Volume 45, Issue 1

Analepses with topic-drop are frequent structures in German interaction. While hitherto the focus on analepses was a rather syntactic one, this paper deals with analeptic structures from a semantic perspective. It particularly concentrates on the semantic relations between the referents of the analepses and the prior interactional context. This analysis shows that even for rather simple analepses which just omit a constituent from the prior utterance, conceptual processes are more decisive for its interpretation than syntactic features of the antecedent constituents. This is even more the case for complex analepses that are only indirectly linked to the prior context, and for the interpretation of which hearers need to draw inferences. The paper argues that theoretical approaches like Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics can profit from adopting a semantic and conceptual perspective for the interpretation of interactional structures.

While the particle ja ( yes ) has been analyzed extensively in both spoken and written German, its counterpart nein ( no ) has not received much attention. This has to do with the fact that ja is a multifunctional word that can be used as a positive responsive particle, a modal particle, a discourse marker or a tag question. In contrast, nein is usually only ascribed a narrow range of functions centering around negative responsivity particle. The aim of this article is to ask whether nein is indeed only used as a negative responsive or whether it, too, is multifunctional – and if so, what its functions are. On the basis of an empirical analysis of spoken German formal and discourse-functional properties of nein are described.

This article examines the genesis and use of the German subordinate conjunction trotzdem. We begin by investigating the perception of this grammatical phenomenon in contemporary grammars and popular language guides. Based on analyses of corpora, both ‘from below’ and ‘from above’ (Elspaß 2015), we attempt to answer the questions of how often trotzdem has appeared as a subordinate conjunction since the 19th century, whether it is a phenomenon of conceptual immediacy or distance, and what kind of regional distribution of usage can be observed. In the course of this analysis, we focus on both existing corpora and our newly compiled corpus of historical newspapers, which draws on digitized newspapers from GoogleBooks and ANNO – AustriaN Newspapers Online . The analyses show that trotzdem appears as a subordinate conjunction throughout the periods examined. It is a supra-regional phenomenon that is used quite commonly in German, predominantly in the northern and central eastern regions, and both in the language of immediacy and distance. During the 19th century, a three-stage grammaticalization process occurred ( trotz dem, daß > trotzdem/trotz daß > trotzdem ), whereby compound spelling and the loss of daß emerged and spread; the speed of this process, however, varied in different German-speaking regions. Today, both trotzdem and trotzdem dass are in use, whereby – according to our preliminary observations – the first variant is prevalent in the language of distance and the second in the language of immediacy.