Cohesive substitution in English and German
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Kerstin Kunz
Abstract
Our paper outlines a contrastive account of cohesive substitution in English and German. We start with a clarification of the relationship between cohesive reference, substitution/ellipsis and lexical cohesion in terms of prototypical lexicogrammatical realizations, semantic functionalities and types of textual and cognitive relations. We then turn to a systemic overview of nominal, verbal and clausal substitution mechanisms and complement it by empirical findings from the GECCo corpus about frequencies of semantic cohesive functions and preferred lexicogrammatical realizations depending on language and register (including originals vs. translations). Finally we provide some initial explanations of our observations and outline how a comparison of English and German substitution relates to generalizations of contrastive grammar and to possible pathways of language contact and change.
Abstract
Our paper outlines a contrastive account of cohesive substitution in English and German. We start with a clarification of the relationship between cohesive reference, substitution/ellipsis and lexical cohesion in terms of prototypical lexicogrammatical realizations, semantic functionalities and types of textual and cognitive relations. We then turn to a systemic overview of nominal, verbal and clausal substitution mechanisms and complement it by empirical findings from the GECCo corpus about frequencies of semantic cohesive functions and preferred lexicogrammatical realizations depending on language and register (including originals vs. translations). Finally we provide some initial explanations of our observations and outline how a comparison of English and German substitution relates to generalizations of contrastive grammar and to possible pathways of language contact and change.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- In memory of Stig Johansson v
- Table of contents vii
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction 1
- Tertia comparationis in multilingual corpora 7
- Seeing the lexical profile of Swedish through multilingual corpora 25
- A corpus-based analysis of English affixal negation translated into Spanish 57
- English adverbs of essence and their equivalents in Dutch and French 83
- A parallel corpus approach to investigating semantic change 103
- Youngspeak 127
- Quantity approximation in English and French business news reporting 139
- Enriching the phraseological coverage of high-frequency adverbs in English-French bilingual dictionaries 157
- Using recurrent word-combinations to explore cross-linguistic differences 177
- Cohesive substitution in English and German 201
- The extraposition of clausal subjects in English and Swedish 233
- Thematic variation in English and Spanish newspaper genres 261
- Author index 287
- Subject index 291
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- In memory of Stig Johansson v
- Table of contents vii
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction 1
- Tertia comparationis in multilingual corpora 7
- Seeing the lexical profile of Swedish through multilingual corpora 25
- A corpus-based analysis of English affixal negation translated into Spanish 57
- English adverbs of essence and their equivalents in Dutch and French 83
- A parallel corpus approach to investigating semantic change 103
- Youngspeak 127
- Quantity approximation in English and French business news reporting 139
- Enriching the phraseological coverage of high-frequency adverbs in English-French bilingual dictionaries 157
- Using recurrent word-combinations to explore cross-linguistic differences 177
- Cohesive substitution in English and German 201
- The extraposition of clausal subjects in English and Swedish 233
- Thematic variation in English and Spanish newspaper genres 261
- Author index 287
- Subject index 291
