A negação sintática em diálogos do alemão e do português do Brasil

This paper presents results of research into syntactic negation in both German and Brazilian Portuguese dialogues. After some considerations on the nature of negation, its occurrence in a corpus is investigated based on semantic negation categories established from works by Polenz and Engel. Based on Ilari's works, possible syntactic negation forms are presented as formulae that express the relationships between their components. Use frequency of syntactic negation in the semantic categories in each language is presented, as well as possible sources of interference in the use of such elements by foreign speakers, along with considerations about negation, culture and language.Der Aufsatz präsentiert die Ergebnisse einer Untersuchung der syntaktischen Negation in deutschen und brasilianischen Dialogen. Nach einigen Überlegungen über Negation und Sprache wird ihre Okkurrenz in einem Corpus von Dialogen in beiden Sprachen in Bezug auf semantische, in Anlehnung an Polenz und Engel ausgearbeitete Kategorien untersucht. Ausgehend von Ilaris Arbeiten werden die Möglichkeiten der syntaktischen Negation in jeder Sprache als Formeln präsentiert, die die Beziehungen zwischen ihren Komponenten darstellen. Außer der Gebrauchsfrequenz von syntaktischer Negation in den semantischen Kategorien in jeder Sprache werden noch mögliche Interferenzprobleme bei dem Gebrauch der syntaktischen Negation von Fremdsprachlern erörtert, sowie breitere Überlegungen über Negation, Kommunikation und Kultur

Bodily injuries and dative experiencers in Old Frisian

This article offers a descriptive account of body part constructions in Old East Frisian texts and analyzes the occurrence of dative experiencers in such clauses. This includes a comparison between Old Frisian body part grammar and its Middle Dutch counterpart, revisiting issues such as the antiquity of dative external possessors and oblique subject constructions in West Germanic. In presenting the data from a theory-neutral perspective, this investigation contributes to the study of body part grammar in Medieval Germanic in particular and to the growing body of literature on Old Frisian syntax in general

Gallizismen im Roman „Lotte in Weimar” von Thomas Mann

The subject of this paper are words of French origin, occurring in Thomas Mann’s novel, “Lotte in Weimar”. The author uses numerous Gallicisms for stylistic reasons. The plot of the novel covers the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, when the influence of the French language on the German language was very strong. The paper emphasizes the degrees of assimilation of French vocabulary in the German language system. Consequently, the collected material, derived from one hundred pages of the novel, has been divided into two large groups: 1) borrowings without German word-formation means, 2) borrowings with German or Germanized word-formation means in terms of derivation and composition. Noun borrowings in unaltered and altered forms are prevalent among the group of words without German word-formation means. In terms of derivation, the most numerous group is made up of verbs and participles. As regards composition, there were compounds observed containing both modified elements and modifiers of French origin. Nouns account for the largest share of the vocabulary collected, while adjectives and adverbs are less frequent

Der Däne[NGr Nom] ist[Vfin] gemütlich[ADJGr] Nationale Stereotype aus dem SMiK-Projekt und Kritische Grammatik im Deutschunterricht

One of the most frequently used grammatical structures to express national stereotypes in German is the sentence pattern X [NGr Nom] ist [Vfin] Y [ADJGr]. Within the framework of linguistic research on stereotypes this structure has been described in great detail so that its syntactic, semantic, and socio-pragmatic dimensions are known rather well. Results of the SMiK-project confirm the important role this pattern plays in expressing stereotypes. As to grammar teaching at school, however, this grammatical structure is rarely discussed in textbooks and, assumingly, in classrooms. This paper presents an approach to make this structure a subject of classroom discussion. The approach is based on a didactic concept of “critical grammar” in German lessons and aims at making school students aware that explicit knowledge about grammatical structures is not only (if at all) knowledge about linguistic categories for the purpose of filing language into scientific regulations or rules but an instrument to discover and to elucidate “pictures in our heads”

Genre-related language change:Discourse- and corpus-linguistic perspectives on Austrian German 1970-2010

The motivation and diffusion of language change have been modelled and discussed in frequently conflicting terms, often focused on an isolated set of features rather than more integrative sociolinguistic concerns. We present a case study of language change in Austrian German along a broad range of lexical, syntactic as well as textual features, approached through a corpus based on genres situated in the pertinent fields of news reporting, education and business. Based on our results, we argue that drawing on 'genre' as socially-situated, interactive and goal-oriented patterns of language use provides both a conceptual and empirical framework that may help address some of the more prominent issues in modelling language change: as a concept, it provides a frame within which to grasp the social changes driving language change; as empirical focus, it guides data selection and allows us to describe and explicate complex and seemingly contradictory diffusion patterns