Volume 38, Issue 2

This paper presents an overview of the results of the research project “The psycholinguistics of a grammar for reading German” which has been carried out at the University of Fribourg/Freiburg (CH). The project is based on the idea that the most natural and direct way to multilingualism starts with receptive competence in a third language. In the context of research into European intercomprehension, it investigates Italian and French students' grammatical problems while reading in German as an L3 or L4. To achieve this aim, we worked with specially developed experimental designs. The main research instrument was a reading test which consisted of encyclopaedia articles on imaginary animals. By way of these articles seven grammatical structures of German were tested for their receptive difficulty, with a particular focus on grammatical structures that are traditionally deemed to be difficult for learners of German as a second/foreign language. This general opinion, however, is based on teachers' experience and/or production evidence and not on a systematic investigation of comprehension processes. Further research instruments were a German placement test as well as a self-evaluation of the students' competences in reading in other foreign languages. In addition, oral translation exercises into the L1 of the participants were carried out which helped to gain further insight into the process of reading comprehension. In our paper, we will discuss under what circumstances certain grammatical structures pose problems to readers at various levels of language proficiency. On the basis of oral translation protocols, of general cognitive (language) processing mechanisms, and the structure of the German language, tentative explanations will be given as to why certain sentences/structures are more difficult to understand than others and why some structures do not seem to be a problem at all. The results of the study allow fine-grained insights into the impediments (or their absence) particular structures represent for in-depth comprehension of German texts at various levels of competence.

The construction Zustandsreflexiv consists of a copula and the perfect participle (Partizip II) of a reflexive verb. I argue that the Zustandsreflexiv can be formed from either introverted verbs like sich waschen or inherent reflexive verbs like sich erkälten , in which the external argument is suppressed. Furthermore, it is pointed out that the subject of the Zustandsreflexiv always corresponds to the internal argument of the reflexive verb and that the perfect participle of the reflexive verb is adjectivized, just like in the adjective passive. The syntactic structure of the Zustandsreflexiv is thus much the same as the one of the adjective passive.

In 1959, Lucien Tesnière wrote his main work Éléments de syntaxe structurale . While the impact on theoretical linguistics was not very strong at first, 50 years later there exist a variety of linguistic theories based on Tesnière's work. In computational linguistics, as in theoretical linguistics, dependency grammar was not very influential at first. The last 10–15 years, however, have brought a noticeable change and dependency grammar has found its way into computational linguistics. Syntactically annotated corpora based on dependency representations are available for a variety of languages, as well as statistical parsers which give a syntactic analysis of running text describing the underlying dependency relations between word tokens in the text. This article gives an overview of relevant areas of computational linguistics which have been influenced by dependency grammar. It discusses the pros and cons of different types of syntactic representation used in natural language processing and their suitability as representations of meaning. Finally, an attempt is made to give an outlook on the future impact of dependency grammar on computational linguistics.

This article celebrates 50 years of dependency grammar and valency theory. The development of both theories is traced historically and an overview of current problems and possible future developments is given. Section 1 poses basic questions of dependency grammar, which derive from the syntactic theory of L. Tesnière: his innovative analysis, developed decades before Chomsky's Syntactic Structures and Greenberg's Universals of Language , not only combines syntactic autonomy with a functional grounding, but also contains a typological perspective. Section 2 sketches a modern version of valency theory, tracing the discussion since Tesnière's Éléments de syntaxe structural and presenting much discussed topics such as the delimitation of complements from adjuncts and multi-dimensional valency models, but also more recent ideas such as typological-structural valency realisation, the interplay of construction and projection in the valency of polysemous verbs, semantic types of valency modification and historical valency change, i.e. the application of valency theory to non-standardised historical varieties. Section 3 addresses definitory problems of a pure dependency grammar, in particular criteria for establishing connexions between words and determining the regent (head), leading to a short comparison of the information contained in dependency and constituency representations. The article does not just take stock but in section 4 also develops ideas for the future development of syntactic theory by introducing constructionist elements into a projectionist framework and by adding the dimension of historical viability to synchronic syntactic theorising.

This paper reports on the results of a corpus study on case variation after the lexeme voll (‘full’). It deals with constructions like ( er ist voll revolutionären Bewusstseins ‘he is full of revolutionary gen awareness gen ’ vs. er ist voll revolutionärem Bewusstsein ‘he is full of revolutionary dat awareness dat ’). Many reference grammars of German claim that voll (‘full’) governs the genitive as well as the dative and that in current language use the dative increasingly replaces the genitive. Based on an electronic corpus of the German daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel , the issues of the extent of the case variation after voll (‘full’) and the government properties of this lexeme are addressed. The data analysis reveals that case variation only occurs when the governed NP is in singular. Here, the rate of dative (62%) is higher than that of genitive (38%). In the plural condition, however, the data analysis shows no case variation. Here, voll (‘full’) exclusively governs the genitive. Hence, the findings do not support the claim of a general genitive loss after voll (‘full’). It is argued that the discrepancy between the singular and the plural conditions can be considered as a syntactically motivated case variation. The findings are mainly discussed in the context of Gallmann's (1996) approach of the syntactically determinate case ending omission.