Volume 130, Issue 2

Unmittelbaren Anstoss für diesen Artikel gab das Erscheinen von Blackwells fünfbändigem Handbuch zur Syntax, in dem die Erträge von inzwischen fast fünf Jahrzehnten generativer Forschung bilanziert werden. Die Autorin nimmt dies zum Anlass für eine grundsätzliche Reflexion des Verhältnisses von generativer Linguistik und historischer Linguistik. Wo und inwiefern können historische Sprachwissenschaftler von den Erkenntnissen der generativen Syntaxforschung profitieren? Aber auch: An welchen Stellen könnte bzw. müsste die generative Forschung verstärkt auch Einsichten und/oder Konzepte der historischen Sprachwissenschaft heranziehen, um den hohen explanativen Anspruch einzulösen zu können, den sie für sich formuliert. Die Autorin illustriert dies sehr anschaulich an mehreren konkreten Beispielen, die in Blackwells Handbuch ausführlich behandelt werden – darunter eine Reihe von Phänomenen wie A.c.i., PPA etc., die auch für die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Deutschen von Interesse sind.

The study discusses the deployment of visualisation strategies which serve both the mediation of faith and the acquisition of religious practices. It is based on a series of mystical sermons on the Eucharist which originated in a 14 th century monastic context. The focus lies on images evoked by linguistic means – the so called figurae -forms. Just as painted images, they may be embodiments and actualisations of the concept they stand for. Thus, they can ensure a function of representation. The study distinguishes, following Jean-Claude Schmitt, between imago, imaginatio and ›imaginaire‹ – a term based on conceptions of collective thought. By means of these categories the study examines the interactions and interferences the sermons are calculating on.

The article focuses on narrative strategies of inclusion and exclusion and their realisation in vernacular hagiographical texts. In the Life of St. Cecily in the Middle High German ›Passional‹, the exclusion from the secular culture can be shown in the refusing of the aristocratic conception of life by the protagonist; her turning to Christianity is reflected in selective, even exclusive strategies of perception: only by participating in the ›communio sanctorum‹, in Christianity, certain transcendent phenomena can be noticed; unbaptised persons keep being excluded. In contrast, in the Life of St. Martin of Tours, the protagonist's exclusion from the sphere of aristocratic culture is reflected in the confrontation of disparate body-concepts; the different forms of perception presented in this vita are excluding the saint from the other Christians. If the criteria of distinction become more diverse, if – as it is the case in the Life of St. Martin – the distinction between Pagan and Christian is not solely decisive any longer, strategies of inclusion and exclusion are operative on several levels: on the level of perception as well as on the level of body-concepts.

The 15 th century Codex Palatinus germanicus 551 of the University Library of Heidelberg contains a German text on the taming, feeding and healing of falcons used as birds of prey. This text is analysed and for the first time presented in a critical synoptic edition together with the related German works, the ›Wiener Falkenheilkunde‹ (15 th c.) and the ›Beizbüchlein‹ (first published about 1480). All three treatises are based on a latin compilation of sources of unknown provenance and the ›Epistola ad Ptolomaeum‹ in the version cited by Thomas of Cantimpré (about 1241) in his ›Liber de natura rerum‹.