Invited Speakers

Peter Gallmann (Jena)

Genitiv und Wortgruppenflexion

Der Gebrauch des Genitivs wird im Deutschen von zwei interagierenden Faktoren bestimmt: von einer Sichtbarkeitsregel und von den Regeln der Wortgruppenflexion. Die Überlagerung dieser beiden Faktoren lässt sich als Genitivregel formulieren (Duden-Grammatik 2009: Randziffern 1534–1540). Im Vortrag wird zunächst die Genitivregel selbst etwas genauer betrachtet. Im Anschluss daran werden zwei Typen von Konstruktionen diskutiert: solche, bei denen die Genitivregel den beobachtbaren Sprachgebrauch richtig abzubilden scheint, und solche, bei denen die Genitivregel in irgendeiner Hinsicht falsche Voraussagen zu machen scheint. Zu den letzteren gehören bestimmte Konstruktionen, die von den Sprachbenutzern offensichtlich als korrekt angesehen werden, obwohl sie die Genitivregel verletzen, zum Beispiel pränominale Genitive von Eigennamen (zum Beispiel: Julias Vorschlag) oder Konstruktionen mit Präpositionen (zum Beispiel: trotz Kopfwehs). Und umgekehrt werden bestimmte Konstruktionen abgelehnt, obwohl die Genitivregel eingehalten wird, vor allem im pronominalen Bereich.

Alan Scott (Nottingham)

Genitive -s Omission in Modern German and Early Modern Dutch: A Contrastive Investigation into the Properties of Grammaticalisation in Progress

The attachment of the suffix -(e)s (henceforth -s)to singular masculine and neuter nouns occurring in the genitive case (1) is one of the last remnants of the attachment of case markers to the noun in Modern German.

(1) a. Was ist die URL unseres Chats? (Dortmunder Chatkorpus)

b. das ist aufgabe des staates (Dortmunder Chatkorpus)

The standard German norm requires masculine and neuter nouns to take the -s suffix in the genitive singular. Although the most recent Duden Richtiges und gutes Deutsch volume recognises that nouns often occur without -s when used as proper names, specialist terms or generically, only the variant with -s is in accordance with the norm (Duden 2011: 1007; but compare Duden 2005: 205-210). Permitted exceptions are the weak masculine nouns, which take the suffix -en in the genitive singular (e.g. des Bären), common nouns in certain specialist technical registers, and geographical names in a [determiner + adjective + noun] string, whereby -s-omission inthe latter is as acceptable as the -s-variant (Duden 2011: 383, 1004-1007).

Nonetheless, the omission of genitive -s, which is not a new phenomenon (2), is widespread in modern German, as shown by examples such as (3). The complexity of the prescribed rules for ­using the -s is known to lead to uncertainty among language users (Neubauer 2009: 168-169).

(2) das gleichwol die meinung des text ynn sich hat (Martin Luther, 1530, Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen)

(3) Kann man während eines Urlaubssemester seine Diplomarbeit abgeben? (Dortmunder Chatkorpus)

A comparative perspective is offered by studying the situation in 16^th-19^th century Dutch (egodocuments and written-for-publication sources), a period in which – similarly to present-day German – the written norm maintained morphological case marking while displaying evidence of the deflection which had more strongly affected the spoken language. Nonetheless, despite the ongoing weakening of case markers, -s-omitted examples such as (4) are relatively rare in Early Modern Dutch (compared to modern German).

(4) diend niet tot het leven des vleesch, maer tot het leven des geest tegen de kwaede lusten des vleesch (Marcus van Vaernewyck, 1574,De historie van Belgis)

The aims of this talk are twofold: on the one hand, within a Construction Grammar framework, and on the basis of quantified data from sources across the spectrum of conceptuality (journalism, spontaneous speech, social media) (cf. Koch & Oesterreicher 2007: 349), it sheds light on the structural and pragmatic nature of genitive -s omission in modern German, building on the information on structural factors provided by earlier studies of the phenomenon (Appel 1941; Shapiro 1941); furthermore, by considering genitive -s omission as an ongoing grammaticalisation phenomenon (involving the final “affix > Ø” stage on a cline such as that of Lass [2000: 223]), it studies the structural and pragmatic properties of grammaticalisation in progress. Additionally, there is evidence that, against expectations, the -s-less variant (i.e. the one that is furthest along the grammaticalisation cline) is more frequent in careful language use than in casual language use (Scott 2014: 255).

References:

Appel, Elsbeth. 1941. Vom Fehlen des Genitiv-s. München: Beck. Duden. 2005. Die Grammatik (7th edn.). Mannheim: Dudenverlag. Duden. 2011. Richtiges und gutes Deutsch (7th edn.). Mannheim: Dudenverlag. Koch, Peter & Wulf Oesterreicher. 2007. Schriftlichkeit und kommunikative Distanz. Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 35 (3). 346–375. Lass, Roger. 2000. Remarks on (uni)directionality. In Olga Fischer, Anette Rosenbach & Dieter Stein (eds.), Pathways of Change: Grammaticalization in English, 207–227. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Neubauer, Skadi. 2009. “Gewinkt oder gewunken – welche Variante ist richtig?” Tendenzen von Veränderungen im Sprachgebrauch aus Sicht der Sprachberatungsstelle der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Scott, Alan. K. 2014. The Genitive Case in Dutch and German: A Study of Morphosyntactic Change in Codified Languages. Leiden: Brill. Shapiro, Sophie. 1941. Genitive forms without -s in Early New High German. Language 17 (1). 53–57.

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Tanja Ackermann (FU Berlin)

Vom Genitiv zum Possessivmarker? – Adnominale Possessivkonstruktionen mit Eigennamen im Deutschen

Eigennamen verfügen im gegenwärtigen Deutsch verglichen mit den Appellativen über ein stark eingeschränktes Formeninventar, was die Duden-Grammatik (⁸2009:194) dazu veranlasst, ihren artikellosen Vertretern eine eigene Flexionsklasse einzuräumen: Sie weisen im „Genitiv Singular“ unabhängig vom Genus (Michaels/Michaelas Buch) und im Plural (mehrere Michaels waren da) den überstabilen Marker -s auf (vgl. Tabelle 1).

	Singular		Plural
	Eigennamen	Appellative	Eigennamen	Appellative
Nom.	-Ø	-Ø	-s	-(e)n /-e/-er/-s/...
Akk.	-Ø	-Ø	-s	-(e)n/-e/-er/-s/...
Dat.	-Ø	-Ø/(-e)	-s	-(e)n/-e/-er/-s/..(+n)
Gen.	-s	-(e)s/-en/-Ø	-s	-(e)n/-e/-er/-s/...

Tab. 1: Die Kasusmarkierung im Singular und Plural bei Eigennamen vs. Appellativen

Betrachtet man das einzige im Singular verbliebene Flexiv genauer, zeigt sich, dass der s-Marker bei Eigennamen nur in einer – traditionell als genitivisch angesehenen – Konstruktion frequent und genusübergreifend auftritt: den adnominalen Possessivkonstruktionen vom Typ 1a) und b).

(1) a. Jennifers Hund

b. der Hund Jennifers

Die Ergebnisse einer Korpusrecherche im Webkorpus DECOW2012 (Schäfer/Bildhauer 2012) zeigen, dass die Personennamen allen anderen Namentypen voran in „echten“ Genitivkonstruktionen zur Flexionslosigkeit neigen (vgl. 3-4):

(2) VERBAL: wir gedenken Paul

(3) ADPOSITIONAL: wegen Anna / Anna wegen

(4) POSTNOMINAL MIT DETERMINIERER: das Verschwinden des kleinen Michael

In meinem Vortrag diskutiere ich die Frage, ob es sich bei den traditionell als sächsischer Genitiv bezeichneten Konstruktionen (vgl. 1a) tatsächlich um Genitive handelt oder ob das -s – ähnlich dem englischen Gruppengenitiv (the Queen of England’s hat) – vom Flexiv zum klitischen Marker, der Possessivität anzeigt, reanalysiert wurde (vgl. Fuß 2011). Unter Heranziehung von Korpus- und Fragebogendaten soll der morphologische Status von -s analysiert und für eine voranschreitende Degrammatikalisierung vom Flexiv zum Klitikon argumentiert werden. Die vorgeschlagene Analyse zeigt somit, dass die Deflexion am Personennamen bereits weiter vorangeschritten ist, als bislang angenommen wurde.

Reference:

Duden. ⁸2009. Die Grammatik (Band 4). Mannheim (u.a.): Dudenverlag. Fuß, Eric. 2011. Eigennamen und adnominaler Genitiv im Deutschen. Linguistische Berichte 225. 19-42. Schäfer, Roland & Felix Bildhauer. 2012. Building large corpora from the web using a new efficient tool chain. In Proceedings of the LREC 2012, 20 – 27 May 2012, 486–493. Istanbul.

Hans C. Boas, Marc Pierce, Ryan Dux & T. Adams LaBorde (Austin)

The genitive in Texas German: Leveling, accommodation, and the influence of Standard German

This paper analyzes the functions of the genitive in present-day New Braunfels Texas German, a rapidly eroding new world dialect that is expected to go extinct within the next 30 years. The first part of the paper compares Eikel’s (1954) reported use of the genitive in Texas German with those of Standard German. These uses include the adverbial genitive (e.g. Sonntags, nachts, des Abends), the genitive with certain prepositions (e.g. wegen, während, unterhalb, statt), the descriptive genitive (e.g., die Arbeit eines ganzen Jahres), the partitive genitive (e.g. die Hälfte meines Eigentums), the genitive of material or composition (e.g. Er hat eine lange Reihe blühender Pfirsichbäume), the genitive of origin (e.g. die Kinder dieser Frau), and the possessive genitive (e.g. Dies ist der Schreibtisch meines Grossvaters). The use of genitive leads Eikel (1954: 50) to conclude that the “adverbial genitive is an integral part of New Braunfels German, as in Standard German.”

Part two of the paper presents the methodology underlying the Texas German Dialect Project (TGDP) (http://www.tgdp.org) (Boas et al. 2010), which has recorded more than 440 speakers of Texas German over the past 13 years. More specifically, it addresses the different types of data elicited from informants, and shows how these can be compared and contrasted with earlier recordings underlying the studies of Eikel (1954) and Gilbert (1972).

Part three presents the results of data elicitations by members of the TGDP with more than 60 present-day speakers of New Braunfels Texas German. Using the same questionnaire used by Eikel in the 1940s for his (1954) study, field workers elicited more than 15 sentences for which Eikel (1954) reported use of the genitive. A comparison of the present-day data with Eikel’s (1954) data shows that the genitive has essentially disappeared, except for a few phrases such as Sonntags and nachts. Additional data from the transcripts of open-ended oral history interviews with the same speakers confirm the loss of the genitive. Instead of using genitive markers, most speakers today employ an accusative case marker or a nominative case marker.

Part four addresses the factors influencing this development. First, we discuss the role of the different donor dialects brought from Germany to Texas in the 1840s. We show that not all donor dialects brought to Texas had the genitive in all contexts, and early evidence from immigrant letters suggest first leveling effects in the late 19^th century. Second, we review the influence of Standard German as a prestige variety on the emerging Texas German dialect of the early 20^th century. Third, we discuss both internal factors (loss of genitive in other German dialects) and external factors (language contact with English) to determine their role in the loss of the genitive.

References:

Boas, H.C. 2009. The life and death of Texas German. Durham: Duke University Press. Boas, Hans, C., Marc Pierce, Karen Roesch, Guido Halder & Hunter Weilbacher. 2010. The Texas German Dialect Archive: A Multimedia Resource for Research, Teaching, and Outreach. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 22.3. 277–296. Eikel, F. 1954. New Braunfels German. Manuscript. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University. Gilbert, G. 1972. A linguistic atlas of Texas German. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Kurt Braunmüller (Hamburg)

On Possession in Germanic

Possession in today’s Germanic languages seems to be one of the most complex grammatical phenomena. Possession can be expressed with genitives, both nominal and pronominal, which tend, however, to vanish in colloquial registers and become replaced by periphrastic prepositional constructions. Fossilised genitives predominantly occur only with very few prepositional expressions (e.g. Swedish till sjöss) but they are productive with either the un­marked/oblique/non-genitive case as in the Main­land Scandinavian languages or with the accusative, as often in Faroese.

Third person possessive pronouns in North Germanic distinguish not only between [±reflexive], like Latin between su-us/-a/-um vs. eius ‘his, her, its’. But non-reflexive possessives may in some occurrences become opaque with respect to referentiality, as is default in all West Germanic varieties, but here due to certain syntactic constraints, where the non-reflexive hans-forms may represent reflexivity as well. But their factual use vacillates considerably, partly depending on the amount of syntactic complexity, partly, and to a higher degree, on the awareness of grammatical norms learned at school.

Moreover, possession can also become morphologically realised as datives (benefactives), and may in Insular Scandinavian languages also be expressed by the local preposition hjá ‘at’, as far as nouns representing persons/ani­mates are concerned (Faroese: fótin_definite hjá mér ‘my foot’). In addition to that, Faroese has a unique postposed, almost cliticised particle sa, which functions largely parallel to the clitic‘s in English. It also permits group genitives.

Most of these instances are common in all Germanic languages but vary in their representations, except dative possessive constructions, which originally seem to be restricted to West Germanic languages only, but became introduced to the Mainland Scandinavian languages due to intense language contact with Low German during the era of the Hanseatic language (Nor­we­gian: Olav sin bil ‘Olav’s car’; cf. also southern German vernaculars: dem Olav sein Auto). On top of that, the position of the genitives, the possessive pronouns and the prepositions governing the genitive may vary (pre-/postposed, almost exclusively in the North Germanic languages: Swedish hans bil ‘his car’ vs. Norwegian bilen hans ‘his car_defínite’; in Faroese, however, both positions are possible).

In my presentation I will give a survey of the complexity of the representations of possession in Germanic and highlight the idiosyncracies to be observed. Moreover, arguments will be presented to make plausible why genitives are fading out, become restricted to certain constructions only (e.g. proper nouns referring to persons, such as Peter’s car) or are replaced by datives (cf. colloquial German wegen dem schö­nen Wetter ‘because of the fine weather’ and dem Vater sein Hut ‘father’s hat’). One of the arguments is based on the still on-going reduction of the case systems in all Germanic languages (cf. German ich habe den PräsidentÆ [< -en] gesehen ‘I have seen the president’, loss of the -e in the genitive and dative singular, respectively: des TextÆs_genitive ‘of the text’, im WaldÆ_dative sein ‘to be in the forest’) and the ambiguity of the semantics of genitive constructions. Analytic, i.e. periphrastic, constructions result in more transparency.

Tijs D'Hulster Liisa Buelens (Ghent)

On the edge of acceptability: The Flemish External Possessor

DP-internal expression of possession in Flemish is one of the only domains in which a morphological genitive form still productively appears (1a). It is also not the only syntactic pattern available for the possessive DP: it competes with a postnominal prepositional possessor (van-PP) (1b) and a prenominal periphrastic possessor construction (Hendriks 2010) (1c).

(1) a. Oma’s fiets pronominal ‘s genitive

Gran.GEN bicycle

b. de fiets van Oma postnominal van-PP

the bicycle of Gran

c. Oma haar fiets PPPC

Gran her.F.SG. bicycle

‘Gran’s bicycle’

Aditionally, we find a fourth structure of nominal possession in the regiolects of Flanders in which the possessor is located outside the possessee DP (2). This Flemish External Possessor pattern involves a higher DP (Oma) intepreted as the possessor of the lower DP (eur velo) and which is argued to be outside of the possessee DP as can been seen by the intervening adverbial (toen juste) (see Haegeman & Van Koppen 2011, Haegeman & Danckaert 2011a, 2011b; see also Deal 2011, 2013a, 2013b).

(2) ’t Moest lukken dat [Oma] toen juste [eure velo] kapot was.

it had-to happen that Gran then just her bicycle broken was

‘It so happened that Gran’s bicycle was broken just then.’

This external possessor structure, in contrast to the internal possessor structures above, does not allow for the same paradigmatic competition with the genitive. Instead, only the PPPC is possible as underlying the structure.

Furthermore, in the FEP pattern, the possessor has the added interpretation of being affected by the event expressed in the lower part of the clause. A test for affectedness is whether the possessor needs to be alive for the sentence to be acceptable or not (Hole 2006). The Flemish external possessor cannot be dead, unlike the Flemish internal possessors: (1) is acceptable whether the grandmother is alive or dead, (2) is acceptable only when she is alive.

As part of the research on the expression of possession in Flemish, we set up a magnitude estimation experiment focusing on how acceptable the FEP was in comparison with the other internal possession patterns (1) and on whether there was regional variation in the acceptability. The hypothesis was that the pattern would be accepted in West-Flanders and rejected in Antwerp and that overall it would be degraded in comparison to the internal possession. By including the three different paradigmatically competing internal possession patterns, we could also test the acceptability of the genitive in particular although this was not the focus of our research. This study showed that while on average the pattern is, as expected, degraded and accepted by more speakers from West-Flanders than from Antwerp, there still emerged a considerable amount of speaker variation. The genitive was found to be as acceptable as the postnominal van-PP and the PPPC, which is considerably more acceptable than the FEP. It thus seems that the genitive is still strongly present in the internal unaffected possession patterns, but is not available as a competing alternative for the affected Flemish external possessor pattern.

References:

Deal, Amy Rose. 2011. Possessor raising, Harvard University. Deal, Amy Rose. 2013a. External Possession and Possessor Raising. To appear in M. Everaert & H. van Riemsdijk (ed.), The Companion to Syntax., Wiley-Blackwell. Deal, Amy Rose. 2013b. Possessor Raising. Linguistic Inquiry 44(3). 391–432. Haegeman, Liliane & Lieven Danckaert. 2011a. Adding positions: External possessors in (West) Flemish. CASTL - State of the Sequence 2. Tromsø. Haegeman, Liliane & Lieven Danckaert. 2011b. Multiple subjects in Flemish: the external possessor. To appear. Belfast Working Papers in Linguistics. Haegeman, Liliane, & Marjo van Koppen. 2012. Complementizer agreement and the relation between C° and T°. Linguistic Inquiry 43. 441–454. Hendriks, Jennifer. 2010. Prenominal possessor doubling constructions in (West) Germanic: reassessing the evidence for grammaticalisation. In Rachel Hendery & Jennifer Hendriks (eds.), Grammatical Change: theory and description, 27–48. Pacific Linguistics, Canberra. Hole, Daniel. 2006. Extra argumentality - affectees, landmarks, and voice. Linguistics 44. 383–424.

Caroline Döhmer (Luxembourg)

Die Kategorisierung des Genitivs im Luxemburgischen. Aktuelle Belege und terminologische Überlegungen

Der Genitiv zeigt sich im Luxemburgischen in unterschiedlicher Gestalt. Trotz eines reduzierten Kasus-Systems ([nominativ/akkusativ] und [dativ]) verfügt diese westgermanische Sprache über zahlreiche fossilierte Genitivformen wie etwa hautdesdaags ‘heutzutage’ oder Zäit senges Liewens ‘Zeit seines Lebens’. Auch die im Luxemburgischen stark verbreiteten Partitivformen basieren auf einem historischen Genitiv, sodass auch hier nach einer adäquaten (synchronen) Kategorisierung gesucht werden muss. Je nach Art des Referenten (Zählbarkeit, Genus) stehen die Varianten där/der (a)sowie däers/es (b) zur Verfügung, wobei jede Variante der Partitivpronomen über eine Voll- sowie eine reduzierte Form verfügt. Als Pronomen sind die reduzierten Varianten geläufiger, in der Rolle als Indefinit-Partitiv-Artikel (c + d) hingegen stehen nur die Vollformen zur Verfügung.

a) Mir hunn där/der genuch => Bsp. Mëllech ‘Milch’ (nicht-zählbar, Fem.)

=> Bsp. Äppel ‘Äpfel’ (zählbar, Plural, Mask.)

b) Mir hunn däers/es genuch => Bsp. Téi ‘Tee’ (nicht-zählbar, Mask.)

=> Bsp. Gestreits ‘Streiterei’ (nicht-zählbar, Neutr.)

wir haben pro^part genug

‘wir haben davon genug’

c) Hu mer nach där Äppel?

haben wir noch det^part Äpfel

‘Haben wir noch welche von diesen Äpfeln?’

d) Hu mer nach däers Téi?

haben wir noch det^partTee

‘Haben wir noch etwas von diesem Tee?’

Derzeit treten verstärkt produktive Genitivformen auf (sech enges Delikts schëlleg maachen ‘sich eines Delikts schuldig machen’; innerhalb Europas ‘innerhalb Europas’). Durch die starke Ausdehnung des Luxemburgischen auf den Schriftbereich (Online-Journalismus, Internetkommunikation) entstehen neben den neuen Textsorten auch neue Konstruktionsmuster. Obwohl es sich um Einzelbelege handelt, kann man an dieser Stelle die Frage aufwerfen, welchen Status dieser Kasus im Luxemburgischen (wieder) einnimmt und welchen Einfluss der Kontakt zum Standarddeutschen auf diese Entwicklung ausübt.

Genitivattribute (das Ende des Kapitels) oder Genitivobjekte (ich bin mir dessen nicht sicher) sind für das Luxemburgische äußerst untypisch. Ähnlich wie in deutschen Dialekten mit Genitivschwund greift auch das Luxemburgische auf unterschiedliche Konstruktionen zurück, wie etwa Dativ- oder Präpositionalphrasen. Der in diesem Zusammenhang oft verwendete Terminus der „Ersatzkonstruktion für Phänomen XY“ ist jedoch keine geeignete Bezeichnung, da hier nichts „ersetzt“ wird, sondern das Phänomen XY genuin mit einer anderen zur Verfügung stehenden Konstruktion umgesetzt wird.

Neben den zuvor erwähnten Dativ-NP- und PP-Konstruktionen finden sich im Luxemburgischen mittlerweile auch Belege für koexistierende Genitiv-NPs. Beim Verb iwwerféieren ‘überführen’ liegen drei verschiedene Arten der Verbergänzung vor: e) NP im Dativ, f) NP im Genitiv, g) PP mit wéngst ‘wegen’.

e) dem Doping iwwerfouert

f) des Doping iwwerfouert

g) wéngst Doping iwwerfouert

In diesem Zusammenhang tun sich mehrere Fragen auf:

- In welchen funktionalen Kontexten wird Genitiv verwendet?

- Ist die Genitivverwendung textsortengesteuert?

- Wie sind die Produktivität und der phraseologische bzw. historische Status des Genitivs einzuschätzen?

- Wie sind die Partitivpronomen zu bewerten? Können diese noch als Genitive kategorisiert werden?

Die Datengrundlage für die vorliegende Kasusanalyse basiert auf unterschiedlichen (mündlichen und schriftlichen) Textsorten und greift auf ein umfassendes Korpus zurück (ca. 89 Mio. Wortformen). Hierdurch können diverse Ansätze mit zahlreichen Beispielen belegt und abgeglichen werden.

Jarich Hoekstra (Kiel)

Frisian Genitives

Considering the fact that for most people Frisian will be something of a blind spot on the map of the Germania, I will try to give a broad outline of the development of the genitive in Frisian from Old Frisian to the modern Frisian dialects. I will focus on those aspects of the genitive in Frisian that might be interesting from a comparative Germanic and a theoretical point of view.

In Old Frisian, as in other Old Germanic languages, the choice of the genitive ending depended on the declination class: strong nouns selected the singular genitive ending -(e)s and weak nouns took the ending -a. The plural ending was -a for strong nouns and -ena for weak nouns. The collapse of the Old Frisian case system at the end of the Middle Ages lead to various processes of reanalysis of the former genitive endings and genitive-marked noun phrases in the modern dialects. In my talk I will discuss some of these, mainly from West Frisian and North Frisian dialects.

With the disappearance of the declination classes the morphological trigger for the distribution of the former strong and weak genitive endings was lost and - as far as the endings survived at all - their distribution was rearranged according phonological principles. I will illustrate this in a discussion of spouse name formation in West Frisian (Ruerde Boukje 'Boukje wife of Ruerd) and patronym formation in Fering-Öömrang (North Frisian) (Negels Rörden 'Negels son of Rörd'). A special case is represented by the so-called genitive compounds in West Frisian, a more or less productive lexical pattern, deriving from former noun phrases with a prenominal genitive (kokensdoar 'door of the kitchen', tsjerketoer 'tower of the church').

The former prenominal genitive was partly reanalyzed as a complex determiner basically restricted to proper names (Terpstra's fammen 'the daughters of Terpstra'). In West Frisian the genitive of family names could be reanalyzed as a modifier (de Terpstra's fammen 'the Terpstra sisters').

The above cases continue the possessive function of the former genitive, broadly speaking, but the genitive could have other functions as well. These are also partly reflected in some modern uses of the genitive endings. The partitive function of the genitive lead to the use of the genitive ending as a countability marker in Fering-Öömrang (marig 'sausage' - marigs 'cold cuts'). In West Frisian the adverbial function of the genitive lead to the dual use of the genitive ending as a temporal adverb marker (jûns 'every evening') and a distributivity marker (trije kear wyks 'three times a week').

Apart from these 'natural' developments, some aspects of the use of the genitive reflect literary or purist tendencies. West Frisian has developed a standard language, which has cultivated certain features not or not generally found in the common spoken language. I will discuss this with respect to the use of the genitive plural ending -ene in West Frisian (minskene libben 'human live').

References:

Hoekstra, Jarich.1989. Bywurden fan tiid op -s. Tydskrift foar Fryske Taalkun­de 5. 1–32. Hoekstra, Jarich. 1995. Ta de ûntjouwing fan ‘e genityf yn it Fering-Öömrang. Us Wurk 44. 69–108. Hoekstra, Jarich. 2003. Genitive Compounds in Frisian as Lexical Phrases. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 6. 227–259. Hoekstra, Jarich. 2006. Uwz âde Friez’ne tonge, de Halbertsma’s jonges en andere genitiefconstructies in het Fries. Taal & Tongval (Themanummer 19: Het morfologisch landschap van het Nederlands). 96–114. Hoekstra, Jarich. 2011. Meervoudsvorming in het Westerlauwers Fries en het Nederlands (en patroniemvorming in het Noord-Fries). Taal & Tongval 63. 281–301.

Kerstin Hoge (Oxford)

A Genitive Analysis of Yiddish Possessives

While Yiddish grammars make no mention of the genitive, describing a tripartite case system which distinguishes between nominative, accusative and dative, Yiddish possessor phrases show what at least at first sight looks like a genitive marker derived from the German stock language. Thus, as illustrated in (1a), in possessive noun phrases in which a human possessor precedes the possessum, the possessor must be marked with -s, just like in German (cf. (1b)).

(1) a. Reyzele-s briv

‘Reyzele’s letter’

b. German

Rosa-s Brief

‘Rosa’s letter’

However, in Yiddish possessives with (human) definite possessor phrases, the possessive marker -soccurs on a noun phrase that is unambiguously marked as dative on the determiner and, where possible, the noun, e.g. (2).

(2) dem reb-n-s nign

the-DAT rabbi-DAT-POSS melody

‘the rabbi’s melody’

The construction resembles prenominal possessor constructions in Alemannic varieties of German, e.g. (3), which Weiß (2008: 386) analyses as ‘presumably no longer genitive, but [involving] a possessive marker and a phrasal clitic which attaches onto the possessor-DP case-marked for dative’.

(3) Fribourg German

dum tokxter-s wägeli (Schirmunski 1962, p. 435)

the-DAT doctor-POSS coach

Weiß’s analysis of Fribourg German -sas a phrasal clitic thus corresponds to the generative account for the English Saxon genitive (e.g. the rabbi’s melody), where possessive ‘sis assumed to be a Spell-Out of the syntactic category D(eterminer), cliticising onto the left-adjacent possessor phrase in the specifier position of DP (see, for example, Radford 2000).

But for Yiddish, an analysis in which the possessive marker is Merged in the head of DP appears to be untenable, given that the Yiddish possessive marker (i) does not exclude the presence of an indefinite determiner (cf. (4)), (ii) cannot combine with a complex possessor phrase (cf. (5)), and (iii) is also found with pronominal possessors (cf. (6)).

(4) dem reb-n-s a nign

the-DAT rabbi-DAT-POSS a melody

‘one of the rabbi’s melodies’

(5) *dem rebn in kheyders a nign

the-DAT rabbi-DAT in school-POSS a melody

(6) mayns a lerer

my- POSS a teacher

‘one of my teachers’

The present paper proposes an alternative analysis of the Yiddish prenominal possessor construction, in which -s is not a clitic or phrasal affix originating in D, but a case suffix that marks possessive noun phrases as genitive. The proposal makes use of a nanosyntactic understanding of case (Caha 2010), suggesting that the expression of the genitive case in Yiddish includes the dative marker as its proper part. The common conception that Yiddish lacks genitive case is argued to reflect the widespread syncretism between dative and genitive, which characterises Yiddish .

References:

Caha, Pavel. 2010. The parameters of case marking and spell out driven movement. Linguistic Variation Yearbook 10. 33–78. Radford, Andrew. 2000. NP shells. Essex Research Reports in Linguistics 33. 2–20. Schirmunski, V. M. 1962. Deutsche Mundartkunde: Vergleichende Laut- und Formenlehre der deutschen Mundarten. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Weiß, Helmut. 2008. The possessor that appears twice: Variation, structure and function of possessive doubling in German. In Sjef Barbiers, Olaf Koeneman, Marika Lekakou & Margreet van der Ham (eds.), Microvariation in syntactic doubling, 381–401. Leiden: Brill.

Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson & Þórhallur Eyþórsson (Reykjavík)

The fate of genitive case in Insular Scandinavian

In this paper we will examine the fate of genitive case in two closely related languages, Modern Icelandic and Modern Faroese. The basic facts are fairly well documented and can be summarized as follows: While the genitive case inherited from Old Norse has lost some ground in Icelandic with verbal arguments (Jónsson and Eythórsson 2011), it has been largely replaced by other cases or different structures (PPs, clitics) in Faroese and is no longer used as a case with verbal arguments (Thráinsson et al. 2004/2012). In our view, the contrasts and similarities between Icelandic and Faroese in the diachrony of the genitive must be understood against a wider set of data concerning variation and change in Insular Scandinavian morphosyntax (see e.g. Svavarsdóttir 1982, Eythórsson & Jónsson 2003, and Jónsson & Eythórsson 2003, 2005). In addition, we will also consider comparative evidence from North American Icelandic, Mainland Scandinavian dialects which preserve dative case, as well as German.

The null hypothesis must be that genitive is replaced by the unmarked case in the relevant syntactic environment and we will argue that this is generally confirmed. Thus, genitive is replaced by nominative with objects of verbs taking dative subjects in Icelandic, as this is the regular object case for such verbs (cf. the verb batna ‘recover from’). By contrast, with verbs taking nominative subjects, genitive is replaced by accusative in both Icelandic and Faroese. In some cases, it appears that genitive objects in Faroese were first replaced by dative.

The Faroese genitive is systematically replaced by accusative with non-pronominal objects of prepositions, while the genitive is still preserved with pronominal objects of prepositions (til hansara to him.GEN vs. til skúlan to the-school.ACC’). It is quite striking that objects of prepositions have changed from genitive to accusative rather than dative, since dative is widely used with objects of prepositions in Faroese. It may play a role here that the dative has disappeared in many other contexts in Faroese, e.g. with direct objects of many verbs (see Jónsson 2009 for examples and discussion).

The genitive is not always replaced by another case but rather by another structure. With verbs that are low in transitivity, PPs have occasionally been substituted for genitive objects. This can be seen in Icelandic as well as in Faroese (cf. the verb bíða ‘wait for’ in both languages). The two languages differ, however, in that possessive genitives are well preserved in Icelandic but have been widely lost in favor of PPs in Faroese. Interestingly, with personal names and kinship terms a new possessive phrasal clitic (-sa) has emerged in Faroese to take the place of the old possessive genitive (see Thráinsson et al. 2004/2012:64-65).

Julia Kolkmann (Manchester) & Ingrid Lossius Falkum (Oslo)

Genitive semantics revisited: the case of English pre-nominal possessives

English pre-nominal possessiveconstructionsof the type John’s book are interesting from a semantic point of view in that they display seemingly infinite interpretive flexibility (John’s book could refer to the book he owns/dreamt about/gave to his sister/etc.) whilst receiving a very small number of out of contextinterpretations (‘the book John read/wrote’). These tendencies have led theorists to explain theirsemantics in terms of systematic polysemy (Nikiforidou 1991) and prototypicality (Taylor 1996) on the one hand, and as an instance of linguistic underdeterminacy where the respective relation between the modifier and the head noun isderived contextually (Kempson 1977, Sperber and Wilson 1986/1995) on the other.

In this talk, we explore the question of a genitive semantics by asking what the locus of the genitive relation is: is it provided by context (given a suitably broad delineation), does it come from the semantics of the respective head noun, or do we need to appeal to both in order to give an adequate account of possessive interpretations to reflect their apparent variability? By exploring the relative contribution of a) the genitive marker, b) the head noun and c) the context we believe it is possible to draw conclusions regarding the semantics of the pre-nominal genitiveconstruction itself.

In order to gain a better understanding ofgenitive relations, we conducted a corpus analysis of 300 genitive phrases extracted from the British National Corpus which were analysed in terms of how much contextual explication the relation received, whether the head noun was relational or non-relational (cf. e.g. Barker 1995), and several other factors. We found that the genitive relation was frequently spelled out in the linguistic context of the utterancein the case of non-relational nouns, and less commonly in the case of relational nouns. Contra accounts which favour explanations in terms of default interpretations that originate from the semantics of the noun (cf. Vikner & Jensen 2002), we develop a positive account of pre-nominal possessives based on what we will call ‘head noun pragmatics’, where salient relations are derived mainly by pragmatic means.

Semantically, a possessive phrase N’s N contributes a ‘control’ relation, which is sufficiently general so as to be compatible with all the possible ways in which N₁ could be seen as ‘controlling’ N₂. The contextually appropriate reading is computed on the basis of accessible encyclopaedic or situational knowledge, canonically made available by N₂, but may stem from a variety of sources. This approach has the advantage of accounting not only for clearly context-dependent cases but also for readily available interpretations in low-information contexts. Further, it accounts for how communication may succeed even though hearers may differ in the exact possessive relation they compute on a given occasion (e.g., ‘Jane’s paper’ could be represented as ‘the paper Jane brought along this morning’, ‘the paper Jane was just holding in her hand’, etc.), with the semantics of control remaining stable across different uses.

References:

Barker, C. 1995. Possessive Descriptions. CSLI Publications. Kempson, R. 1977. Semantic theory. Cambridge University Press. Nikiforidou, K. 1991. The meanings of the genitive: A case study in semantic structure and semantic change. Cognitive Linguistics 2(2). 149–205. Sperber, D. & D. Wilson. 1986/1995. Relevance. Communication and Cognition. Blackwell. Taylor, J. R. 1996. Possessives in English: An exploration in cognitive grammar. Oxford University Press. Vikner, C. & P. A. Jensen. 2002. A semantic analysis of the English genitive.Interaction of lexical and formal semantics. Studia Linguistica 56. 191–226.

Kristin Kopf (Mainz)

an des reichs rat and bey dem reichs rat: From genitive suffix to linking element

About 42% of nominal compounds in contemporary German make use of linking elements (Kürschner 2003:105), most of which can be traced back diachronically to genitive morphemes (cf. Pavlov 1983, Nitta 1987, Demske 2001). Due to the frequent preposing of genitive attributes in Early New High German (1350–1600), reanalysis of a genitive attribute and its head lead to a new, compound-like structure:

des Leib-s Erbe-n > die Leib- s- erbe-n ‘legitimate heirs’

DEF.GEN.SG body-GEN heir-PL DEF.NOM.PL body LE heir-PL

By analogy, these fossilized genitive suffixes spread to new formations as well as existing compounds in which a former inflectional origin is no longer indicated due to specific morphological or semantic properties (Infectionszeit ‘infection-LE-time’, bauersmann ‘farmer-LE-man’). This resulted in a new pattern of compounding.

In this paper I will address the following questions:

1. How does this change tie in with the increasing postposition of genitive attributes in Early New High German?
2. Which genitive constructions lent themselves formally and semantically to reanalysis?
3. Did properties of the case marker persist in the new compounds and, if yes, for how long?

The study is based on data from a corpus of Early New High German and New High German consisting of texts from 1500 to 1710. It is a strongly modified version of the Bergmann & Nerius (1996) corpus. The corpus is divided in 8 periods, 5 regions and two text types, making a detailed analysis of a changing system possible.

References:

Bergmann, Rolf & Dieter Nerius. eds., 1996. Die Entwicklung der Großschreibung im Deutschen von 1500 bis 1700. Heidelberg. Demske, Ulrike. 2001. Merkmale und Relationen. Diachrone Studien zur Nominalphrase des Deutschen. Berlin & New York. Kürschner, Sebastian. 2003. Von Volk-s-musik und Sport-Ø-geist im Lemming-Ø-land – af folk-e-musik og sport-s-ånd i lemming-e-landet: Fugenelemente im Deutschen und Dänischen – eine kontrastive Studie zu einem Grenzfall der Morphologie. MA thesis, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. Nitta, Haruo. 1987. Zur Erforschung der 'uneigentlichen' Zusammensetzungen im Frühneuhochdeutschen. ZfdPh 106. 400–416. Pavlov, Vladimir M. 1983. Von der Wortgruppe zur substantivischen Zusammensetzung. Zur Ausbildung der Norm der deutschen Literatursprache (1470–1730), Vol. 4. Berlin.

Simone Peschke (Mainz)

Family names vs. place names. How semantic roles influence the pre- and postnominal positioning of genitive attributes

The diachronic development of German demonstrates that in Old High German genitive attributes generally and with few exceptions were in prenominal position regardless their semantics (in tuomes tage "on justice’s (gen.) day" 'on the day of justice' Isidor 29,8 quoted from Carr 1933:467). Over time, however, they shifted to the postnominal position adjacent to their head NP (der Dresscode der UBS-Bank 'the dresscode of the UBS-Bank'). Starting with the unanimated appellatives (vnnd ryt hin zuo der porten des tempels 'and rode towards the door of the temple' quoted from Demske 2000:216) followed by abstract nouns (hail der seel 'salvation of the soul' quoted from Ebert 1988:38), the last group fulfilling this change is the animated and especially the personal nouns (durch bewilligung der dreyer fursten "through the approval of the three sovereigns" 'through the three sovereign’s approval' quoted from Ebert 1988:37). In 1700 it is more or less completed. Thus, it becomes evident that this change is regulated by the semantic categories animacy, concreteness and countability as well as definiteness, but also by formal criteria such as length and complexity of the attributive genitive (Carr 1933, Demske 2001, Wagner 1905). With a few exceptions like certain collocations and fixed expressions (auf Messers Schneide 'on knife’s edge') this change follows through very strictly, so it is surprising that one category until today withstands this otherwise completed syntactic repositioning: proper nouns. In New High German the genitive of names can still be positioned before its head (Lauras Buch 'Laura’s book'), although as previous studies have shown, there are some criteria which lead to postpositioning, e.g. inanimate classes of proper nouns such as names of places (die Teilung Berlins 'the division of Berlin'), the complexity of names, i.e. names that consist of several parts like first- and surname (die Amtszeit Helmut Kohls 'Helmut Kohl’s mandate'), as well as the animacy of the head noun (Eisenberg/Smith 2002, Kubczak 2011, Peschke 2012). In the end it seems this persistence of names in prenominal position is amongst other criteria due to their high animacy and thus building a subclass of substantives that follows its own grammatical rules resisting an otherwise very uniform system. My new corpus based study follows up on the aforementioned tendency that place names appear prenominal when their head noun is animate and postnominal if it is inanimate (Berlins Bürgermeister "Berlin's mayor" 'the mayor of Berlin' vs. die Teilung Berlins 'the division of Berlin'). An effect that was very obvious within the group of place names but less notable in the group of family and other animate names. In this study, which is part of my dissertation, I analyse the context of the genitive attributes and their head nouns, because first spot test indicate it is not only the animacy of the head noun but also the semantic role of the same that influence the syntactic position of the genitive attributes with proper names. So the theses this paper focuses on are:

1. Agent or agentalike roles (Primus 2012) of the head NP correlate with prenominal (onymic) genitive attributes.
2. Non agent roles of the head NP correlate with postnominal (onymic) genitive attributes.
3. The animacy of proper nouns as an influencing factor is ranked higher than the semantic roles so inanimate names will be influenced more than animate names (here only names of persons).

References:

Carr, C. T..1933. The Position of the Genitive in German. The Modern Language Review 28/4. 465–479. Demske, U. 2001. Merkmale und Relationen. Berlin & New York. Ebert, R. P. 1988. Variation in the position of the Attributive Genitive in Sixteenth Century German. Monatshefte 80.1. 32–49. Eisenberg, P. & G. Smith. 2002. Der einfache Genitiv. Eigennamen als Attribute. In C. Peschel (ed.), Grammatik und Grammatikvermittlung, 113-126. Frankfurt. Kubczak, J. 2011 Vaters Hut und des Vaters Hut, Mutters Arbeit und der Mutter Arbeit - Vorgelagerte (pränominale) Genitive. Sprachreport 1, 2011. 14–17. Peschke, S. 2012. Merkels Politik vs. die Politik Merkels. Eine korpusbasierte Untersuchung zur Konditionierung der Prä- und Poststellung von Eigennamen im Genitiv. Magisterarbeit, Mainz. Primus, B. 2012. Semantische Rollen. Heidelberg.

Hjalmar P. Petersen (Faroe Islands) & Renata Szczepaniak (Hamburg)

The decline of the synthetic genitive and the grammaticalization of prepositional phrases as possessive constructions in Faroese

Unlike most other Germanic languages, Faroese has lost the synthetic genitive (almost) completely. In our talk, we will first outline the decline of the genitive as a verbal and prepositional case as well as its decline in the attributive use. In the second part of the talk, we will focus on constructions replacing the genitive and the grammaticalization of the preposition hjá 'by, beside' as a possessive marker.

While the synthetic genitive is almost out of use in contemporary Faroese, its productiveness is documented in the Faroese Ballads (kvæði), orally transmitted balladry originating from 14^th to 17^th century:

1) Today, there are no verbs at all governing genitive case, while in the Ballad Language verbs like bíða 'wait', hevna 'revenge', njóta 'enjoy' and vænta 'expect' still governed the genitive, e.g.

bíðaði hon mín

waited she-NOM.SG me-GEN.SG

'she waited for me'

(Brynhildartáttur, CCF 1, verse 88)

In contemporary Faroese, verbal genitive has been replaced by the dative or the accusative, e.g. bíða eftir mær 'wait for me-DAT' or bíða mær 'wait me-DAT' instead of bíða mín 'wait mine-GEN'.

2) Today the genitive as a prepositional case is limited to four prepositions: til 'to', (í)millum 'between', innan 'within' and uttan 'outside', where it alternates with the accusative. In written Faroese, the prepositions til and (í)millum still show a tendency to take the genitive of personal pronouns, which, however, tends to be replaced by the accusative in spoken language, e.g. til hann 'to him-ACC' instead of til hansara 'to him-GEN'. Similarly, the tendency towards the genitive of undetermined nouns in contrast to the accusative of determined nouns, can only be observed in written language (Hamre 1961).

3) Genitive attributes are no longer in use either, except with fixed expressions like ársins tíð ("year-GEN.SG. time-NOM.SG") 'time of the year'. Phrases with (preponed) adnominal genitives are documented in the Ballad Language, e.g. kongjins land ("king-GEN land-NOM") 'the kings land' (Barnes 1978). Note however that the regularly formed form should be kong+s+in+s 'king-GEN.SG.-DEF.-GEN.SG'. The successive decline of the attributive genitive was decisive for the dissociation process of linking elements (Petersen/Szczepaniak to appear).

In contemporary Faroese, genitive relations can be expressed in various ways by partly competing constructions of varying functional scope (Thráinsson et al. 2004). 1) The phrasal (clitic-like) possessive marker -sa, limited to possessivity, is said to be used only with possessors which are referred to by proper names or kinship terms (mammusa bilur 'mom's car', Turiðsa súkkla ' Turið's bicicle'); 2) an adnominal accusative expresses only family relationships (mamma gentuna 'the girl's mom', mamma Jógvan (Akk.) 'Jógvan's mom'; 3) the prepositional construction X av Y is used for genitivus obiectivus (leiðslan av seminarinum 'leading of the workshop', hertøkan av Russlandi 'the occupation of Russia'); 4) the prepositional construction X hjá Y – for genitivus subiectivus (arbeiðið hjá lærarinnuni 'the teacher's work', hertøkan hjá Russlandi (av Ukraine) 'Russia's occupation (of the Ukraine)'; and finally 5) a set of partly competing prepositional constructions X PREP Y 'Y's X' is used to express possessivity in a wider sense (the have- and the belong to-relation), however the usage of the prepositions hjá, á, at and í is "notoriously idiosyncratic" (Thráinsson et al. 2004: 62) due to the ongoing grammaticalization and specialization of the originally local prepositions (hjá 'by, beside', á 'on', at 'to' and í 'in'). In this paper, we focus on the grammaticalization of hjá, which can be used with full nouns and names (húsini hjá gentuni 'the girl's house', húsini hjá Turið 'Turið's house') as well as with personal pronouns, e.g. húsini hjá mær instead of hús míni. In spoken Faroese, hjá is expanding on new contexts denoting inalienable possession of body parts, e.g. hárið hjá mær 'my hair'. Based on the Faroese Ballads, we will try to reconstruct the contexts of the grammaticalization of hjá and correlate it with the use of other possessive constructions, including the synthetic genitive.

References:

Barnes, M. 1978 Grammatical Instability in Faroese Ballads and written Faroese. Nordveg 20. 209–235. Hamre, H. 1961. The Use of Genitive in Modern Faroese. Scandinavian Studies 33. 231–246. Petersen, H.P. & R. Szczepaniak (to appear): The role of the decline of the genitive case in the development of linking elements in Faroese. In H. Thráinsson et al. 2014 (eds.), Faroese. An Overview and Reference Grammar. Tórshavn.

Dirk Pijpops & Freek Van de Velde (Leuven)

In search of the function of the Dutch partitive genitive: a corpus analysis

Perhaps the most puzzling of the Dutch vestigial genitives is the partitive genitive with indefinite pronouns and numerals, as in (1) and (3). What is most noteworthy is its stubborn resilience in the face of deflexion, even though other partitive genitives have long given way to alternative s-less constructions, such as close appositions, and even though such an alternative is occasionally attested for the partitive genitive at issue as well, as shown in (2) and (4) (Van der Horst 2008: 1624-1625). This has led numerous researchers to assume a new, grammatical function for this –s suffix, yielding a vivid – if mostly theoretical – discussion (Abney 1987, Broekhuis & Strang 1996, Kester 1996, Van Marle 1996, Hoeksema 1998, Booij 2010: 223-228, Broekhuis 2013). On the basis of a more systematic analysis of corpus data, we call into question the purely grammatical nature of this suffix.

(1) iets leuk-s

something fun-GEN

‘something fun’

(2) iets leuk

something fun

‘something fun’

(3) veel interessant-s

much interesting-GEN

‘a lot of interesting things’

(4) veel interessant

much interesting

‘a lot of interesting things’

We try to uncover the function of the –s suffix by looking for contexts in which the presence or absence of the genitive –s can be predicted. More concretely, we use logistic regression to unearth the variables which determine the alternation between the variants with and without –s suffix. We assess both (socio/region)lectal variables and grammatical variables, such as regional variety, register, the type of quantifier and adjective, the length of the adjective, etc., as well as possible interaction effects. We also include a random factor Phrase, to take into account the different phrases (measured in types) in our dataset. The results of our analysis strongly suggest that the function of the -s suffix is multifactorial in nature, and cannot reside solely in the grammar. Our fine-grained analysis allows us to give more precise underpinnings for the assumed regional split in the function of the –s suffix than the extant literature is able to provide. Contrary to what is often claimed, the s-less variant occurs in both regions, but in the North, –s omission can be largely brought back to a number of well-delimited special cases, in which the influence of ‘adjacent’ constructions plays a role (i.e. superficially resembling, but etymologically unrelated constructions). In the South however, the s-less variant does not seem to be limited to any specific grammatical context. Instead, the –s appears to demarcate the boundary between informal and formal language use.

References:

Abney, S.P. 1987. The English noun phrase in its sentential aspect. Cambridge: MIT, Department of linguistics and philosophy. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Booij, G. 2010. Construction Morphology. Oxford: Oxford university press. Broekhuis, H. 2013. Adjectives and Adjective Phrases. In H. Broekhuis (ed.), Syntax of Dutch, 419­–461. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University press. Broekhuis, H. & A. Strang. 1996. De partitieve genitiefconstructie. Nederlandse taalkunde 1(3). 221–238. Geeraerts, D. 2005. Lectal variation and empirical data in cognitive linguistics. In F.J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez & M.S. Peña Cervel (eds.), Cognitive linguistics. Internal dynamics and interdisciplinary interaction, 163–190. Berlin: de Gruyter. Hoeksema, J. 1998. Adjectivale inflectie op -s: geen geval van transpositie. In E. Hoekstra & C. Smits (eds.), Morfologiedagen 1996, 46–72. Amsterdam: P. J. Meertens-Instituut. Kester, E-P. 1996. The Nature of Adjectival Inflection. Dissertation University of Utrecht. Van der Horst, J.M. 2008. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse syntaxis. Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven. Van Marle, J. 1996. The unity of Morphology: on the interwoveness of the derivational and inflectional dimension of the word. In G. E. Booij & J. Van Marle (eds.), Yearbook of Morphology 1995, 67–82. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Barbara Schlücker (FU Berlin)

Eigennamenkomposita und Genitive

Thema des Vortrags ist der Vergleich von Genitivkonstruktionen, Nominalkomposita und NPs mit einer eingebetteten von-Phrase im Deutschen. Im Mittelpunkt stehen dabei Konstruktionen mit Eigennamen in einer Nicht-Kopf-Position, wie beispielsweise Merkels Rede, (die) Merkel-Rede und (die) Rede von Merkel.

In formaler Hinsicht können im Deutschen Nominalkomposita (und damit auch Eigennamenkomposita) eindeutig als morphologische, Genitiv- und von-Konstruktionen hingegen als syntaktische Einheiten analysiert werden. Morphologischen und syntaktischen Einheiten werden im Sinne einer grammatischen Arbeitsteilung häufig unterschiedliche Funktionen zugeschrieben (etwa: Bildung von Benennungseinheiten vs. Beschreibung). Dennoch scheinen die genannten Konstruktionen – unter bestimmten Voraussetzungen – semantisch-funktional äquivalent zueinander zu sein. Diese Annahme wird u.a. durch die Beobachtung gestützt, dass sie als stilistische Varianten innerhalb desselben Diskurses oder Satzes ohne ersichtlichen Bedeutungsunterschied verwendet werden können, vgl. (1):

(1) [Überschrift] USA: Facebooks Chefin feuert Karriere-Frauen an.

[Text] Facebook-Chefin Sheryl Sandberg hat ein Buch geschrieben, in dem sie Frauen auffordert, die Führungsetagen zu stürmen.

[spiegel.de, 07.03.2013]

Insgesamt ist die Komposition mit Eigennamen im Deutschen kaum untersucht. Innerhalb der nominalen Komposition nehmen Eigennamenkomposita eine besondere Stellung ein, da sie sich erst relativ spät (mutmaßlich zu Beginn der frühneuhochdeutschen Zeit) entwickelt zu haben scheinen. Es steht zu vermuten, dass die Konkurrenz mit der Genitivkonstruktion dabei eine wichtige Rolle gespielt hat. Für das 20. Jh. ist eine hohe Produktivitätszunahme der Eigennamenkomposition konstatiert worden, insbesondere in Bezug auf die Pressesprache. Diese Zunahme ist mitunter als gegenläufige Entwicklung zu einem Verwendungszurückgang des Genitivs beschrieben worden, teilweise auch als kausal für diesen Rückgang.

Vor diesem Hintergrund werden im Vortrag zwei miteinander zusammenhängende Aspekte diskutiert. Zum einen soll es um die Verwendungsbedingungen und die angenommene Bedeutungsäquivalenz zwischen Eigennamenkomposita, Genitiven und von-Phrasen in der Gegenwartssprache gehen. So liegt bei lexikalisierten Komposita wie Dieselmotor oder Röntgenstrahlen eine solche Äquivalenz mit einer Genitivkonstruktion nicht vor. Von besonderem Interesse ist in diesem Zusammenhang die identifizierende bzw. determinierende Funktion, die Eigennamengenitive und Eigennamenmodifikatoren in Komposita in Hinblick auf die Referenz der gesamten NP haben. D.h. ein Eigennamenmodifikator wie in (1) dient der Identifizierung des Referenten des Bezugsnomens (Welche Chefin?), nicht aber, wie standardmäßig bei Nominalkomposita, der Bildung eines Subkonzepts (vgl. Chef – Küchenchef).

Zum anderen sollen die formalen Eigenschaften und die Verwendung von Eigennamenkomposita und Genitiven in Hinblick auf die Abgrenzung bzw. Interaktion von Syntax und Morphologie diskutiert werden. Welche Konsequenzen für die formale Analyse von Eigennamenkomposita folgen aus der Annahme, dass diese Wortbildungseinheiten – zumindest unter bestimmten Voraussetzungen – semantisch-funktional äquivalent zu syntaktischen Konstruktionen sind? Inwieweit spiegelt sich die funktionale Annäherung dieser morphologischen Einheiten an syntaktische Einheiten auch in formaler Hinsicht? Der Vergleich von Eigennamenkomposita, korrespondierenden Genitiv- und von-Konstruktionen soll somit als Fallstudie auch zu einem besseren Verständnis der Morphologie-Syntax-Schnittstelle beitragen.

Mirjam Schmuck (Mainz)

Personennamen in Genitivkonstruktionen – ein Motor für die Grammatikalisierung des onymischen Artikels?

Der Definitartikel hat sich noch im Ahd. aus einem Demonstrativpronomen entwickelt, wobei die Eigennamen, da inhärent definit, zunächst ausgespart bleiben. Erste Belege des Definitartikels in Kombination mit Personennamen finden sich ab dem Frühnhd. Die sukzessiven Ausbreitung des vor Eigennamen rein expletiven Artikels erfolgt gesteuert durch verschiedene Faktoren: 1. pragmatische, 2. areale und 3. grammatische. Zu letzteren gehört insbesondere Kasus. Der „onymische“ Artikel tritt sehr früh in Genitivkonstruktionen auf und ist hier im Unterschied zum Dativ und Akkusativ, wo die Deflexion der Eigennamen schon ab dem Mhd. greift, nicht auf den Verlust der Flexionsendungen zurückzuführen (vgl. Frühnhd.: Dat./Akk: Adelheiden, Adelungen → Adelheid/Adelung, aber Gen. Adelheids, Adelungs). Auch Oubouzar (1992, 1997) konstatiert in ihrer Analyse ahd. Texte ein frühes Auftreten des Artikels bei adnominalem Genitiv:

Die Entwicklung des Det. der zum bestimmten Artikel erfolgt nicht in allen nominalen Strukturen gleichzeitig. Am frühesten stellen wir seine Verwendung in den Genitivattributen fest. (…) Die Determinierung mit einem Eigennamen oder Appellativ als Basis erfolgt hier am ersten. (Oubouzar 1997b:170)

Frühe Belege betreffen insbesondere den pränominalen, possessiven Genitiv. Da als Genitivattribut (Possessor) neben appellativischen Personenbezeichnungen v.a. Eigennamen vorkommen, ist eine Ausbreitung auch des „onymischen“ Artikels in dieser Position wahrscheinlich. Auch aus kontrastiver Perspektive erweisen sich Possessivkonstruktionen als Vorstufe des Artikelgebrauchs vor Eigennamen, wie die folgende Implikationsskala aus Lyons (1999:337) nahelegt:

1 (English): simple definite

2 (French): simple definite, generic

3 (Italian): simple definite, generic, possessive

4 (Greek): simple definite, generic, possessive, proper noun

Der Vortrag untersucht die Grammatikalisierung des “onymischen” Artikels im Frühnhd. auf Basis frühnhd. Verhörprotokolle (insbes. Macha et al. 2005). Es wird argumentiert, dass das vergleichsweise frühe Auftreten des Definitartikels in Kombination mit possessivem Genitiv v.a. folgenden Faktoren geschuldet ist:

1) Genitiv-s fungiert noch nicht als Determinierer: Possessiver Genitiv (ebenso Possessivpronomen) und Definitartikel können im Unterschied zum Nhd. noch kookkurrieren (frühnhd. Auß des Ruerers Keller, Ellingen 1590, aber: nhd. *in des Müllers Keller).

2) Umstrukturierung und Fixierung der NP im Frühnhd.: Im Zuge der Entwicklungvom prä- zum postnominalen Genitiv (frühnhd. des vaters haus → das haus des vaters), wovon aber die Eigennamen ausgenommen sind (nhd. Peters Haus), wird der Definitartikel vor pränominalem Genitiv als zum Kopf gehörig d.h. als Determinierer der gesamten Phrase reanalysiert. Die resultierenden ambigen Kontexte fördern möglicherweise das Auftreten des Artikels vor Eigennamen (frühnhd. Diß Jacob Schielinß wüttib, Rosenfeld 1603).

3) Komplexität genitivischer NPs: Adnominale Genitive enthalten häufig komplexe Personennamen mit erklärenden Zusätzen wie z.B. Ortsangaben (frühnhd. In der khleinhannßen zue Epffendorff Behausung, Rosenfeld 1603), wo der Artikel zur Verdeutlichung hinzutritt, oder individualisierende Adjektive (frühnhd. der Alten Gurttelern man Martin, Friedberg 1629). In solchen attributiv erweiterten NPs erscheint der Artikel besonders früh (schon im Ahd.) und ist hier syntaktisch bedingt (ahd. in dhemu heilegin daniheles chiscribe, Isidor 5,5).

References:

Bellmann, Günter.1990. Pronomen und Korrektur: Zur Pragmalinguistik der persönlichen Referenzformen. Berlin & New York: de Gruyter. Demske, Ulrike. 2001. Merkmale und Relationen: diachrone Studien zur Nominalphrase des Deutschen. Berlin & New York: de Gruyter. Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 1997. Deiktikon, Artikel, Nominalphrase. Zur Emergenz syntaktischer Struktur. Tübingen: Narr. Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 2001. Articles. In Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehard König, Wulf Oesterreicher & Wolfgang Raible (Hrsg), Sprachtypologie und sprachliche Universalien (HSK 20.1), 831–841. Berlin & New York: de Gruyter. Lyons, Christopher. 1999. Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Macha Jürgen et al. 2005. Deutsche Kanzleisprache in Hexenverhörprotokollen der Frühen Neuzeit. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter. Oubouzar, Erika. 1992. Zur Ausbildung des bestimmten Artikels im Althochdeutschen. In Yvonne Desportes (Hrsg.), Althochdeutsch. Syntax und Semantik. Akten des Lyonner Kolloquiums zur Syntax und Semantik des Althochdeutschen, 69–87. Lyon: Université Jean Moulin III. Oubouzar, Erika.1997a. Zur Frage der Herausbildung eines bestimmten und eines unbestimmten Artikels im Althochdeutschen. Cahiers d'études Germaniques 32. 161–­175. Oubouzar, Erika. 1997b. Syntax und Semantik des adnominalen Genitivs im Althochdeutschen. In Yvonne Desportes (Hrsg.), Semantik der syntaktischen Beziehungen. Akten des Pariser Kolloquiums zur Erforschung des Althochdeutschen 1994, 223–244. Heidelberg: Winter. Schmuck, Mirjam & Renata Szczepaniak (demn.) Der Gebrauch des Definitartikels vor Familien- und Rufnamen im Frühneuhochdeutschen aus grammatikalisierungstheoretischer Perspektive. Erscheint in Friedhelm Debus, Rita Heuser & Damaris Nübling (Hrsg.), Linguistik der Familiennamen (Germanistische Linguistik). Hildesheim et al.: Olms. Sturm, Afra. 2005. Eigennamen und Definitheit. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Szczepaniak, Renata. ²2011. Grammatikalisierung im Deutschen. Eine Einführung. Tübingen: Narr.

Simone Ueberwasser (Zurich)

German Long and Short Genitive Endings and their Spacial Distribution

The strong declination is the norm for male and neuter nouns in Modern High German (hereafter: MHG); the according ending for the genitive is either -es or -s. While -es is the traditional form from a diachronic point of view, the short forms can be considered to be the norm in MHG (cf. Duden Grammatik, 2009: 195). Whether the long or the short form is used can either be determined by the ending of the lemma in conjunction with the stress pattern, or it can be subject to free alternation. In the latter case, sound patterns depending on endings, syllabic length and stress patterns as well as the origin of the word (i.e. Germanic origin vs. foreign word) are named as triggers for the alternation by Duden Grammatik (2009: 196) and confirmed in a corpus study by Szczepaniak (2010). While other factors that influence the preference for one or the other ending have been mentioned (e.g. the use of the genitive attribute as a pre- or a postmodifier, cf. Zweifelsfälle Duden (2011: 379)), they have not been investigated in depth based on corpus data.

My presentation will shed some light on a so far neglected factor that influences the preference for one or the other ending of the genitive. In a study based on the corpus ”Variantengrammatik des Standarddeutschen“ (cf. Dürscheid, Elspaß, & Ziegler, 2011), I found that for a significant number of lemmas that can take both endings, the data from Austria show a clear preference for the long genitive ending while those for Switzerland show an even stronger one for the short variant. Even though the phonological patterns mentioned above are generally followed in in both countries when comparing e.g. simplexes with compounds, the influence of the regional origin of the text can go as far as to move a lemma from the group with a tendency towards the short genitive form into the group with a preference for the long one. Next to these quantitative results, I will present my methodological approach, qualitative views on the data as well as factors that influence the regional preferences.

References:

Duden. 2009. Die Grammatik. Unentbehrlich für richtiges Deutsch. (Der Duden in zwölf Bänden, 4.) Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut, 8., überarbeitete Auflage. Duden.2011. Richtiges und gutes Deutsch. Wörterbuch der sprachlichen Zweifelsfälle. (Der Duden in zwölf Bänden, 9.) Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut und F. A. Brockhaus, 7., vollständig überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage. Dürscheid, Christa, Stephan Elspaß, & Arne Ziegler. 2011. Grammatische Variabilität im Gebrauchsstandard: das Projekt "Variantengrammatik des Standarddeutschen". In Marek Konopka, Jacqueline Kubczak, & Christian Mair (eds.), Grammatik und Korpora 2009. Dritte Internationale Konferenz. Mannheim, 22.-24.09.2009 (Korpuslinguistik und interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf Sprache 1), 123–140. Tübingen: Narr. Szczepaniak, Renata. 2010. Während des Flug(e)s/des Ausflug(e)s? German Short and Long Genitive Endings between Norm and Variation. In Alexandra N. Lenz & Albrecht Plewnia (eds.), Grammar between Norm and Variation (VarioLingua 40), 103–126. Frankfurt a. M. et al.: Peter Lang.

Christian Zimmer (FU Berlin)

Die Nutzung des Internet(s) – zur Einordnung und funktionalen Motivation s-loser Genitive im Gegenwartsdeutschen

In der Geschichte des Deutschen wurde der Kasusausdruck am Substantiv kontinuierlich abgebaut und in erster Linie auf den Artikel übertragen. Betrachtet man die Singularformen, wird heute (abgesehen von der kleinen Gruppe der sogenannten schwachen Maskulina, die alle obliquen Kasus mit -(e)n markieren) nur noch der Genitiv bei Maskulina und Neutra mit einem Flexiv am Substantiv markiert (vgl. 1). Das Dativ-e (vgl. 2) gilt heute als veraltet; bei den Feminina findet sich kein einziges Flexiv mehr (vgl. 3).

1) das Haus des Bruders;der Rahmen des Fensters

2) Dem Manne kann geholfen werden; du lebst nach dem Worte Gottes

3) die Frau-Ø / der Frau-Ø / der Frau-Ø / die Frau-Ø

Vor diesem Hintergrund erscheint es nicht überraschend, dass im Gegenwartsdeutschen auch die (wegen des Kasusausdrucks am Artikel redundante) Genitivmarkierung mit -(e)s einer zum Teil erheblichen Schwankung unterliegt und scheinbar vom Abbau betroffen ist (vgl. 4).

4) Die Nutzung des Internets vs. die Nutzung des Internet

Diese Beobachtung, die Shapiro (1941) bereits für das Frühneuhochdeutsche beschreibt, veranlasst z.B. Wurzel (1991:180) zu der Prognose, dass „künftig alle substantivischen Kasusflexive, darunter auch alle Genitivflexive, beseitigt werden […]. Die Kasus werden dann allein durch Artikelflexion symbolisiert, vgl. *des Pfau, *des Nachbar, aber auch *des Hund, *des Bär usw.“

In meinem Vortrag möchte ich diese Schwankung zwischen Mono- und Polyflexion in genitivischen NPs näher beleuchten. Dabei soll anhand von Akzeptabilitätsurteilen und Korpus-Daten aus dem Web-Korpus DECOW-2012 (Schäfer/Bildhauer 2012) gezeigt werden, dass sich die Schwankung auf eine klar abgrenzbare Gruppe von Substantiven beschränkt und dass die s-Losigkeit bei diesen Substantiven funktional motiviert ist. Das Auftreten der gegenwartssprachlichen Schwankung kann mit dem Prinzip der morphologischen Schemakonstanz erklärt werden, wofür psycholinguistische Evidenz aus einer Self-Paced-Reading-Studie angeführt wird.

Darüber hinaus möchte ich korpusbasiert die von Wurzel (1990) vorgenommene Einordnung der s-losen Formen als Vorboten einer generellen Deflexion am Substantiv diskutieren und der These von Appel (1941:55) gegenüberstellen, die annimmt, dass die s-Losigkeit an bestimmte Bedingungen gebunden ist und bleibt. Aus dieser Perspektive wären aktuell auftretende s-lose Genitive keine Vorboten einer generellen Deflexion, sondern auf ein Sonderverhalten bestimmter Substantive zurückzuführen.

References:

Appel, Elsbeth. 1941. Vom Fehlen des Genitiv-s. München. Schäfer, Roland & Felix Bildhauer. 2012. Building large corpora from the web using a new efficient tool chain. In Proceedings of the LREC 2012, 20 - 27 May 2012, 486–493. Istanbul. Shapiro, Sophie. 1941. Genitive forms without -s in Early New High German. Language XVII. 53–57. Wurzel, Wolfgang Ullrich. 1991. Genitivverwirrung im Deutschen – wie regulär ist morphologi­scher Wandel? In Norbert Boretzky et al. (eds.), Sprachwandel und seine Prinzipien, 168–181. Bochum.