The Syntax–Pragmatics Interface in Heritage Languages: The Use of anche (“Also”) in German Heritage Speakers of Italian

This paper deals with the use of anche (“also”) by German heritage speakers of Italian (“IHSs”). Previous research showed that anche and its German counterpart auch share many features but also display language-specific characteristics. According to previous research on bilingualism, heritage speakers show cross-linguistic influence (“CLI”) when a linguistic phenomenon is at the syntax–pragmatics interface and there is a partial overlap in the two languages at stake. Therefore, we expect the use of anche in IHSs to be influenced by CLI. By analysing data from a semi-spontaneous corpus, we investigate the production of anche in order to understand which factors shape the grammar of the IHSs. Our results indicate that a subset of IHSs uses anche in the same way as in homeland Italian. The other informants display CLI effects of different types: on the one hand, they have two positions in the clausal structure for anche dedicated to different syntactic–pragmatic contexts, as in German, and they overextend the use of anche as a modal particle. On the other hand, the intonational properties of anche are not affected by CLI

Die Verwendung von "ganz" bei der Thematisierung von Emotionen im Korpus "Emigrantendeutsch in Israel: Wiener in Jerusalem"

The corpus Emigrantendeutsch in Israel: Wiener in Jerusalem includes interviews with so called “Jeckes”, Jewish women and man who were born and grew up in Vienna and left Austria to Mandate Palestine after the Anschluss, mostly without parents.  The interviews cover the biographies of the speakers before, during and after emigration, their childhood and youth in Austria, their anti-Semitic experiences, their emigration experiences, their new beginning and their cultural reorientation. During the interviews participants mainly elaborate on emotions from the past. They sometimes explicitly address them by naming and describing them in the narrative, sometimes they are implicit and can also be detected through paralinguistic features. The present study complements the previous analysis of the emotion vocabulary with findings on a new topic, intensifiers, which has so far received little attention in research. In particular, we will carry out a corpus-based analysis of the intensifier ganz. Focusing on different language levels (mainly semantics, syntax, prosody and other paraverbal features) we will investigate its role in the description and expression of emotions.The corpus Emigrantendeutsch in Israel: Wiener in Jerusalem includes interviews with so called “Jeckes”, Jewish women and man who were born and grew up in Vienna and left Austria to Mandate Palestine after the Anschluss, mostly without parents. The interviews cover the biographies of the speakers before, during and after emigration, their childhood and youth in Austria, their anti-Semitic experiences, their emigration experiences, their new beginning and their cultural reorientation. During the interviews participants mainly elaborate on emotions from the past. They sometimes explicitly address them by naming and describing them in the narrative, sometimes they are implicit and can also be detected through paralinguistic features. The present study complements the previous analysis of the emotion vocabulary with findings on a new topic, intensifiers, which has so far received little attention in research. In particular, we will carry out a corpus-based analysis of the intensifier ganz. Focusing on different language levels (mainly semantics, syntax, prosody and other paraverbal features) we will investigate its role in the description and expression of emotions.The corpus Emigrantendeutsch in Israel: Wiener in Jerusalem includes interviews with so called “Jeckes”, Jewish women and man who were born and grew up in Vienna and left Austria to Mandate Palestine after the Anschluss, mostly without parents. The interviews cover the biographies of the speakers before, during and after emigration, their childhood and youth in Austria, their anti-Semitic experiences, their emigration experiences, their new beginning and their cultural reorientation. During the interviews participants mainly elaborate on emotions from the past. They sometimes explicitly address them by naming and describing them in the narrative, sometimes they are implicit and can also be detected through paralinguistic features. The present study complements the previous analysis of the emotion vocabulary with findings on a new topic, intensifiers, which has so far received little attention in research. In particular, we will carry out a corpus-based analysis of the intensifier ganz. Focusing on different language levels (mainly semantics, syntax, prosody and other paraverbal features) we will investigate its role in the description and expression of emotions

Deutsches auch und italienisches anche im Vergleich: Gemeinsame Funktion und sprachspezifischer Gebrauch

The focus of our contribution is the German particle auch ‘also’ and its Italian counterpart anche. From a semantic point of view, auch and anche convey the same additive meaning in both languages: through them an element, called ‘domain of association’, is added to a list of further elements for which the auch/anche phrase applies. From a syntactical point of view, auch and anche can occupy different positions in the sentence by modifying the type and the scope of the domain of association. This results in four basic usage patterns which are similar in both languages and correspond to just as many functions of auch/anche: (i) additivity, (ii) sentence connection, (iii) focus domain, and (iv) modality. Despite these common functions, auch and anche interact with the syntax and the information structure of the sentence in German and in Italian differently. Furthermore, they are used in conversation contexts, which are distinctive in both languages. By starting from the current description of auch and anche in the literature, the first aim of our contribution is to provide evidence for the above-mentioned four basic functions despite their language-specific usage contexts. As a second aim, we want to validate our systematization through the analysis of spoken data for German and Italian, explaining why some functions are more likely to be found in the former than in the latter

Topiks im Deutschen und Italienischen: Der linke Rand des deutschen Mittelfeldes und die italienische linke Satzperipherie im Vergleich

The aim of this paper is i) to investigate the distribution of different topic types in the highest portion (found above valutative adverbs such as glücklicherweise and leider, Cinque 1999) of the German Mittelfeld, i. e. the clause portion found between the finite and non-finite verb forms (Satzklammer), and ii) to compare it with the distribution of topics within the Italian left periphery, i. e. the area found above the finite verb where operators, focalised and topicalised constructions are hosted (Rizzi 1997; Benincà 1988, 2001). Based on a corpus of written and oral German data collected through the DeReKO and the FOLK Databases, we show that in German i) in both written and oral examples a single topic belonging to all topic classes can appear in the highest portion of the Mittelfeld (as proposed by Frascarelli/Hinterhölzl 2007), ii) and that multiple topics are restricted to written texts and appear with the fixed order “Aboutness Topic > Familiar Topic; Aboutness Topic > Contrast Topic”. We compare the distribution of topics above valutative adverbs in German with the distribution of topics in the Italian left periphery. We show that the two languages share the fact that multiple topics are possible, with the difference that i) three topics can appear in the Italian left periphery in the order Aboutness Topic > Contrast Topic > Familiar Topic whereas only sequences of two topics are attested in German; ii) the sentence-initial position functions as an “extra” position for topics in German but not in Italian due to the V2 nature of the former language; iii) the presence of multiple topics in the left periphery is restricted to oral or informal texts in Italian and it is a typical trait of colloquial/informal language, whereas the availability of multiple topics in the German Mittefeld is restricted to written/formal texts and can thus be seen as a written/formal trait

Digitale Lehr-, Lern- und Forschungsressourcen für die deutsche Sprache: Theorie und Empirie

Dieser Band ist den digitalen Offline- und Online-Ressourcen für das Lehren, Lernen und Forschen im Bereich der deutschen Sprache und der deutschen Sprachwissenschaft gewidmet. Er richtet sich in erster Linie an Sprachwissenschaftler und an Universitätsdozenten, aber auch an alle potenziellen Wissenschaftler und Nutzer, die sich für die deutsche Sprache und die deutsche Sprachwissenschaft interessieren und von den hier präsentierten digitalen Ressourcen profitieren können

Acute Delta Hepatitis in Italy spanning three decades (1991–2019): Evidence for the effectiveness of the hepatitis B vaccination campaign

Updated incidence data of acute Delta virus hepatitis (HDV) are lacking worldwide. Our aim was to evaluate incidence of and risk factors for acute HDV in Italy after the introduction of the compulsory vaccination against hepatitis B virus (HBV) in 1991. Data were obtained from the National Surveillance System of acute viral hepatitis (SEIEVA). Independent predictors of HDV were assessed by logistic-regression analysis. The incidence of acute HDV per 1-million population declined from 3.2 cases in 1987 to 0.04 in 2019, parallel to that of acute HBV per 100,000 from 10.0 to 0.39 cases during the same period. The median age of cases increased from 27 years in the decade 1991-1999 to 44 years in the decade 2010-2019 (p < .001). Over the same period, the male/female ratio decreased from 3.8 to 2.1, the proportion of coinfections increased from 55% to 75% (p = .003) and that of HBsAg positive acute hepatitis tested for by IgM anti-HDV linearly decreased from 50.1% to 34.1% (p < .001). People born abroad accounted for 24.6% of cases in 2004-2010 and 32.1% in 2011-2019. In the period 2010-2019, risky sexual behaviour (O.R. 4.2; 95%CI: 1.4-12.8) was the sole independent predictor of acute HDV; conversely intravenous drug use was no longer associated (O.R. 1.25; 95%CI: 0.15-10.22) with this. In conclusion, HBV vaccination was an effective measure to control acute HDV. Intravenous drug use is no longer an efficient mode of HDV spread. Testing for IgM-anti HDV is a grey area requiring alert. Acute HDV in foreigners should be monitored in the years to come