Particle verbs with weg- in German: a constructional analysis

uni-leipzig.de

In this paper we provide a derivational, minimalist account of the construction of particle and prefix verbs in German. In particular, we focus on the different stress patterns associated with particle and prefix verbs and on the positioning of the bound morpheme zu 'to' in particle and prefix verbs. Building upon an earlier proposal put forward by Biskup & Putnam (2009), we assume that particle and prefix verbs are derived from similar derivational mechanisms. They differ only with respect to whether or not the p-element (i.e., preposition or particle) incorporates into the root. This distinction is the base for the different behavior of prefix and particle verbs with respect to the stress pattern and the position of the infinitival marker zu. Since German particles are prepositions that remain in situ in the prepositional phrase, they allow zu to intervene between them and the verb. For this reason, they constitute a strong prosodic word and bear the primary stress in the particle verb. In contrast, verbal prefixes are incorporated prepositions, hence zu cannot be inserted between the prefix and the verb later in the derivation. Consequently, verbal prefixes form a weak prosodic word in combination with the verb and cannot bear the primary stress pattern. Finally, in this paper we explore whether a phase-based model of syntactic theory can account for the syntax-phonology interface issues that ensue within a derivational approach to particle and prefix verb formation in German.

Studia Neophilologica, 2015

The traditional English verb classifi cation based upon their grammatical meaning is a certain matrix according to which new units are grouped. The present investigation is aimed at integral describing the verbs of the ‘give’ type in the model “to give a smile”. The analysis of its constituents does not give any new information, however, its analysis as an integral unit in the sentence and discourse can reveal it as a structural-semantic unity, wherein a redistribution of the lexical meaning takes place. Since Otto Jespersen defi ned them as “light verbs" they have been in the focus of research of grammarians, semanticists, discourse experts, and cognitologists. In the framework of our research the referred verbs in the given model are presented as the result of grammaticalization and lexicalization — major factors of the English language development.

In NELS 47: Proceedings of the Forty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society. Volume 3, eds. Andrew Larmont and Katerina Tetzloff, 77-90. Amherst: GLSA, 2017

I argue that displaced morphology in German results from a conflict between the head-finality of the German VP and the possibility of head-initial verb clusters. The phenomenon provides a straightforward argument for post-syntactic morphology: First, the placement of the non-finite morphology is not solely governed by hierarchical notions but crucially affected by linear notions such as adjacency (and thus argues against treating all instances of morphological selection in terms of upward Agree as in Wurmbrand 2012). Second, displacement has no semantic effects. Third, the restrictions on displacement follow from the selectional properties of the exponents, which are checked linearly.

Nordic Journal of Linguistics, 2023

2014

English phrasal verbs or German verbs with separable particles constitute good examples of a marked tendency in Germanic languages towards both the use of analytic devices directly attached to the verb and the distribution of content. These constructions, which contrast sharply with what we can find in Spanish or in any other Romanic language, are certainly not isolated within Germanic grammatical structures. On the contrary, they are framed within a constructional philosophy that fosters the direct attachment of constituents to one head, without linking or indirect devices, and should therefore be considered as part of a wider class that could be named ‘direct constructions’. Both ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ constructional tendencies, followed by Germanic and Latin-derived languages, respectively, ultimately stem from the way Indo-European specifying adverbs were grammaticalised in each family. The present paper aims to briefly describe the main features and exponents of these Germanic...

1987

Geert Booij and Ton van Haaften I. INTRODUCTION Traditionally, morphology is conceived of as that subdiscipline of linguistics that deals with the internal structure of words. This view of morphology can also be found in the first publications on generative morphology written within the theoretical framework of lexicalist morphology, the position that a generative grammar contains a relatively autonomous morphological component. However, we should not lose sight of another essential part of morphological research, the effects of morphological processes on the syntactic valency of complex words. We will refer to this area of research as 'the external syntax of complex words'. In this paper, we will focus on the effects of derivational processes on verbs. The syntactic valency ofverbs is encoded in their lexical representations. We assume that each verb has zeÍo ot more aiguments. For each argument it is indicated which thematic role (0-role) it carries, e.g. Agent or Theme. In addition, it is also necessary to provide a restricted kind of syntactic information in the sense that we have to specify the structural relations between the arguments of a verb: an argument may be external (and hence appear in subject position), direct internal (and thus surface as direct object), or indirect internal. In the latter case, the argument will either be realized syntactically, as a PP with a specific preposition, or as an NP with a specific case (for instance, dative). The following examples illustrate these rather elementary assumptions concerning the lexical representations of verbs:l (l) lopen 'to walk', V, Agens. eten 'to eat', V, Agens, Theme. zelten 'to put' V, Agens, Theme, Locationi geven 'to give' V, Agens, Theme, Goali.

2018

Over the last decade or so, Construction Grammar (CxG) has evolved into an influential paradigm in linguistic research. CxG subsumes a family of related constructional approaches to language including Cognitive Construction Grammar (Lakoff 1987, Goldberg 1995, Boas 2013), Berkeley Construction Grammar (Fillmore et al. 1988, Kay and Fillmore 1999, Fillmore 2013), Sign-based Construction Grammar (SBCG; Sag 2011, Boas and Sag 2012, Michaelis 2013), Radical Construction Grammar (Croft 2001, 2013), and Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1987, 2008; Broccias 2013), among others (for an overview see Hoffmann/Trousdale 2013, Ziem and Lasch 2013, and Lasch and Ziem 2014). Although such approaches differ not only in methodological terms but also with respect to the types of linguistic phenomena addressed, they all embrace the view that both lexicon and grammar essentially consist of constructions, i.e. non-compositional (and compositional) formmeaning pairings of varying abstractness and syntagmati...

Some aspects of the restructuring of the Germanic verb system The aim of this contribution is a comparison of the ProtoGmc. — or, simply, Germanic (Gmc.) — verbal system with the state of affairs we can reconstruct for the common PIE ancestor, in order to ascertain how conservative or innovative Gmc. has been. I will first deal with some considerations concerning reduplication in the PIE and then I will focus on the Gmc. verb system. More generally: What role does reduplication in its broadest meaning play in the Gmc. languages? Along with reduplication, preverbs are the other elements which can occur in front of the verb. They will be considered firstly from the PIE perspective and then from the Gmc. one, looking for possible differences in their use and function. The aspectual function of preverbs and/or adpositions (i.e. separable preverbs) will be compared with similar syntactic strategies in other ancient IE languages. Finally, the ablauting Gmc. system will be considered and compared with its PIE ancestor. Some general conclusions will be drawn from the comparison with the reconstructed system as well as the verbal systems attested in the ancient IE languages, which sometimes developed different typological strategies. It will be shown that Gmc. offers very conservative as well as very innovative features. The topics I am going to deal with are among the subjects proposed by the organizers of the Montreal workshop. The first topic I want to discuss is the systematization and functionalization of the ablaut in the Germanic (Gmc.) verb system. Connected to this problem are two other points which I will touch upon later, namely the loss of reduplication in the verbal system with the development of a weak preterit and the high number of unetymologized Gmc. lexemes. As a matter of fact, the ablaut also concerns a number of Gmc. verbs lacking a plausible IE etymology, as well as late loanwords such as OE scrīfan, OHG scrīban, OFrs. skrīva, OSwed. skriva " to write ". Thus the overarching problem is: how innovative and/or conservative is the Gmc. verb system?

2011

In this paper we provide a derivational, minimalist account of the construction of particle and prefix verbs in German. In particular, we focus on the different stress patterns associated with particle and prefix verbs and on the positioning of the bound morpheme zu ‘to’ in particle and prefix verbs. Building upon an earlier proposal put forward by Biskup & Putnam (2009), we assume that particle and prefix verbs are derived from similar derivational mechanisms. They differ only with respect to whether or not the p-element (i.e., preposition or particle) incorporates into the root. This distinction is the base for the different behavior of prefix and particle verbs with respect to the stress pattern and the position of the infinitival marker zu. Since German particles are prepositions that remain in situ in the prepositional phrase, they allow zu to intervene between them and the verb. For this reason, they constitute a strong prosodic word and bear the primary stress in the particle...

In Replicative Processes in Grammar. Volume 93 of Linguistische ArbeitsBerichte (LAB), eds. Katja Barnickel et al. Leipzig: Leipzig University, 401-446.

In this paper I will provide a new argument for post-syntactic morphology. e empirical evidence comes from so-called displaced morphology in German, where the non-finite verb form selected by a given governor does not end up on the immediately dependent verb but rather on the last verb of the verb cluster. The placement of the morphology thus depends on linear notions such as adjacency rather than hierarchical relations (c-command, minimality). I will argue that the exponents for non-finite morphology are inserted into separate functional heads which are linearized clause-finally. At a late stage of the PF-derivation, the exponents are associated with their verbal hosts by means of Local Dislocation (Embick & Noyer 2001). As a consequence, the nonfinite morphology always comes last in the verb cluster. Displacement arises once the order in the verb cluster deviates from the strictly descending 321 order. The placement operation is thus always the same, displacement emerges just a side-effect of (partially) ascending verb cluster orders. Restrictions on displacement follow from the selectional requirements of the vocabulary items.