Diskurspragmatische Faktoren für Topikalität und Verbstellung in der ahd. Tatianübersetzung (9. Jh.)

The paper presents work in progress on the interaction between information structure and word order in Old High German based on data from the Tatian translation (9th century). The examination of the position of the finite verb in correspondence with the pragmatic status of discourse referents reveals an overall tendency for verb-initial order in thetic/all-focus sentences, whereas in categorical / topic-comment sentences verb-second placement with an initial topic constituent is preferred. This conclusion provides support for the hypothesis stated in Donhauser & Hinterhölzl (2003) that the finite verb form in Early Germanic serves to distinguish the information-structural domains of Topic and Focus. Finally, the investigation sheds light on the process of language change that led to the overall spread of verb-second in main clauses of modern German

Überzeugungs- und Überredungsmittel in mündlichen Aufforderungsakten im deutsch-italienischen Sprachvergleich

The purpose of this study is to draw a comparison between the realization of requestive speech acts in Italian and in German, and to investigate the different strategies of persuasion in the two speech communities, with a particular attention to the relationship between efficiency and politeness. The empirical part of the study consists in the comparison of 320 requests formulated by Italian and German speakers. Linguistic data were elicited by means of a discourse completion test containing four socio-pragmatic situations. Realizations of requests were analysed according to the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project’s (CCSARP) Coding Manual, reported in Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989), and discussed at two levels: the cross cultural variation and the situational variation. Results show that both groups of participants are perfectly aware of the differences between the situations proposed and tailor their requests according to the context. It is found that both groups of subjects rely heavily on conventionally indirect strategies. On the whole, German speakers appear to use more indirect request strategies than their Italian counterparts, and at the same time choose with a higher frequency phrasal, lexical and syntactical modificators. Italian speakers tend to select slightly lower levels of indirectness but compensate with a consistently larger use of external modificators. Moreover, both Italian and German speakers seem to recur more often to strategies of Überzeugung, probably because the most used modificator for both groups of respondents is the Grounder. Our results differ in interesting ways from general expectations in the situation in which the face threat is arguably the highest, calling for further investigation of the difference in the perception of the social parameters determining the rated face threat between the two speech communities. Deeper insights into the link between indirectness and politeness in the two cultures at issue are also needed in order to understand the reasons behind the pragmatic choices observed

Subjects, Topics, and Anchoring to the Context

The article discusses the connection between the syntactic and semantic properties of weak, strong, and referential DP subjects. In particular, I argue that nominal expressions possess a situation argument and that their interpretation and their distribution follow from the presuppositional requirements that the determiner imposes on the individual argument and situation argument of its complement nominal. These presuppositional requirements, I then argue, are embodied by local relations of the subject to a distinct head in the C domain, Fin(0) in the system of Rizzi 1997, where specific referential values of discourse antecedents are accessible

On the variable nature of head final effects in German and English

The paper investigates head final effects (HF-effects) in German and English and argues that the syntactic configuration that underlies them gives rise to three different types of violations in the interfaces. It is shown that HF-effects are either morphological or prosodic in nature. A diagnostics – morphological versus syntactic displacement – is established that allows to connect HF-effects to their relevant interface conditions. The prosodic conditions on word order are then argued to be twofold: they involve a condition on heavy constituents, on the one hand, and a condition on the mapping of syntactic constituents onto prosodic constituents respecting the Strict Layer Hypothesis, on the other hand. Finally, I argue that a pure syntactic condition, like the Final-over-Final Constraint proposed by Biberauer, Holmberg and Roberts (2007, 2014, to appear) is inedaquate to account for the variable nature of HF-effects

Für | For Manfred from his Students

Dieses Buch enthält Beiträge von Personen, die ihre Magister- oder Doktorarbeit unter der Betreuung von Manfred Krifka geschrieben haben. Es ist als kleines Abschiedsgeschenk für Manfred Krifka zum Ende seiner Amtszeit als Direktor des Leibniz-Zentrums für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft gedacht. Die Herausgeberin und der Herausgeber haben Beiträge zu sprachwissenschaftlichen und nicht-sprachwissenschaftlichen Themen in einer Vielzahl von Genres gesammelt. Diese Vielfalt spiegelt die Interessen und Forschungsthemen von Manfred Krifka wider. Sie spiegelt auch die Vielfalt der Menschen wider, denen Manfred Krifka geholfen hat

Strategies and drivers for investing - a study among young retail investors

The recent inflow of retail investors to financial markets has raised questions about the investment behavior of young investors. This paper, “Strategies and Drivers for Investing –A Study among Young Retail Investors” investigates potential differences between the generations Y and Z in regards to their investment strategies and drivers. Results indicate that Generation Zinvests as a means of entertainment, uses more reliable information sources and is less concerned about ESG than their older counter parts. While there is no significant difference concerning the two groups’ risk preferences, investment experience plays a significant role in explaining investment behavior