The syntax of existential sentences in Serbian

Freeze (1992) argued on the basis of data from several different languages that there is a close relationship between existential sentences (stating the existence of an entity) and locative sentences (stating the location of an entity). Freeze (1992) proposes that they are both derived from the same base structure and that the surface differences are rather due to the distinct information structures.This paper argues against this position with the data from Serbian existentials, which show clear syntactic differences from the locatives. Thus, the close relationship between existential and locative sentences that Freeze (1992) observes is conceptual, but not (necessarily) part of the syntax of the language. In order to account for the data, we propose that existential sentences originate from a different syntactic predication structure than the locative ones. The existential meaning arises, as we will show, from the interaction of this predication structure with the structure and meaning of the noun phrase

Transformatorische Denkbewegungen – Weiterentwicklung von Sozialisationstheorien im Anschluss an Judith Butlers diskurstheoretisches Verständnis von Geschlecht

Die Autorin verfolgt im Blick auf den Wandel erziehungswissenschaftlicher Debatten zu Sozialisation die Frage, welchen Beitrag die Perspektive Judith Butlers zum Thema Sozialisation und Geschlecht leisten könnte und wo Anschlüsse zwischen den von Butler inspirierten Studien und der Diskussion über Sozialisation in der Geschlechterforschung bestehen. Die Autorin zeigt, dass poststrukturalistische Perspektiven weniger antagonistisch zum Sozialisationsparadigma stehen als häufig angenommen. Insofern plädiert Hartmann für eine in Anschluss an Butler neu orientierte Sozialisationstheorie. (DIPF/Orig.

Restrictions on "low" person agreement in Dutch specificational copular constructions

Agreement between the verb and its arguments as a predominant phenomenon in language has received major attention in the theoretical literature. One specific aspect under discussion concerns differences between number and person agreement, with the latter being the more restricted one (restricted by Baker’s 2008 SCOPA, by variants of the Person Licensing Condition of Béjar & Rezac 2003, or by multiple agreement see Schütze 2003; Ackema & Neeleman 2018). In this paper we address the restrictions on person agreement with a nominative noun phrase in a low position by investigating a relatively little-discussed configuration, namely specificational copular constructions in Dutch such as dat de inspiratie voor deze roman niet jij %bent / ??is. We provide data from both a production and a rating study comparing 3/2 person agreement and show that what initially looks like a “person effect” in Dutch turns out to be a pronoun effect

Betriebliche Verrentungspraktiken zwischen arbeitsmarkt- und rentenpolitischen Interessen (The retirement practices of firms caught between labour market and retirement policy interests)

"The particularly large decrease in the labour force participation of older workers since the mid-70s in the Federal Republic of Germany is primarily due to institutional policy factors. To contract the current problems of mass unemployment, legislators demanded policies for reducing the overall economic supply of labour. Regulations for 'externalising', i.e. shedding older workers through laws such as the 'Retirement Pensions for the Unemployed' or the 'Law on Early Retirement played an essential role here. However, the cost burdens on the statutory pension schemes resulting from these early retirement policies and the expected demographic development have more recently led legislators to enact measures in the opposite direction, in other words, to extend working life. The 'Pension Reform Act of 1992', including amongst other things a new regulation of the additional earnings limit through the introduction of partial pensions, has led to a competitive situation in the legal regulations, which is geared either to labour market policy needs or to retirement policy standpoints. This paper studies how the existing retirement schemes can be used at the micro-level by individual firms. The most important results from the social sciences literature were first compiled. Then the results from two of our own exploratory surveys on the staff reduction policies and the employment policies of insurance firms were included. The studies show that older workers are being shed early on a large scale by the firms - irregardless of the situation of individual firms, their specific sector or the qualification structure of their workforce. An extension of working life, on the other hand, plays no role at the moment. Acommon basis is found in the shedding of older employees both from the point of view of the firm as well as of the employee: The point of staff reduction for employers is to create a 'younger' workforce. Anumber of the older employees is happy to leave the firms 'treadmill', others succumb to social pressure from their younger colleagues and the members of the works' council to accept the alternative status of the financially very secure 'early pensioner' and hence contribute to the preservation of jobs for younger colleagues. The partial pension as a means of extending working life has played no role up to now in the insurance firms studied, because it is financially unattractive and the requirements for claiming it are too high. Instead, the workforce is 'relieved' through early retirement by a financially much more attractively structured early retirement agreement. The firm's management is in favour of retiring older workers early in order to improve their qualification structure by hiring younger workers. Who will suffer most from these policies of shedding workers cannot be calculated by the desicion- makers in the firms. They use the existing legal instruments for the needs of their res-pective firms, which are not (yet) directed toward preserving the labour force potential. As a consequence, measures for prolonging working life are not likely to be applied in firms, as long as employment policy pressures can yield to management policies of shedding workers, because financially more attractively structured instruments are available from the legislators (through the Employment Promotion Act) or from management and labour representatives (through early retirement agreements)." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))ältere Arbeitnehmer, Berufsausstieg, Vorruhestand, gleitender Ruhestand, Rentenpolitik, Personalabbau, Teilrente, Arbeitsmarktpolitik

Gravitationally bound monopoles

We construct monopole solutions in SU(2) Einstein-Yang-Mills-Higgs theory, carrying magnetic charge n. For vanishing and small Higgs selfcoupling, these multimonopole solutions are gravitationally bound. Their mass per unit charge is lower than the mass of the n=1 monopole. For large Higgs selfcoupling only a repulsive phase exists.Comment: 8 pages, 4 Postscript figures,section on black holes adde

Perspektiven queerer Bildungsarbeit

This article departs from the outing of professional football player Thomas Hitzlesperger in 2014 – an event that was widely embraced by the media that attempted to celebrate diversity when in fact it reassured heteronormativity. I argue for a queer understanding of life and living and the necessity to deconstruct the current scheme of unquestioned normativity (that works in the dichotomy of self and other). While I see education as the key tool in that process, I also recognize that little material is available to educators to sensitively approach queer issues. Here I share my “pedagogy of diverse ways of living” (Pädagogik vielfältiger Lebensweisen), some of the material I use and the guidelines I developed. I argue for a productive deconstruction of current naturalized and essentialized identities in a continuous awareness of the traps that any form of deconstruction employs