German Adverbial Adjectives: Syntactic Position - of Martin Schäfer

224 Pages·2006·0.76 MB·English

German Adverbial Adjectives:
Syntactic Position and Semantic
Interpretation
DissertationzurErlangungdesakademischenGrades
doctorphilosophiae(Dr.phil.)
eingereichtimJuni2005
anderPhilologischenFakulta¨tderUniversita¨tLeipzig
von
MartinScha¨fer, M.A.,
geborenam28.09.1975
TagderVerleihung
09.01.2006
Gutachter:
Prof. Dr. AnitaSteube,Universita¨tLeipzig
PDDr. JohannesDo¨lling,Universita¨tLeipzig
PDDr. ClaudiaMaienborn,Humboldt-Universita¨tzuBerlin
Acknowledgements
Thisdissertationwasnotwrittencontext-free. I especiallywouldliketothankmysu-
pervisor Johannes Do¨lling, whose insights and comments greatly influenced the final
shapeofthisdissertation. IalsothankAnitaSteubeforhersupport.
Many people at the Institute of Linguistics in Leipzig had to suffer from my constant
questions regarding grammaticality judgements and the like. The one who suffered
mostwasprobablyStefanSudhoff,whomIherebythank.
KristineHildebrandtwaskindenoughtochecktheEnglish. Inaddition,shealsogave
manyhelpfulcommentsonthecontent.
MarkoMalinkread andcommentedthepartonthetheoreticalbackground.
Finally,thankstomybureau-mateTatjanaHeyde-Zybatow,myteacherLukaSzucsich,
andmycamera-manThomasWeskott.
ii
ThisthesisisdedicatedtoCarl J.Thompson,myhero,andhiswifeMarie.
iii
Contents
Acknowledgements ii
Abbreviationsand notationalconventions viii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Scopeandaim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Organization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 Terminologyand theoreticalbackground 4
2.1 Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1.1 Definingadverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1.1.1 Adverbialvsparticle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.1.2 Adverbialvssubject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1.3 Adverbialvsobject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1.4 Adverbialvspredicative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.1.1.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.1.2 Adjectivaladverbsvsadverbialadjectives . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1.2.1 Adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1.2.2 Adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.1.2.3 AdjectiveorAdverb? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.1.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.2 Standardsemanticapproaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.1 Event-basedsemantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.1.1 Event-basedsemanticsandintuitiveplausibility . . 24
2.2.1.2 Thescopeoftheevent-basedapproach . . . . . . . 25
2.2.2 Thepredicatemodifiertheory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.2.2.1 Extensionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2.2.2 Scopedata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.2.2.3 Entailments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.2.2.4 Scopeofthepredicatemodifiertheory . . . . . . . 31
2.2.2.5 Eventsandthepredicatemodifierapproach . . . . . 32
2.2.3 McConnell-Ginet: changingthearityoftheverbalpredicate . 34
2.2.3.1 EntailmentdatainMcConnell-Ginet’sapproach . . 35
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CONTENTS
2.2.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3 The different readings ofadverbialadjectives 37
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.2 Manneradverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.2.2 Pure manneradverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.2.3 Agent-orientedmanneradverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.2.4 Manneradverbialsvsmethod-orientedanddegreeadverbials . 49
3.2.4.1 Method-orientedadverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2.4.2 Manneradverbialsvsdegreeadverbials . . . . . . . 50
3.2.5 Mannermodificationvssecondarypredication . . . . . . . . 52
3.2.5.1 Manneradverbialsvsresultatives . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.2.5.2 Manneradverbialsvsdepictives . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.2.5.3 Implicitresultatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.2.6 Manneradverbialsandstatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.3 Non-manneradverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.3.1 Mental-attitudeadverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.3.2 Event-externaladverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.3.3 Subject-orientedadverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.3.4 Frame adverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.3.5 Speaker-oriented adverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.4 Analternativeapproach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4 The syntactic positionsofadverbialadjectivesinGerman 79
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.2 TestingforGermanwordorder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.2.1 Negation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.2.2 Focusprojection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.2.3 Theme-rhemecondition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.2.4 PrincipleCeffects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.2.5 Positionalrestrictionsonexistentiallyinterpretedw-phrases . 89
4.2.6 Complexfrontings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.2.7 Quantifierscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.3 Usingthetestsforclassification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
4.3.1 Process-related adverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
4.3.2 Event-internaladverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.3.2.1 Datamotivatingthedefinition . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.3.2.2 Specialpropertiesofmental-attitudeadverbials . . 98
4.3.3 Event-externaladverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
4.3.4 Frame adverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
4.3.5 Sentence adverbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
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CONTENTS
4.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5 The syntactic positionofmanner adverbials 110
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
5.2 FreyandPittner’sdatarevisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
5.3 Mannermodificationandinformationstructure . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.3.1 Focusprojection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.3.2 Theme-rhemecondition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5.3.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.4 Independentfactors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
5.4.1 Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
5.4.1.1 W-phrasesandintegration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
5.4.1.2 Resultativesandintegration . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.4.2 Associativereadings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.4.2.1 Eckardtondegreeofperfectionadverbs . . . . . . 131
5.4.2.2 Thetemporalreadingsofschnellandlangsam . . . 133
5.4.2.3 Differentreadings:evidencefromEnglish . . . . . 135
5.4.3 Causalrelevance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
5.4.4 IndefinitesandtopicalDOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
5.4.5 Quantifieddirectobjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
5.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
6 Scope 151
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
6.2 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
6.3 Theadverbialusageofthescope-takingadverbials . . . . . . . . . . 154
6.3.1 Paraphrase tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
6.3.2 Otherclassificationsofthescope-takingadverbials . . . . . . 158
6.4 Whatcausesthescopaleffects? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
6.4.1 Theadjectivegeschickt andthequestionofintersectivity . . . 164
6.4.2 Transferingthefindingstotheadverbialuseofgeschickt . . . 173
6.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
7 Associativereadings 175
7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
7.2 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
7.2.1 Adjectivesallowingassociativereadings . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
7.2.2 Adjectivesnotallowingassociativereadings . . . . . . . . . . 177
7.3 Previousaccountsofassociativereadings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
7.3.1 Bartsch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
7.3.2 Cresswell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
7.3.3 Eckardt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
7.3.4 Engelberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
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CONTENTS
7.3.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
7.4 Aformalapproachtoassociativereadings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
7.4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
7.4.2 Anunderspecifiedframework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
7.4.3 Thederivationindetail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
7.5 Theroleofthesyntacticposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
7.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
8 Conclusion 203
8.1 Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
8.2 Openquestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Bibliography 208
vii
Abbreviations and notational
conventions
Conventionsusedintheglosses:
1. GermanadverbialadjectivesarenotglossedwithEnglishadjectives,butwiththe
correspondingadverbs (e.g., the adjectivesorgfa¨ltigin its use as an adverbial is
glossedwith‘carefully’andnotwith‘careful’).
2. Morphological marking for case, number and gender is only glossed when this
informationisrelevantforthediscussionathand.
3. When the gloss itself already yields a good English translation of the source
sentence,nofree translationisgiven.
4. Ungrammaticalsentencesare glossedbutnottranslated.
Abbreviations:
NOM=nominativecase
GEN =genitivecase
ACC =accusativecase
EFF =effectivecase
DEM =demonstrativepronoun
NEG =negation
PASSP =passiveparticiple
PL =plural
SG =singular
FEM =feminine
MASC=masculine
viii
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Scope and aim
The topic of this work are German adverbial adjectives. The starting point for this
investigation is the question of what these adverbials contribute to sentence meaning
and the extent to which this contribution depends on their syntactic position within
a sentence. Special attention is given to those adverbial usages that are traditionally
understoodasmannermodification.
German adverbial adjectives are adjectives that are used as adverbials. Examples
fortypicaloccurencesoftheadverbialsofinterestaregivenin(1),wheretheadverbials
are printedinboldface.
(1) a. Sie hat laut gesungen.
Shehas loudlysung
‘Shesangloudly.’
b. Der Zug fuhr schnell.
The traindrovefast
‘Thetraindrovefast.’
c. Er lo¨ste die Aufgabeintelligent.
Hesolvedthe problem intelligently
‘Hesolvedtheproblemintelligently.’
The meaning contribution of adverbial adjectives to the sentence meaning cannot be
subsumed under a single cover term. Different usages must be distinguished. In (1),
for example, the adjectives are used as manner adverbials. Their contribution to the
sentencemeaningconsistsinspecifyingthemannerinwhichtheactionsreferredtoby
theverbalpredicatearecarriedout. Examplesforotherusagesincludeadjectivesserv-
ing as mental attitude adverbials, cf. (2-a), or adjectives serving as frame adverbials,
cf. (2-b).
(2) a. Marthageht widerwilligzurSchule.
Marthagoes reluctantly to school
1
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
‘Marthagoestoschoolreluctantly.’
b. Wir wissen,daß wirtschaftlichdie USAden Krieggewonnenhaben.
We know, thateconomically the USAthe war won
‘Economically,theUnitedStateswonthewar.’
Roughly, mental attitude adverbials characterize the mental attitude of the agent of a
sentence, while frame adverbials limitthe domainin which the propositionexpressed
bytherestofthesentenceholds.
A singleadjectivemayhavedifferentadverbialusagesor differentadverbialread-
ings. An example is the adjective wirtschaftlich ‘economically’, which functions in
(2-b)asaframeadverbial,butmayalsoserveasamethod-orientedadverbial,cf. (3).
(3) Dieses Problem istnur wirtschaftlichzulo¨sen.
This problem is onlyeconomically to solve
‘Thisproblemcanonlybesolvedeconomically.’
Wirtschaftlich‘economically’in(3)specifiesasetofmethods,namelyeconomicmeth-
ods,withwhichtheproblemreferred tobythesubjectnounphrasecannotbesolved.
These different adverbial usages of adjectives interact with the syntactic position
oftheadjectives,cf. e.g. (4).
(4) a. Wirwissen,daß wirtschaftlichdie USAden Krieggewonnenhaben.
We know, thateconomically the USAthe war won
‘Economically,theUnitedStateswonthewar.’
b. *Wir ho¨rten,daß laut dieLeute nachHilfe gerufen haben.
We heard, thatloudly thepeople for help screamedhave
Thepositionbeforethesubjectispossiblefor theframe adverbialwirtschaftlich‘eco-
nomically’,butnotforthemanneradverbiallaut ‘loudly’.
These characteristics of adverbial adjectiveslead to the mainquestionstobe dealt
withinthiswork:
(a) Whatdifferentadverbialusagesofadjectivescanbedistinguished?
(b) Whichusagesare tiedtowhichsyntacticpositions?
(c) Howcandifferentusagesofadverbialadjectivesbeformallyanalyzed?
In pursuing answers to these questions, manner usages of adverbial adjectives, along
with other usages, referred to as associated readings, willstand at the centre of inves-
tigations. The reason for this is that the manner usage seems to be the core usage for
adverbialadjectives,althoughexactdefinitionsofwhatitmeanstobeamanneradver-
bial are difficultto find. In addition,the syntactic positioningof manner adverbialsin
German is the subject of some controversy, since it is unclear whether they are posi-
tionedbeforeorafterthedirectobject. Bytryingtogiveamoreadequatedefinitionof
manner adverbials and answering the question of their syntactic positioning, the im-
portanceofacleardescriptionofassociativereadingsbecomesimmediatelyapparent.
2