09 Philosophisch-historische Fakultät

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    Alternation preferences affect focus marking in German and English differently
    (2023) Schauffler, Nadja
    This study investigates the interplay between alternation preferences and corrective focus marking in the production of German and English speakers. Both languages prefer an alternation of strong and weak, and both use pitch accenting to indicate focus structure. The objective of the study is to determine whether the preference for rhythmic alternation can account for variations in the prosodic marking of focus. Contrary to previous claims, the results obtained from three production experiments indicate that rhythmic adjustment strategies do occur during focus marking. However, despite the similarities between the two languages, they employ different strategies when alternation and focus marking work in opposite directions. German speakers often employ a melodic alternation of high and low by realizing the first of two adjacent focus accents with a rising pitch accent (L*H), while English speakers frequently omit the first focus accent in clash contexts. This finding is further supported by a second experiment that investigates pitch accent clashes in rhythm rule contexts under various focus environments. The findings suggest that the preference for alternation can influence the prosodic marking of focus and contributes to variation in the realization of information-structure categories.
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    The OV/VO word order change in early middle English
    (2001) Trips, Carola; Roberts, Ian (Prof. Dr.)
    This thesis tries to account for the word order change from OV to VO in the history of English. It is a well known fact that Old English mainly exhibited (embedded) clauses with OV word order but that Middle English texts 'suddenly' exhibit (embedded) clauses with VO order. The best known evidence for this change is the Peterborough Chronicle (1070-1154) where both patterns can be found. The question then is how this change took place, i.e., what factors caused the change from OV to VO. I claim here that the change is due to the external factor language contact, i.e., that the English language changed due to Scandinavian influence during the times of the great Scandinavian invasions in England.
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    An overview of contact-induced morphosyntactic changes in Early English
    (2023) Walkden, George; Klemola, Juhani; Rainsford, Thomas
    This chapter gives an overview of changes in morphology and syntax during the medieval English period that are plausibly induced or catalysed by language contact. Our emphasis is on accurately characterising the contact situations involved, and evaluating the evidence, rather than exhaustively listing every possible contact-induced change, and so the discussion is structured around a few case studies involving each of the three languages that medieval English was in most intense contact with: British Celtic, Old Norse, and Old French. We compare and contrast the contact situations in terms of van Coetsem’s (1988) distinction between borrowing and imposition and Trudgill’s (2011) framework of sociolinguistic typology.