The syntax, information structure, and prosody of German ‘VP’-fronting

Vera Lee-Schoenfeld; Anya Lunden

doi:10.1515/tlr-2018-2012

Article

The syntax, information structure, and prosody of German ‘VP’-fronting

Vera Lee-Schoenfeld and Anya Lunden

Published/Copyright: December 14, 2018

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From the journal The Linguistic Review Volume 36 Issue 2

Abstract

This paper explores fronted verb phrases in German, drawing attention to the difference between passive/unaccusative VPs and fronted agentive vPs. While both kinds of verb phrases have been discussed in the literature as being frontable, it has been largely overlooked that fronted vPs typically come with a certain kind of post-fronting context and a rise-fall or bridge-contour intonation, which is characteristic of I-topicalization. We observe that, unlike VPs, agentive vPs essentially need to be I-topics, with a high tone at the right edge of the fronted domain, in order to be frontable. Given the special context required for fronted vPs, the situation described by the vP does not contain new information but must already have been under discussion and is now being commented on. We present the results of two experimental studies and appeal to the thetic/categorical distinction to offer a new angle on the definiteness effect that has been associated with fronted verb phrases. We propose that a subject-containing fronted vP is associated with a thetic rather than the default categorical judgment, which means that the fronted subject and predicate form only one information-structural unit (a topic) rather than two (topic and comment). Contributing to the literature on theticity, we observe that, unlike in non-fronting thetic statements, the subject in fronted vPs cannot be a true definite. We attribute this to clashing intonation restrictions on theticity in non-fronting constructions versus theticity in just the fronted portion of a sentence.

Keywords: verb phrase fronting; German; information structure; contrastive topic; intonation; I-topicalization; thetic vs. categorical judgment; definiteness effect

Acknowledgements

Over the years, we have had many helpful discussions (both in person and via email) regarding the content of this paper and would like to thank the following people: Jorge Hankamer, Susi Wurmbrand, Dan Grodner, Michael Covington, Dennis Ott, Nathan Sanders, Ann Reed, Bill Ladusaw, Peter Culicover, and our two anonymous TLR reviewers. Thanks also to the audiences of our talks at the annual meeting of the LSA in Portland in 2012, at the annual meeting of the DGfS in Frankfurt in 2012, and at the organized session “The Parameters of VP-fronting” at the LSA in Austin in 2017. Any remaining errors are our own, of course.

Appendix 1: Stimulus-norming study: Judgments on plausibility, conventionality, and specificity

used to choose stimuli for the past-participle vP and and ACI vP studies
participants: 26 native speakers of German, mostly living in the US and “Spielgruppler” from a German playgroup in Narberth, PA
materials: 24 non-fronting sentences, describing situations involving an agentive subject and a transitive predicate, with 4 variants each;

(1)

a.	Katzen	jagen	Mäuse.	(plausible, conventional, nonspecific)
	cats	chase	mice

b.	Unsere	Katzen	jagen	Mäuse. (plausible, specific)
	our	cats	chase	mice

c.	Raubkatzen	jagen	Mäuse.	(plausible, unconventional, nonspecific)
	prey-cats	chase	mice

d.	Hühner	jagen	Mäuse.	(implausible, unconventional, nonspecific)
	chicken	chase	mice

(2)

a.	Boxer	schlagen	ihre	Gegner k.o.
	boxers	beat	their	opponents knocked-out

(‘knock out their opponents.’)

b.	Die	Klitschko	Brüder	schlagen	ihre	Gegner k.o.
	the	Klitschko	brothers	beat	their	opponents knocked-out

c.	Eishockeyspieler	schlagen	ihre	Gegner k.o.
	ice hockey players	beat	their	opponents knocked-out

b.	Friedensprediger	schlagen	ihre	Gegner k.o.
	pacifists	beat	their	opponents knocked-out

– key conditions were conventional vs. unconventional and specific vs. nonspecific, but conventionality was also compared to plausibility (to see if something that is unconventional could still be plausible)

– 4 presentation lists using balanced Latin square design; each participant saw only one list

procedure: Lime Survey (www.limesurvey.org); participants were asked to answer 3 questions about each sentence on their list, using a scale from 1-5:
How plausible is the described situation? (1: least, 5: most plausible)
How conventional is the described situation? (1: least, 5: most conventional)
How specific is the subject of the sentence? (1: least, 5: most specific)
results:
overall, participants judged the nonspecific condition as less specific, the implausible condition as less plausible, and the unconventional condition as less conventional
trend for plausibility and conventionality to influence each other, but there was still a reliable difference between the conditions
overall, specificity was judged as expected, although some indefinite plurals were judged as surprisingly specific

Appendix 2: Past Participle vP Study

participants: 30 native speakers of German, interviewed in Hannover, Germany
materials: 12 sentences with transitive vPs, again using the content of the non-fronting sentences from Survey 1 of Experiment 1, with 6 variants each:

(3)

a.	Katzen	Mäuse	gejagt	haben	hier	schon	oft.
	cats	mice	chased	have	here	already	often

(fronted, nonspecific, conventional)

b.	Unsere	Katzen	Mäuse	gejagt	haben	hier	schon	oft.
	our	cats	mice	chased	have	here	already	often

(fronted, specific)

c.	Raubkatzen	Mäuse	gejagt	haben	hier	schon	oft.
	prey-cates	mice	chased	have	here	already	often

(fronted, nonspec., unconventional)

d.	Katzen	haben	hier	schon	oft	Mäuse	gejagt.
	cats	have	here	already	often	mice	chased

(nonfronted, nonspec., conventional)

e.	Unsere	Katzen	haben	hier	schon	oft	Mäuse	gejagt.
	our	cats	have	here	already	often	mice	chased

(nonfronted, specific)

f.	Raubkatzen	haben	hier	schon	oft	Mäuse	gejagt.
	prey-cates	have	here	already	often	mice	chased

(nonfronted, nonspec., unconv.)

(4)

a.	Boxer	ihre	Gegner	k.o. geschlagen	haben	hier	schon	oft.
	boxer	their	opponents	knocked-out	have	here	already	often

b.	Die	Klitschko	Brüder	ihre	Gegner	k.o. geschlagen	haben
	the	Klitschko	brothers	their	opponents	knocked-out	have

	hier	schon	oft.
	here	already	often

c.	Eishockeyspieler	ihre	Gegner	k.o. geschlagen	haben	hier
	ice-hockey-players	their	opponents	knocked-out	have	here

	schon	oft.
	already	often

d.	Boxer	haben	hier	schon	oft	ihre	Gegner	k.o. geschlagen.
	boxer	have	here	already	often	their	opponents	knocked-out

e.	Die	Klitschko	Brüder	haben	hier	schon	oft	ihre
	the	Klitschko	brothers	have	here	already	often	their

	Gegner	k.o. geschlagen.
	opponents	knocked-out

f.	Eishockeyspieler	haben	hier	schon	oft	ihre
	ice-hockey-players	have	here	already	often	their

	Gegner	k.o. geschlagen.
	opponents	knocked-out

2X3 design, crossing fronting type (fronted vs. nonfronted) with proposition type (conventional-nonspecific vs. conventional-specific vs. unconventional-nonspecific)
6 presentation lists using balanced Latin square design; 12 target sentences and 44 fillers with various degrees of grammaticality; pseudorandom presentation order; each participant saw only one list
procedure: participants were interviewed one-on-one, were read the sentences, and were asked to give grammaticality judgments, using a scale from 1–5 (see Section 4)
results:
nonfronted sentences were consistently evaluated with a score of 1 or 2, i.e. as immediately acceptable or acceptable in appropriate context, so they were disregarded for the analysis
score means:
fronting, nonspecific, conventional (F, NS, C): 3.25; SD: 1.144
fronting, nonspecific, unconventional (F, NS, UC): 3.68; SD: 1.081
fronting, specific, conventional (F, S, C): 4.15; SD: 0.86
RMSE=1.036; F=11.33; p<0.0001
comparison between proposition types:
difference between F, S, C and F, NS, UC: 0.467; 95% CI: 0.0935, 0.8399
difference between F, S, C and F, NS, C: 0.9; 95% CI: 0.5268, 1.2732
difference between F, NS, NC and F, NS, C: 0.433; 95% CI: 0.0601, 0.8065

=> F, S, C (fronted vP with specific subject) is significantly worse than either of the other two proposition types (fronted vP with nonspecific subject, regardless of conventionality). In addition, F, NS, UC (fronted vP with nonspecific subject and unconventional content) is significantly worse than F, NS, C (fronted vP with unspecific subject and conventional content).

ACI vP Study

participants: 30 native speakers of German, again mostly “Spielgruppler” from the German play group in Narberth, PA
materials: 18 sentences with transitive (agentive vP) AcI-constructions, using the content of the non-fronting sentences from Survey 1, with 6 variants each:

(5)

a.	Katzen	Mäuse	jagen	sieht	man	hier	oft.
	cats.acc	mice.acc	chase	sees	one.nom	here	often

(fronted, nonspecific, conventional)

b.	Unsere	Katzen	Mäuse	jagen	sieht	man	hier	oft.
	our.acc	cats	mice.acc	chase	sees	one.nom	here	often

(fronted, specific)

c.	Raubkatzen	Mäuse	jagen	sieht	man	hier	oft.
	prey-cats.acc	mice.acc	chase	sees	one.nom	here	often

(fronted, nonspec., unconventional)

d.	Man	sieht	hier	oft	Katzen	Mäuse	jagen.
	man.nom	sees	here	often	cats.acc	mice.acc	chase

(nonfronted, nonspec., conventional)

e.	Man	sieht	hier	oft	unsere	Katzen	Mäuse	jagen.
	one.nom	sees	here	often	our.acc	cats	mice.acc	chase

(nonfronted, specific)

f.	Man	sieht	hier	oft	Raubkatzen	Mäuse	jagen.
	one.nom	sees	here	often	prey-cats.acc	mice.acc	chase

(nonfronted, nonspec., unconventional)

(6)

Boxer ihre Gegner k.o. schalgen sieht man hier oft.
Die Klitschko Brüder ihre Gegner k.o. schlagen sieht man hier oft.
Eishockeyspieler ihre Gegner k.o. schlagen sieht man hier oft.
Man sieht hier oft Boxer ihre Gegner k.o. schlagen.
Man sieht hier oft die Klitschko Brüder ihre Gegner k.o. schlagen.
Man sieht hier oft Eishockeyspieler ihre Gegner k.o. schlagen.

2X3 design, crossing fronting type (fronted vs. nonfronted) with proposition type (conventional-nonspecific vs. conventional-specific vs. unconventional-nonspecific)
6 presentation lists using balanced Latin square design; 18 target sentences and 44 fillers with various degrees of grammaticality; pseudorandom presentation order; each participant saw only one list

Appendix 3: Combined analysis of past participle vP and ACI vP studies

A linear effects model with a random effect of subject was run with fixed factors vP type, fronting, and sentence type, where vP type was evaluated across subjects and fronting and sentence type were evaluated within subjects.

	Numerator df	Denominator df	F	Significance
Intercept	1	58.813	1030.766	<0.001
vP type	1	58.813	16.818	<0.001
Fronting	1	829.744	1362.392	<0.001
Sentence type	2	829.744	22.523	<0.001
vP type*fronting	1	829.744	195.950	<0.001
vP type*S type	2	829.744	0.317	0.729
Fronting*S type	2	829.744	11.815	<0.001
vP typefrontingS type	2	829.744	2.183	0.113

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Published in Print: 2019-05-26

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Keywords for this article

verb phrase fronting; German; information structure; contrastive topic; intonation; I-topicalization; thetic vs. categorical judgment; definiteness effect