Reconstruction of Separable Particle Verbs in a Corpus of Spoken German

We present a method for detecting and reconstructing separated particle verbs in a corpus of spoken German by following an approach suggested for written language. Our study shows that the method can be applied successfully to spoken language, compares different ways of dealing with structures that are specific to spoken language corpora, analyses some remaining problems, and discusses ways of optimising precision or recall for the method. The outlook sketches some possibilities for further work in related areas

The diachrony of complex predicates in Dutch: a case study in grammaticalization

This paper investigates the grammaticalization of words into prefixes, via the intermediate stage of separable particles. Particle-verb combinations are analysed as constructional idioms, whereas prefixed verbs are analysed as words. We hypothesize that semantic change triggers the structural change of particles becoming inseparable prefixes. In this way, syntax reflects semantics: the loss of independent semantic content, accompanied by other specific semantic developments, triggers the loss of syntactic independence. Data from Middle and Modern Dutch are discussed to illustrate the validity of the hypothesis and to show that semantic changes indeed precede syntactic changes in the development of particles into prefixes

Clausal Coordinate Ellipsis in German: The TIGER Treebank as a Source of Evidence

Proceedings of the 16th Nordic Conference of Computational Linguistics NODALIDA-2007. Editors: Joakim Nivre, Heiki-Jaan Kaalep, Kadri Muischnek and Mare Koit. University of Tartu, Tartu, 2007. ISBN 978-9985-4-0513-0 (online) ISBN 978-9985-4-0514-7 (CD-ROM) pp. 81-88

The overabundance of the perfect and the restriction of evidentiality in Standard Azerbaijani: A diachronic study of -(y)Ib and -mIş

This article investigates the historical development and reorganization of variation in the individual cells of the Standard Azerbaijani perfect paradigms, a phenomenon known as overabundance (Thornton 2011, 2012). Unlike many previous examples of overabundance in the literature, the variation of the present perfect in Standard Azerbaijani applies to all the relevant verb lexemes in the language and shows no indication of developing verb classes. Rather, the present study argues that, (i) while there is an ongoing reorganization of this variation, it is along lines of specialization for paradigmatic oppositions in person marking, and (ii) this reorganization is attributable to analogical extension on the basis of structural asymmetries in the person-marking of the evidential paradigm. Differentiation by Person (Dmitriyev 1927, Əfəndiyeva 2005) is an inherent structural property of the Azerbaijani verb paradigm, manifested by analogical change. The synchronic asymmetries in the perfect paradigms are best explained as the result frequency-sensitive changes, i.e., lower frequency categories (but not lexemes) correlate with the persistence of variation

Reconstructing word order in Proto-Germanic: A comparative Branching Direction Theory (BDT) analysis of Old Saxon

286 p.Tesi honen helburua germaniar hizkuntza guztiek amankomunean daukaten arbasoaren hitzordenaberreraikitzea da. Horretarako orain arte egin diren saiakerekin zerikusia duen eta aldiberean berritzailea den hurbilpena egiten du autoreak: Adarkatze Norabide Teorian (BranchingDirection Theory) (Dryer, 1992) oinarritutako ikerketa da. Teoria hau hitz-ordenaren unibertsaltipologikoen inguruan egindako ikerketaren ondorioa da. Gainera, erabiltzen diren datuetatikasko oso gutxi aztertutako germaniar hizkuntza batetik atereak dira, sajoiera zaharretik, hainzuzen ere. Emaitzek orain arteko ikerketaren aurkikuntzak hobetzen dituzte