Verbal modifiers in areal perspective: The case of Latvian Romani

Based on the analysis of the texts collected in the 1930s in Latvia and Estonia, this paper provides a description of the semantics of the verbal modifiers, i.e., prefixes (preverbs) and particles, in Latvian Romani. The system of verbal modifiers in Latvian Romani is an innovation evolved under Slavic and Baltic influence. Most preverbs are instances of MAT-borrowing from Slavic and Baltic, whereas verb particles are a PATborrowing, modelled after the Latvian system. The paper argues that even preverbs of Slavic origin often copy the semantics and derivational patterns of Latvian prefixed verbs. It is also shown that, differently from Latvian, in Romani both preverbs and verb particles can affect the verb’s argument structure (e.g., by making it transitive) and change its aspectual value (e.g., by making it perfective). Finally, the distribution of verbal modifiers in Latvian Romani (the development of verb particles as opposed to other closely related Northeastern Romani dialects which only have prefixes, and higher frequency of verb particles in Estonia than in Latvia) confirms the areal cline in the spread of verb particles

L’adjectif: une partie du discours éminemment syncatégorématique

In this article we propose an alternative to the theories which subdivide the adjective into three major types (qualifier, relational, adjective of the third type), themselves subdivided into several subclasses. We believe instead that there is only one adjectival lexeme with different uses (unitary hypothesis). To do this, we start from the two ways of looking for the adjectival prototype: on the one hand, the abstract prototype built by accumulating criteria, on the other, the semantic prototype. We examine the behavior of occurrences of the abstract prototype (admirable, monumental) and the semantic prototype (grand) with respect to gradation, the attributive function (more specifically the place of the adjective) and the predicative function. The examples show not only that the two prototype models can be reconciled, but above all that the behavior and the meaning of any adjective depend in large part on the noun it qualifies, a result which confirms our unitary hypothesis. The syntactic-semantic dependence of the adjective on the supporting substantive is such that it can be concluded that the adjective is a syncategorematic part of speech, rather than a polysemous one.Dans cet article nous proposons une alternative aux théories qui subdivisent l’adjectif en trois types majeurs (qualificatif, relationnel, du troisième type), eux-mêmes subdivisés en plusieurs sous-classes. Nous estimons en effet qu’il n’y a qu’un seul lexème adjectival avec différents emplois (hypothèse unitaire). Pour ce faire, nous partons des deux façons de rechercher le prototype adjectival : d’un côté, le prototype abstrait construit par accumulation de critères, de l’autre, le prototype sémantique. Nous examinons le comportement d’occurrences du prototype abstrait (admirable, monumental) et du prototype sémantique (grand) pour ce qui concerne la gradation, la fonction épithète (plus particulièrement la place de l’adjectif) et la fonction attribut. Les exemples montrent non seulement que les deux modèles de prototype peuvent se concilier, mais surtout que le comportement et le sens de tout adjectif dépend pour une très grande partie du substantif qu’il qualifie, résultat qui confirme notre hypothèse unitaire. La dépendance syntactico-sémantique de l’adjectif par rapport au substantif support est telle que l’on peut en conclure que l’adjectif est une partie du discours syncatégorématique, plutôt que polysémique

La multifonctionnalité des constructions françaises avec le verbe finir : étude basée sur un corpus français-lituanien

Based on the Corpus parallèle de Textes Littéraires (CTLFR-LT), consisting of French fiction texts and their translations into Lithuanian, the present article aims toshow the functional versatility of the French verb finir ‘to finish’. The paper focuses on the following particular constructions:S((in)anim) + finir + (GN);S((in)anim) + (en) finir de + V(inf);S ((in)anim) + finir par + V(inf);pour finir.While retaining its literal meaning, the verb finir ‘to finish’ exhibits a great range of modally marked uses. These uses, considered peripheral in the majority of French monolingual and bilingual grammars or dictionaries, nevertheless appear to be statistically very significant in the present dataset. The study shows that the verb finir ‘to finish’ can be used as a component of various constructions in which it loses its core lexical meaning and functions as an adverbial or discourse connector. The analysis of the data of the corpus Corpus parallèle de Textes Littéraires merely confirms the fact that the constructions under consideration can have a two-fold reading: the adverbial function of time and the function of a sentence adverbial.Ayant pour base le Corpus parallèle de Textes Littéraires (CTLFR-LT), composé des documents littéraires français et de leurs traductions vers le lituanien, le présent article vise à confirmer que le verbe français finir, faisant partie de différentes constructions morphosyntaxiques, peut véhiculer une grande plurivocité de sens. Tout en conservant sa signification basique de la fin, le verbe finir transmet un grand faisceau d’autres valeurs. Ces dernières, dans les grammaires ou les dictionnaires français monolingues ou bilingues, considérées comme périphériques, apparaissent pourtant statistiquement très significatives dans ces grandes données électroniques que sont lesdits corpus. Le verbe finir en tant que composante des constructions perd sa valeur nucléaire et les constructions s’apparentent alors beaucoup à des constructions adverbiales ou connecteurs discursifs. Dans la présente contribution l’attention sera portée sur les constructions suivantes: S((in)anim) + finir + (GN) ;S((in)anim) + (en) finir de + V(inf) ;S((in)anim) + finir par + V(inf) ;Pour fini

Les dictionnaires face à un conflit de nomination. Analyse des modélisations sémantiques du paradigme intégration, insertion, assimilation, inclusion, acculturation, incorporation dans deux dictionnaires généralistes de langue française

This article aims to conduct a metalexicographical micro-analysis of a paradigm of French lexemes whose uses have raised socio-political issues for several decades: integration, insertion, assimilation, inclusion, even acculturation and incorporation. While many recent publications bring these terms into play as sociological concepts, or study their uses in political discourse, work on the semantic functioning and uses of these lexemes in other discourses is rarer. However, the recurrent nomination conflict that runs through French public policies on immigration shows that the stakes of these usages remain salient. Do French dictionaries make it possible to grasp the ideological issues raised by the competing uses of lexemes? How do they treat and model the abundance of uses of these lexemes? How are paradigmatic competitors related: opposition, contrast, synonymy, hyperonymy, co-hyponymy? What are the salient semantic features retained in the given definitions?The corpus selected for this study is composed of extracts from two generalist French-language dictionaries, the Petit Robert de la langue française and the Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé. I analyse the production of meaning at work by using a grid with four entries. First, I model and analyze the semantic relations established between the terms of the paradigm, relations which structure the paradigm. I then try to identify the semantic features which are similar or different between the lexemes, thus revealing another type of structure in the micro-system. Last, I work on the collocations and the agentive configurations implemented in the definitions and examples composing each article.All these analyses highlight a defining circularity that hinders a contrastive grasp of the lexemes, in a context where important social and political issues are at stake