Discomposition redressed : hidden change, modality, and comparison in German / Patrick Brandt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brandt, Patrick, author.

Series:

Studien zur deutschen Sprache ; 0949-409X 81.

Studien zur deutschen Sprache, 0949-409X ; 81

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

German language--Modality.

German language.

German language--Semantics.

German language--Grammar.

Physical Description:

303 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Tübingen : Narr Francke Attempto Verlag, [2019]

Summary:

Modern theoretical linguistics lives by the insight that the meanings of complex expressions derive from the meanings of their parts and the way these are composed. However, the currently dominating theories of the syntax-semantics interface hastily relegate important aspects of meaning which cannot readily be traced to visible structure to empty projecting heads non-reductively (mainstream Generative Grammar) or to the syntactic construction holistically (Construction Grammar). This book develops an alternative, compositional analysis of the hidden aspectual-temporal, modal and comparative meanings of a range of productive constructions of which pseudoreflexive, excessive and directional complement constructions take center stage. Accordingly, a contradiction-inducing hence semantically problematic part of literally coded meaning is locally ignored and systematically realized "expatriately" with respect to parts of structure that achieve the indexical anchoring of propositional contents in terms of times, worlds and standards of comparison, thus yielding the observed hidden meanings

Contents:

Introduction

Weaker construction

Hiding modality

Matching outputs

Cutting short

Strengthening and weakening

Levels of meaning

Tautologies and contradictions

Plural matters

Making difference

Repairs en masse

Wrenches and nails

Phenomenal and ordinary individuals

Not : high and weak

Identity and negation

Weak theories of comparatives

Two ways of comparatives

Positive, comparative, excessive

Transitivity vs. inclusion semantics

The second condition

Directional complements and Genitives

Bound to contradict

Illegal reflexivization

Symmetrization out of order

Inchoatives and middles

Infinite mis-construction

Tough(er) infinitives

Embedding irony

Mostly up, or sideways

Existential sentences

(Personal) datives

Summary

Abbreviations & symbols

Bibliography

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 279-303)

ISBN:

9783823382430

3823382438

OCLC:

1090685243