Cover not available
Part of
Morphological Variation: Theoretical and empirical perspectives
Edited by Antje Dammel and Oliver Schallert
[Studies in Language Companion Series 207] 2019
► pp. 311–342

Strong or weak?

Or: How information structure governs morphosyntactic variation

| University of Frankfurt
This paper discusses morphological variation that is pragmatically determined. We focus on the distribution of personal pronouns and definite articles which both systematically show at least two different morphological forms – full and reduced – and we claim that their syntactic distribution depends on pragmatic factors. We show that the distribution of the various forms of both personal pronouns and definite articles obeys similar, yet not identical restrictions. Thereby we concentrate on four phenomena: deixis, relative clauses, contrastive focus, and contrastive topic. Whereas in the first two contexts the full forms must occur obligatorily, pronouns and articles show a more fine-grained sensitivity for the latter cases. We conclude from this that pronouns and definite articles have different complex syntactic structures.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The two definite articles in South Hessian: Form and distribution
    • 2.1The current research status in a nutshell
    • 2.2The situation in South Hessian – an empirical research
    • 2.3Why focus also exists in the DP – evidence for a split-DP hypothesis
  • 3.Pronouns: Form and distribution
    • 3.1In general
    • 3.2The morphosyntax of pronouns in German dialects
    • 3.3Strongly vs. weakly used pronouns
  • 4.Comparison
  • 5.Analysis
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 27 June 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.207.11wei
References (47)
References
Primary sources
Pöschl, Erika. 1985. Paonnekuche in de Sunn gebagge. Ourewälle Gschichte. Brauchtum un Gedichte vun sällemols un heitzedaogs. Ober-Ramstadt, Rohrbach, self-published.Google Scholar
. 1987. Oigebutzeld. Die Muttersprache ist der Mantel der Geborgenheit. Geschichten und Gedichte in Odenwälder Mundart. Ober-Ramstadt, Rohrbach, self-published.Google Scholar
Sauerwein, Friedrich. 1985. Vadder, ve’zäihl emol. Ourewäller G’schichte un Schnorrn vun friejer un heit. Kevelaer: Anrich.Google Scholar
Stoll, Joseph. 1989. Moi Nadurgeschichd un annern Sache zum Noochdenke un zum Lache. Gedichte und Erzählungen in Mundart, Kurt Gioth (ed.). Bensheim-Gronau: Gmeiner.Google Scholar
Secondary literature
Abney, Steven. 1987. The English Noun Phrase in Its Sentential Aspect. PhD dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Aboh, Enoch. 2004. Topic and Focus within D. Linguistics in the Netherlands 21: 1–12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Axel, Katrin & Weiß, Helmut. 2011. Pro-drop in the history of German. From Old High German to the modern dialects. In Null Pronouns [Studies in Generative Grammar 106], Peter Gallmann & Melani Wratil (eds), 21–51. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bach, Emmon. 1974. Syntactic Theory. New York NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Brugger, Gerhard & Prinzhorn, Martin. 1996. Some properties of German definite articles. Ms, University of Vienna.Google Scholar
Cabredo-Hofherr, Patricia. 2013, November 5. Reduced definite articles and restrictive relative clauses. Handout, Kolloquium Forschergruppe Relativsätze, Frankfurt am Main, 1–27.Google Scholar
Cardinaletti, Anna & Starke, Michal. 1999. The typology of structural deficiency: On the three grammatical classes. In Clitics in the Languages of Europe [Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, Eurotyp 20–5], Henk van Riemsdijk (ed.), 145–233. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Dimitrova-Vulchanova, Mila & Giusti, Giuliana. 1998. Fragments of Balkan nominal structure. In Possessors, Predicates and Movement in the Determiner Phrase [Linguistics Today 22], Artemis Alexiadou & Chris Wilder (eds), 333–361. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dirani, Seyna. In preparation. Warum gleich zwei definite Artikel? Wie die Informationsstruktur morphosyntaktische Variation steuert — untersucht am Beispiel der definiten Artikelformen im Südhessischen. PhD dissertation, Goethe-University Frankfurt.
. Accepted. Zum unterschiedlichen Artikelgebrauch im Südhessischen — Empirie trifft auf Theorie. In Syntax aus Saarbrücker Sicht, 3: Beiträge der SaRDiS-Tagung zur Dialektsyntax, Augustin Speyer & Julia Schüler (eds).
Ebert, Karen. 1971a. Referenz, Sprechsituation und die bestimmten Artikel in einem Nordfriesischen Dialekt [Studien und Materialien 4]. Bredstedt: Nordfriisk Instituut.Google Scholar
. 1971b. Zwei Formen des bestimmten Artikels. In Probleme und Fortschritte in der Transformationsgrammatik. Referate des 4. Linguistischen Kolloquiums, Berlin, 6.–10.10.1969 [Linguistische Reihe 8], Dieter Wunderlich (ed.), 159–173. München: Hueber.Google Scholar
Fabricius-Hansen, Cathrine. 2009. Überlegungen zur pränominalen Nicht-Restriktivität. In Koordination und Subordination im Deutschen. [Linguistische Berichte. Sonderheft 16], Veronika Ehrlich et al. (eds), 89–112. Hamburg: Buske.Google Scholar
Fleischer, Jürg, Kasper, Simon & Lenz, Alexandra N. 2012. Die Erhebung syntaktischer Phänomene durch die indirekte Methode: Ergebnisse und Erfahrungen aus dem Forschungsprojekt "Syntax hessischer Dialekte" (SyHD). Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 79(1): 2–42.Google Scholar
Freywald, Ulrike, 2017. Syntaktische Besonderheiten des Berlinischen. In Aktuelle Tendenzen in der Variationslinguistik, Meike Glawe, Line-Marie Hohenstein, Stephanie Sauermilch, Kathrin Weber & Heike Wermer (eds), 177–207. Hildesheim: Olms.Google Scholar
Hawkins, John. 1978. Definiteness and Indefiniteness. A Study in Reference and Grammaticality Prediction. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Himmelmann, Nikolaus. 1997. Deiktikon, Artikel, Nominalphrase: Zur Emergenz syntaktischer Struktur [Linguistische Arbeiten 362]. Tübingen: Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ihsane, Tabea & Puskas, Genoveva. 2001. Specific is not definite. Generative Grammar in Geneva (GG@G) 2: 39–54.Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred. 2008. Basic notions of information structure. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 55, 243–276. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Löbner, Sebastian. 1985. Definites. Journal of Semantics 4, 279–326. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Manzini, M. Rita. 2014. Grammatical categories: Strong and weak pronouns in Romance. Lingua 150: 171–201. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meier, Cécile. 2012, 19–20 March. Swiss German relative clauses. Handout, Workshop on Semantic and Pragmatic Properties of (Non) Restrictivity, Stuttgart, 1–9.Google Scholar
Müller, Gereon. 2002. Harmonic alignment and the hierarchy of pronouns in German 2001. In Pronouns - Grammar and Representation [Linguistics Today 52], Horst Simon & Heike Wiese (eds), 205–232. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Panagiotidis, Phoevos. 2002. Pronominal Nouns. In Pronouns - Grammar and Representation [Linguistics Today 52], Horst Simon & Heike Wiese (eds), 183–203. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reinsberg, Franziska. 2011. Morphosyntax der Personalpronomen im Mittelhessischen. Magister thesis, Goethe-University Frankfurt.Google Scholar
Repp, Sophie. 2010. Defining ‘contrast’ as an information-structural notion in grammar. Lingua 120: 1333–1345. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roehrs, Dorian. 2009. Demonstratives and Definite Articles as Nominal Auxiliaries [Linguistics Today 140]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rooth, Mats. 1992. A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 1(1): 75–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schanen, François & Zimmer, Jaqui. 2012. Lëtzebuergesch Grammaire Luxembourgeoise. Esch-sur-Alzette: Schortgen.Google Scholar
Schiepek, Josef. 1899–1908. Der Satzbau der Egerländer Mundart, 2 Teile. Prag: Verlag des Vereines für Geschichte der Deutschen in Böhmen.
Schmitt, Viola. 2006. Hessische Relativsätze. Master thesis, University of Vienna.Google Scholar
Schwarz, Florian. 2009. Two Types of Definites in Natural Language. PhD dissertation, University of Massachussetts at Amherst.Google Scholar
Studler, Rebekka. 2011. Artikelparadigmen. Form, Funktion und syntaktisch-semantische Analyse von definiten Determinierern im Schweizerdeutschen. PhD dissertation, University of Zurich, <[URL]> (08 August 2018).
. 2014. The morphology, syntax and semantics of definite determiners in Swiss German. In Crosslinguistic Studies on Noun Phrase Structure and Reference [Syntax and semantics. 39], Patricia Cabredo-Hofherr & Anne Zibri-Hertz (eds), 143–171. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Trutkowski, Ewa & Weiß, Helmut. 2016. When personal pronouns compete with relative pronouns. In The Impact of Pronominal Form on Interpretation [Studies in Generative Grammar 125], Patrick Grosz & Pritty Patel-Grosz (eds), 135–166. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Volodina, Anna & Weiß, Helmut. 2016. Diachronic development of null-subjects in German. In Quantitative Approaches to Grammar and Grammatical Change. Perspectives from Germanic, Sam Featherston & Yannick Versley (eds), 187–205. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2018. Referential null subjects in German: Dialects and diachronic continuity. In Null Subjects in Generative Grammar. A Synchronic and Diachronic Perspective, Federica Cognola & Jan Casalicchio (eds), 261–284. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Weiß, Helmut. 1998. Syntax des Bairischen. Studien zur Grammatik einer natürlichen Sprache [Linguistische Arbeiten 391]. Tübingen: Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2005. Inflected complementizers in continental West Germanic Dialects. Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 72: 148–166.Google Scholar
. 2015. When the subject follows the object. On a curiosity in the syntax of personal pronouns in some German dialects. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 18(1): 65–92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2016. Pronominalsyntax deutscher Dialekte. In Syntaktische Variation. Areallinguistische Perspektiven [Wiener Linguistische Arbeiten 2], Alexandra Lenz & Franz Patocka (eds), 121–148. Wien: V&R Uni-press.Google Scholar
. 2018. The Wackernagel position and complementizer agreement – The emergence of a syntactic particularity at the left edge of the German middle field. In Clause Structure and Word Order in the History of German [Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics 28], Agnes Jäger, Gisella Ferraresi & Helmut Weiß (eds), 132–154. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Wiltschko, Martina. 2013. Descriptive relative clauses in Austro Bavarian German. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 58(2): 157–189. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Weiß, Helmut
2019. Rebracketing (Gliederungsverschiebung) and the Early Merge Principle. Diachronica 36:4 ► pp. 509 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 june 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.