Issues in Formal German(ic) Typology

This book takes up a variety of general syntactic topics, which either yield different solutions in German, in particular, or which lead to different conclusions for theory formation. One of the main topics is the fact that languages that allow for extensive scrambling between the two verbal poles, V-2 and V-last, need to integrate discourse functions like thema and rhema into the grammatical description. This is attempted, in terms of Minimalism, thus extending the functional domain. Special attention is given to the asymmetrical scrambling behavior of indefinites vs. definites and their semantic interpretation. Related topics are: Transitive expletive sentences, types of existential sentences with either BE or HAVE, the that-trace phenomenon and its semantics, negative polarity items, ellipsis and gapping, passivization, double negation — all of which have extensive effects both on distributional behavior and semantic disambiguation, reaching far beyond effects observable in English with its rigid, ‘un-scrambable’ word order.

Kleanthes Grohmann, University of Cypres, in Language 79(4), 2003:
This fine collection of papers unravels interesting properties of German(ic) and beyond. This volume can be heartily recommended to all researchers of any of the major topics discussed here (partly identified in the title). The volume is a welcome addition to the study of Germanic languages, especially, especially with regard to variation, as it contains intelligent discussions and astute analyses.