Bisher haben in der BRD drei wichtige Konferenzen stattgefunden, die sich mit der deutschen Sprache in beiden deutschen Staaten beschäftigten. In den Sammelbänden 'Das Aueler Protokoll. Deutsche Sprache im Spannungsfeld zwischen West und Ost' und 'Zum öffentlichen Sprachgebrauch in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und in der DDR. Methoden und Probleme seiner Erforschung' wurden die Referate der ersten beiden Konferenzen veröffentlicht. Der Sammelband 'Sprachliche Normen und Normierungsfolgen in der DDR' vereinigt die Referate des Kolloquiums, das im Februar 1985 in der Universität Frankfurt/ Main veranstaltet wurde, die Protokolle der sich jeweils anschließenden Diskussion sowie eine Zusammenfassung der öffentlichen Podiumsdiskussion zum Thema „Sprachliche Normen in der DDR und in der Bundesrepublik: Brücke oder Schranke der Verständigung?“ in sich.

The present contribution examines object complement clauses from the perspective of constituent-order typology. In particular, it provides the first principled empirical investigation of the position of object clauses relative to the matrix verb. Based on a stratified sample of 100 languages, we establish that there is an overall cross-linguistic preference for postverbal complements, due largely to the heterogeneous ordering patterns in OV-languages. Importantly, however, we also show that the position of complement clauses correlates with aspects of their structural organization: Preverbal complement clauses are significantly more likely to be coded by morphosyntactically “downgraded” structures than postverbal complements. Given that previous research has found a parallel correlation between structural downgrading and the semantics of the complement-taking predicate (Givón 1980. The binding hierarchy and the typology of complements. Studies in Language 4. 333–377, Cristofaro 2003. Subordination. Oxford: Oxford University Press), one needs to analyze how positional, structural and semantic factors interact with one another. Our data suggest that the correlation between clause order and morphosyntactic structure holds independently of semantic considerations: All predicate classes distinguished in the present study increase their likelihood of taking downgraded complements if they are preceded by the complement clause. We thus propose that, in addition to the well-known “binding hierarchy”, a second correlation needs to be recognized in the typology of complementation: the co-variation of linear order and morphosyntactic structure.

Deaf sign language users oftentimes claim to be able to recognise straight away whether their interlocutors are native signers. To date it is unclear, however, what exactly such judgement calls might be based on. The aim of the research presented was to explore whether specific articulatory features are being associated with signers that have (allegedly) acquired German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebärdensprache, DGS) as their first language. The study is based on the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative data were generated in ten focus group settings. Each group was made up of three participants and one facilitator. Deaf participants’ meta-linguistic claims concerning linguistic features of ‘native signing’ (i.e. what native signing looks like) were qualitatively analysed using grounded theory methods. Quantitative data were generated via a language assessment experiment designed around stimulus material extracted from DGS corpus data. Participants were asked to judge whether or not individual clips extracted from a DGS corpus had been produced by a native signer. Against the backdrop of the findings identified in the focus group data, the stimulus material was subsequently linguistically analysed in order toidentify specificlinguistic features that might account for some clips to be judged as ‘produced by a native signer’ as opposed to others that were claimed to have been ‘articulated by a non-native signer’. Through juxtaposing meta-linguistic perspectives, the results of a language perception experiment and the linguistic analysis of the stimulus material, the study brings to the fore specific crystallisation points of linguistic and social features indexing linguistic authenticity. The findings break new ground in that they suggest that the face as articulator in general, and micro-prosodic features expressed in the movement of eyes, eyebrows and mouth in particular, play a significant role in the perception of others as (non-)native signers.

This paper addresses two restrictions regarding agreement with nominative arguments in Icelandic DAT-NOM constructions. The first is the reported asymmetry in intervention effects in mono-clausal versus bi-clausal environments. The second regards the well-known Person Restriction that prohibits agreement with non-3rd person arguments. It is argued that both of these phenomena can be viewed as instances of cumulative constraint interaction, where less important constraints in the grammar ‘gang up’ to block some higher constraint. In order to account for this, I adopt a model of syntax with both weighted constraints and serial optimization that is known as Serial Harmonic Grammar in the phonological literature. It will be demonstrated that such a system can offer a more principled analysis of the construction-specific nature of the aforementioned phenomen

The goal of this paper is to provide novel theoretical and empirical evidence that the null subjects traditionally labelled as pro and PRO, rather than being inherently distinct, are manifestations, differentiated in the course of the derivation, of what is underlyingly a single underspecified nominal pro-form, which we will call UPro. Included under this UPro are pro, OC PRO and also the various types of ‘non-obligatory control’ (NOC) PRO, including arbitrary PRO (PROarb). The interpretive and distributional distinctions lurking behind these labels result from how UPro interacts with its structural environment and language-specific rules of morpho-phonological realization. Specifically, OC PRO labels a rather specific interpretation that arises in embedding contexts where a syntactic OC relationship with an antecedent can be established. Different types of pro and NOC PRO, on the other hand, involve ‘control’ by (typically) silent representations of discourse contextual elements in the clausal left periphery. Finally, PROarb arguably involves the failure to establish a referential dependence, which we will formalize in terms of a failure to Agree in the sense of Preminger (2014). Crucial evidence motivating the approach proposed here will be adduced from Sundaresan’s (2014) “Finiteness pro-drop Generalisation”, which reveals an otherwise unexpected complementarity of OC PRO and pro.

In diesem Beitrag skizzieren wir zuerst den bildungspolitischen Rahmen, den Bildungsstandards und Lehrpläne bilden. Während die bisherige Forschung vor diesem Hintergrund v. a. die konkrete Umsetzung im Schulunterricht analysiert (s. Böhnert 2017), richten wir den Fokus auf die frühe Bildungsphase der künftigen Lehrkräfte, aber auch anderer Deutschstudierender, indem wir ihre Einstellungen zur Relevanz sprachgeschichtlicher Kenntnisse für den Lehralltag erfragen. Dafür werden Lehramtsstudierende zu Beginn einer obligatorischen Einführungsveranstaltung befragt, wie sie die Relevanz von Kenntnissen in der historischen Sprachwissenschaft für den Schulunterricht einschätzen. Neben einigen Grundkompetenzen werden sie anschließend über ihre kulturellen Aktivitäten befragt, die mit sprachgeschichtlichen Themen in Verbindung stehen. Die Studie zeigt, dass Studierende am Anfang des Studiums sprachgeschichtliches Wissen fast genauso häufig als relevant wie irrelevant ansehen. Die ermittelten Präferenzen für Aktivitätsbereiche können im künftigen universitären Unterricht stärker in akademische Lehrformate umgesetzt werden, um für die künftigen Lehrkräfte neue schulische Handlungsmuster zu erschließen.

Wie bei der traditionellen Beschreibung der meisten afrikanischen Sprachen dominierten auch bei der des Bambara lange Zeit Vorstellungen von den Wortarten in den (indo-)europäischen Sprachen. Erst neuere Arbeiten zu den Mande-Sprachen, so u. a. das Kleine Wörterbuch der Bambara-Sprache von E. Ebermann (Wien 1986) und das Dictionnaire Bambara-Français von G. D umestre (Paris, ab 1981), gehen hier neue Wege. Auch ich habe in dem Lehrbuch des Bambara (Leipzig 1974) Vorschläge zur Neubewertung der Wortarten bzw. der Wortklassen des Bambara unterbreitet, die hier präzisiert und in einigen Fällen auch korrigiert werden sollen.

This paper gives an overview of differential placemarking phenomena and formulates a number of universals that seem to be well supported. Differential place marking is a situation in which the coding of locative, allative or ablative roles depends on subclasses of nouns, in particular place names (toponyms), inanimate common nouns and human nouns. When languages show asymmetric coding differences depending on such subclasses, they show shorter (and often zero) coding of place roles with toponyms, and longer (often adpositional rather than affixal) coding of place roles with human nouns. Like differential objectmarking, differential place marking can be explained by frequency asymmetries, expectations derived from frequencies, and the general preference for efficient coding. I also argue that differential place marking patterns provide an argument against the need to appeal to ambiguity avoidance to explain differential object marking.

Als derzeit produktivster Herausgeber auf dem Feld der arabischen Papyrologie legt Werner Diem hier bereits seinen neunten umfangreichen Editionsband mit 52 hauptsächlich arabisch sprachigen Originaldokumenten vor, bestehend aus privaten, geschäftlichen und amtlichen Briefen, Eingaben bei Behörden und Edikten oder deren jeweiligen Entwürfen. Bereits der im Titel genannte Beschreibstoff Papier als Auswahlkriterium gibt Hinweise darauf, was den Leser erwartet. Mit ihm ist ein Zeitraum etwa zwischen dem 4. und dem 9. islamischen Jahrhundert vorgegeben. Eine interne Datierung weisen dabei jedoch nur die allerwenigsten Schreiben auf, Diems jeweilige Schätzungen nach paläographischen Kriterien ergeben aber ein starkes Übergewicht auf dem 4. bis 5. Jahrhundert (36 der 52 Briefe). Damit bewegt sich der Band in einer Periode der Schriftentwicklung, die im dokumentarischen Kontext von zunehmender und oft extremer Verschleifung der einzelnen Buchstaben geprägt ist. Oft kann hier nur der Kontext entscheiden, was zwar nicht mehr zu sehen ist, aber dennoch gelesen werden muss. Doch weder sind die Texte selbst in diesem Punkt sehr beredt – Absender und Empfänger wussten ja, worum es ging – noch erlaubt die fragmentarische Überlieferung oft eine eindeutige Kontextualisierung. Das hier präsentierte Material stellt also ganz besondere Herausforderungen an seinen Bearbeiter.

Emojis are pictographs added to messages on social media and websites. Researchers have observed that emojis representing kissing faces are often used to close instant messaging conversations. This has been interpreted as an imitation of cheek kissing, a common behavior in some cultural contexts. We analyze the use of seven types of kissing emojis in three corpora of WhatsApp chats, one from Spain (where cheek kisses in face-to-face interaction are commonplace in many situations), the other from Germany (where kisses are occasionally given), and the third from the German-speaking part of Switzerland (where cheek kisses are a common greeting between relatives and friends). To do so, we systematically categorize and compare the use of a sample of these emojis on WhatsApp. The analysis suggests that there are differences between the three corpora in the use of the kissing emojis. The emoji “face throwing a kiss” is often included in closing messages in the Spanish and Swiss-German data, while in the Federal German corpus kisses do not appear at the end of a conversation; using these emojis in openings is uncommon in all three corpora. This suggests that these emojis can exhibit cultural variation, but they do not clearly mirror face-to-face behavior.