Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T15:57:21.267Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Argumente Hin, Argumente Her.” Regularity and Idiomaticity in German N Hin, N Her

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2017

Rita Finkbeiner
Rita Finkbeiner*
Affiliation:
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
*
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, FB 05, Deutsches Institut, Jakob-Welder-Weg 18, D-55099 Mainz, Germany, [finkbein@uni-mainz.de]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper seeks to find the best linguistic analysis of the German semispecified, productive pattern N hin, N her (for example, Krieg hin, Krieg her, es muss eine gute Show werden ‘War or no war, it must be a good show’). The basic question is whether the properties of N hin, N her can be accounted for in a rule-based approach or whether they are to be regarded as idiosyncratic properties of this construction. One of the characteristic features of N hin, N her is the identity of the nouns. This raises the question of whether or not N hin, N her is an instance of syntactic reduplication. It is shown that rule-based copying accounts fail when they are applied to the case of N hin, N her. The paper argues for an alternative, constructionist account of N hin, N her, which is able to cover both regular and idiosyncratic aspects of the construction in a systematic fashion. However, the paper goes beyond a standard constructionist account by also arguing that the idiosyncratic features of the construction can be further explained if one takes into account general pragmatic principles. This requires a theory that incorporates a systematic interface with pragmatics.*

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Germanic Linguistics , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 205 - 258
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Germanic Linguistics 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ariel, Mira. 2016. Revisiting the typology of pragmatic interpretations. Intercultural Pragmatics 13. 1–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bamford, Julia. 2000. You can say that again. Repetition in discourse. Bologna: CLUEB.Google Scholar
Barbiers, Sjef. 2008. Microvariation in Syntactic Doubling—An Introduction. Microvariation in syntactic doubling, ed. by Barbiers, Sjef, 1–34. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Bargmann, Sascha. 2015. Syntactically flexible VP-idioms and the N-after-N Construction. Poster presentation at the Fifth General Meeting of PARSEME, held in Iasi, September 23–24, 2015. Available at http://www.academia.edu/16596941/Syntactically_flexible_VP-idioms_and_the_N-after-N_construction, accessed on April 29, 2016.Google Scholar
Bazzanella, Carla. 2011. Redundancy, repetition, and intensity in discourse. Language Sciences 33. 243–254.Google Scholar
Bierwisch, Manfred. 1980. Semantic structure and illocutionary force. Speech act theory and pragmatics, ed. by Searle, John R., Ferenc, Kiefer, & Manfred, Bierwisch, 1–35. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Brandt, Margareta. 1996. Subordination und Parenthese als Mittel der Informationsstrukturierung in Texten. Ebenen der Textstruktur. Sprachliche und kommunikative Prinzipien, ed. by Motsch, Wolfgang, 211–240. Tübingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 2008. On phases. Foundational issues in linguistic theory: Essays in honor of Jean-Roger Vergnaud, ed. by Freidin, Robert, Otero, Carlos P., & Zubizarreta, Maria Luisa, 133–166. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Croft, William. 2001. Radical construction grammar. Syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Culicover, Peter W., & Jackendoff, Ray. 2005. Simpler syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
d’Avis, Franz. 2016. Satztyp als Konstruktion—Diskussion am Beispiel ‘Konzessive Konditionalgefüge’. Finkbeiner & Meibauer 2016a, 267–296.Google Scholar
Dehé, Nicole, Jackendoff, Ray, McIntyre, Andrew, & Silke Urban (eds.). 2002. Verb-particle explorations. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Duden, . 2009. Duden-Grammatik. 8., überarbeitete Aufl. Herausgegeben von der Dudenredaktion. Mannheim, Zürich: Dudenverlag.Google Scholar
DUW. 2007. Duden Deutsches Universalwörterbuch. 6., überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage. Herausgegeben von der Dudenredaktion. Mannheim: Dudenverlag.Google Scholar
DW. 1984. Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm. Band 10. Vierten Bandes zweite Abtheilung H—Juzen. Bearbeitet von Moriz Heyne. Unveränd. Nachdruck der Erstausgabe von 1877. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag.Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles, Kay, Paul, & O’Connor, Mary C.. 1988. Regularity and idiomaticity in grammatical constructions: The case of let alone . Language 64. 501–539.Google Scholar
Finkbeiner, Rita. 2015. The grammar and pragmatics of N hin, N her (“N thither, N hither”) in German. Pragmatics & Society 6. 89–116.Google Scholar
Finkbeiner, Rita, & Meibauer, Jörg (eds.). 2016. Satztypen und Konstruktionen. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Fleischer, Wolfgang. 1982. Phraseologie der deutschen Gegenwartssprache. Leipzig: VEB Bibliographisches Institut.Google Scholar
Ghomeshi, Jila, Jackendoff, Ray, Rosen, Nicole, & Russell, Kevin. 2004. Contrastive focus reduplication in English (the salad-salad paper). Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 22. 307–357.Google Scholar
Gläser, Rosemarie. 2001. The stylistic potential of phraseological units in the light of genre analysis. Phraseology, ed. by Cowie, Anthony P., 125–144. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Glucksberg, Sam. 2001. Understanding figurative language. From metaphors to idioms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele. 1995. Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele. 2006. Constructions at work. The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele. 2013. Constructionist approaches. Hoffmann & Trousdale 2013, 15–31.Google Scholar
Göttert, Karl-Heinz. 1991. Einführung in die Rhetorik. 2. Aufl. München: Fink.Google Scholar
Grice, Herbert Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. Syntax and semantics, vol. III, ed. by Cole, Peter & Morgan, Jerry L., 41–58. New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Grohmann, Kleanthes, & Nevins, Andrew. 2004. Echo reduplication: When too-local movement requires pf-distinctness. University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics 13. 84–108.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Thomas, & Trousdale, Graeme (eds.). 2013. The Oxford handbook of Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney, & Pullum, Geoffrey K.. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1977. X’ syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1997. The architecture of the language faculty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 2008. Construction after construction and its theoretical challenges. Language 84. 8–28.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 2013. Constructions in the parallel architecture. Hoffman & Trousdale 2013, 70–92.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Joachim. 2008. Wozu Konstruktionen? Linguistische Berichte 213. 3–44.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Joachim. 2016. Satztypkonstruktionen und Satztypsensitivität. Finkbeiner & Meibauer 2016a, 23–71.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Joachim, Heine, Antje, & Külpmann, Robert. 2010. Quer zu den Feldern—Zur Topologie von Partikelverben. Linguistische Berichte 221. 37–60.Google Scholar
Johannessen, Janne B. 1998. Coordination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kay, Paul, & Fillmore, Charles. 1999. Grammatical constructions and linguistic generalizations: The What's X doing Y? construction. Language 75. 1–33.Google Scholar
Kimper, Wendell. 2008. Syntactic reduplication and the spellout of movement chains. Unpublished Manuscript, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Available at http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/wendell.kimper/syntactic_reduplication.pdf, accessed on November 5, 2015.Google Scholar
Knowles, John. 1979. Lexemic iteration. Linguistics 17. 641–657.Google Scholar
Kobele, Gregory. 2008. Argument! Another look at the X or no X construction. Unpublished Manuscript, Humboldt-University. Available at http://home.uchicago.edu/~gkobele/files/2008-Kobele08XOrNoX.pdf, accessed on November 5, 2015.Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred. 2008. Basic notions of information structure. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 55. 243–276.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1987. There-constructions. Women, fire, and dangerous things. What categories reveal about the mind, 462–585. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. Information structure and sentence form: Topic, focus, and the mental representations of discourse referents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lechner, Winfried. 2001. Reduced and phrasal comparatives. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 19. 683–735.Google Scholar
Lenz, Barbara. 2002. Reihenfolge-Präferenzen in Zwillingsformeln. Wer A sägt, muss auch B sägen. Beiträge zur Phraseologie- und Sprichwortforschung aus dem Westfälischen Arbeitskreis, ed. by Hartmann, Dietrich & Wirrer, Jan, 191–204. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider-Verlag Hohengehren.Google Scholar
Leuschner, Torsten. 2005. “Ob blond, ob braun, ich liebe alle Frau'n”. Irrelevanzkonditionale als grammatikalisierter Diskurs. Grammatikalisierung im Deutschen, ed. by Leuschner, Torsten, Mortelmans, Tanja, & de Groodt, Sarah, 279–307. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Maas, Utz. 2005. Syntactic reduplication in Arabic. Studies on reduplication, ed. by Hurch, Bernhard, 395–429. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Merchant, Jason. 2004. Fragments and ellipsis. Linguistics and Philosophy 27. 661–738.Google Scholar
Müller, Gereon. 1997. Beschränkungen für Binomialbildung im Deutschen. Ein Beitrag zur Interaktion von Phraseologie und Grammatik. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 16. 5–51.Google Scholar
Müller, Gereon. 2011. Regeln oder Konstruktionen? Von verblosen Direktiven zur sequenziellen Nominalreduplikation. Sprachliches Wissen zwischen Lexikon und Grammatik, ed. by Engelberg, Stefan, Holler, Anke, & Proost, Kristel, 211–249. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Müller, Stefan. 2002. Syntax or morphology: German particle verbs revisited. Dehé, Jackendoff, McIntyre, & Urban 2002, 119–129.Google Scholar
Müller, Stefan. 2006. Phrasal or lexical constructions? Language 82. 850–883.Google Scholar
Müller, Stefan. 2016a. Grammatical theory: From transformational grammar to constraint-based approaches (Textbooks in Language Sciences 1). Berlin: Language Science Press.Google Scholar
Müller, Stefan. 2016b. Satztypen: Lexikalisch und/oder phrasal? Finkbeiner & Meibauer 2016a, 72–105.Google Scholar
Munn, Alan. 1992. A null operator analysis of ATB gaps. The Linguistic Review 9. 1–26.Google Scholar
Nikiforidou, Kiki. 2009. Constructional analysis. Grammar, meaning and pragmatics, ed. by Brisard, Frank, Östman, Jan-Ola, & Verschueren, Jef, 16–32. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Nunberg, Geoffrey, Sag, Ivan A., & Wasow, Thomas. 1994. Idioms. Language 70. 491–598.Google Scholar
Olsen, Susan. 1997. Zur Kategorie Verbpartikel. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (PBB) 119. 1–32.Google Scholar
Östman, Jan-Ola. 2005. Construction discourse. A prolegomenon. Construction grammars: Cognitive grounding and theoretical extensions, ed. by Östman, Jan-Ola & Fried, Mirjam, 121–144. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Östman, Jan-Ola. 2015. From construction grammar to construction discourse… and back. Konstruktionsgrammatik V. Konstruktionen im Spannungsfeld von sequenziellen Mustern, kommunikativen Gattungen und Textsorten, ed. by Bücker, Jörg, Günthner, Susanne, & Imo, Wolfgang, 15–43. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar
Pullum, Geoffrey K., & Rawlins, Kyle. 2007. Argument or no argument? Linguistics and Philosophy 30. 277–287.Google Scholar
Ross, John. 1980. Ikonismus in der Phraseologie. Zeitschrift für Semiotik 2. 39–56.Google Scholar
Sag, Ivan A. 1997. English relative clause constructions. Journal of Linguistics 33. 431–484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sag, Ivan A. 2012. Sign-based construction grammar: An informal synopsis. Sign-based construction grammar, ed. by Boas, Hans C. & Sag, Ivan A., 69–202. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan, & Wilson, Deirdre. 1995. Relevance. Communication and cognition. 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Stolz, Thomas. 2007. Das ist doch keine Reduplikation! Über falsche Freunde bei der Suche nach richtigen Beispielen. Wiederholung, Parallelismus, Reduplikation. Strategien der multiplen Strukturanwendung, ed. by Ammann, Andreas & Urdze, Aina, 47–80. Bochum: Brockmeyer.Google Scholar
Stolz, Thomas, Stroh, Cornelia, & Urdze, Aina. 2011. Total reduplication. The areal linguistics of a potential universal. Berlin: Akademie.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tannen, Deborah. 1989. Talking voices. Repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C., & Trousdale, Graeme C.. 2014. Constructionalization and constructional changes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Travis, Lisa. 2001. The syntax of reduplication. Proceedings from the Thirty-First Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, ed. by Kim, Minjoo & Strauss, Uri, 455–469. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts GLSA.Google Scholar
Travis, Lisa. 2003. Reduplication feeding syntactic movement. Proceedings of the Canadian Linguistics Association, ed. by Somesfalean, Stanca, 236–247. Montreal, QC: Université du Québec à Montréal.Google Scholar
Van Dijk, Teun A. 1977. Sentence topic and discourse topic. Papers in Slavic Philology 1. 49–61.Google Scholar
Zeller, Jochen. 2002. Particle verbs are heads and phrases. Dehé, Jackendoff, McIntyre, & Urban 2002, 233–267.Google Scholar
Zifonun, Gisela, Hoffmann, Ludger, & Strecker, Bruno. 1997. Grammatik der deutschen Sprache. 3 Bde. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Zwarts, Joost. 2013. From N to N: The anatomy of a construction. Linguistics and Philosophy 36. 65–90.Google Scholar