Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Visit our Partner Page See all our books
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Referential properties of the full and reduced forms of the definite article in German

A diachronic survey
  • and

Abstract

In the following paper, we deal with the properties of the definite article in German. Starting from the existing literature on Present-day German, we show that, in combination with prepositions, two forms of the definite article may be used, namely a full one and a reduced one. They are used in contexts of anaphoric reference or in cases of semantic uniqueness, respectively. We then describe the phenomenon from a diachronic perspective, based on data from Old High German and Middle High German. Only a few, unsystematic studies are available on this topic. In particular, we investigate the properties of the two forms of the article from a semantic/pragmatic perspective, from a cognitive perspective, and finally in syntax

Abstract

In the following paper, we deal with the properties of the definite article in German. Starting from the existing literature on Present-day German, we show that, in combination with prepositions, two forms of the definite article may be used, namely a full one and a reduced one. They are used in contexts of anaphoric reference or in cases of semantic uniqueness, respectively. We then describe the phenomenon from a diachronic perspective, based on data from Old High German and Middle High German. Only a few, unsystematic studies are available on this topic. In particular, we investigate the properties of the two forms of the article from a semantic/pragmatic perspective, from a cognitive perspective, and finally in syntax

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Information structure and syntax in old Germanic and Romance languages 1
  5. Part I. Information-structural categories and corpus annotation
  6. The theoretical foundations of givenness annotation 17
  7. Testing the theory 53
  8. Part II. Changes on the interface between syntax and information structure
  9. Quantifying information structure change in English 81
  10. Tracing overlap in function in historical corpora 111
  11. Referential properties of the full and reduced forms of the definite article in German 141
  12. The cognitive status of null subject referents in Old Norse and their Modern Norwegian counterparts 173
  13. Part III. Comparisons on the interface between syntax and information structure
  14. Word order variation in late Middle English 203
  15. Preverbal word order in Old English and Old French 233
  16. Formal properties of event-reporting sentences in Old High German and Old French 271
  17. Subjects and objects in Germanic and Romance 295
  18. Object position and Heavy NP Shift in Old Saxon and beyond 313
  19. On the interaction between syntax, prosody and information structure 341
  20. Contrastivity and information structure in the old Ibero-Romance languages 377
  21. Index of languages 413
  22. Databases and annotation schemes 415
  23. Word index 417
Information Structure and Syntactic Change in Germanic and Romance Languages
This chapter is in the book Information Structure and Syntactic Change in Germanic and Romance Languages
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.213.06con

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Information structure and syntax in old Germanic and Romance languages 1
  5. Part I. Information-structural categories and corpus annotation
  6. The theoretical foundations of givenness annotation 17
  7. Testing the theory 53
  8. Part II. Changes on the interface between syntax and information structure
  9. Quantifying information structure change in English 81
  10. Tracing overlap in function in historical corpora 111
  11. Referential properties of the full and reduced forms of the definite article in German 141
  12. The cognitive status of null subject referents in Old Norse and their Modern Norwegian counterparts 173
  13. Part III. Comparisons on the interface between syntax and information structure
  14. Word order variation in late Middle English 203
  15. Preverbal word order in Old English and Old French 233
  16. Formal properties of event-reporting sentences in Old High German and Old French 271
  17. Subjects and objects in Germanic and Romance 295
  18. Object position and Heavy NP Shift in Old Saxon and beyond 313
  19. On the interaction between syntax, prosody and information structure 341
  20. Contrastivity and information structure in the old Ibero-Romance languages 377
  21. Index of languages 413
  22. Databases and annotation schemes 415
  23. Word index 417
Downloaded on 15.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/la.213.06con/html
Scroll to top button