12 Sonderforschungs- und Transferbereiche

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://elib.uni-stuttgart.de/handle/11682/13

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 34

Open Access
Flinke Prototypen : der SFB 374 stellt sich vor
(1997) Kunz, Christoph; Rantzau, Dirk; Sigel, Julian; Eschl, Johannes; Keller, Bernd
Seit dem 1. Oktober 1994 existiert der Sonderforschungsbereich 374 Entwicklung und Erprobung innovativer Produkte - Rapid Prototyping - an der Universität Stuttgart. Der SFB beschäftigt sich ganz allgemein mit der Entwicklung von Methoden zur einheitlichen Darstellung von Prototypwissen, der Entwicklung von Verfahren zur schnellen Erzeugung virtueller und physischer Prototypen sowie der Kopplung beider Bereiche durch neu zu entwickelnde Kooperations- und Kommunikationsmodelle. Am RUS ist das Teilprojekt D2, das sich mit der Simulation und Visualisierung technisch-physikalischer Vorgänge beschäftigt, entstanden.
Open Access
SinSpeC 01
(2008)
Volume 1 of the Working Papers of the SFB732 "Incremental Specification in Context" (SinSpeC)
Open Access
Event denoting -er nominalizations in German
(2008) Schäfer, Florian
As in other Germanic or Romance languages, -er nominalizations in German typically denote the external argument of the verb they are derived from irrespectively of its specific thematic role. This type of -er nominalizations is totally productive across languages. As observed in the literature, -er nominalizations across languages sometimes denote what looks like the internal argument of the verb they are derived from and one can even find -er nominalizations derived from adjectives, prepositions or nouns. The latter types of -er nominalizations are, however, not fully productive but (to some extent) idiosyncratic. I will show that German has one further type of -er nominalizations which does not denote an entity but an event. It turns out that these event denoting –er nominalizations are restricted to one specific type of predicates, namely semelfactives. Within this class of semelfactives, the derivation of event denoting -er nominalizations turns out to be totally productive. I suggest that the restriction that event denoting –er nominalizations can only be derived from verbs expressing semelfactive events tells us something about the meaning or the selectional restrictions of the derivational morpheme -er.
Open Access
Bare and indefinite NPs in predicative position in French
(2008) Mari, Alda; Martin, Fabienne
This paper proposes a new analysis of the use of bare nouns vs. indefinite NPs in predicative position in French. We distinguish between predicational sentences (with the bare noun version) and equative sentences (with the indefinite version). We argue that bare nouns ascribe permanent properties to aspects of entities. As for the indefinites, we claim that they exhibit their specific reading and introduce an individual in a new situation, which is identified with the referent of the subject.
Open Access
The division of the causative eventive chain by means of -ment and -age
(2008) Uth, Melanie
In this paper I will investigate process and result nominals in -age and –ment, which are derived from verbs participating in the causative/anti-causative-alternation (henceforth labelled “alternating verbs”). First of all, it will be empirically shown that –mentnominals have both the anti-causative reading and the resultant state reading, whereas process nominals in –age focus on the causing process and result nominals in –age only appear in applicative constructions. Ehrich & Rapp (2000) assume that the causative eventive chain consists of a causing process and a change-of-state event that takes the resultant state as its situational argument. Following that, I will conclude from the empirical evidence that –ment nominalizes the change-of-state event, while –age nominalizes the causing process. Furthermore, I will model the relevant –age- and –mentnominals in terms of Lieber’s (2004) conceptual structures and discuss the question whether we may assume that –ment and –age introduce different aspectual operators.
Open Access
The internal structure of the -or nominalization in Romanian
(2008) Marchis, Mihaela
In this paper I argue that the –or affix embeds different morpho-syntactical contexts, triggering distinct semantic effects: the (+ event) nominalization vs. (- event) derivation. I illustrate that both (+ event) and (- event) nouns have a vP, basing my claim on the two arguments (see Alexiadou & Schäfer (2007)): the morphology of –or nouns and adjectival modification. However, vP is bound by different operators: episodic vs. dispositional. According to Alexiadou & Schäfer (2007) event nominals are episodic while non-event nominals are dispositional. I propose that these aspectual specifications are triggered by the participial stem -t present in –or formation. Following the classification of Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou (2004, 2008), the structure of resultant participles is involved in the –or nominalization while –or derivation is built on the base of target participles. Like resultant participles (+event) nouns contain not only a vP but also the functional projections such as vP, AsP and VoiceP. (- event) derivates like target participles lack argument structure and therefore also VoiceP. To conclude, (+event) nominals involve nominalization since –or affix is base-generated as the Agent in the Specifier of VoiceP while the -or affix involved in derivation is base-generated in the head position where the verb moves up and cliticizes.
Open Access
Meaning transfer and the compositional semantics of nominalizations
(2008) Brandtner, Regine
Deverbal nominalizations derived with –ung in German display different sortal readings (e.g. event, result, object) depending on the context that they occur in. However, there are cases that show conflicting evidence and hence pose problems for the compositional process. This paper provides a new explanation for the constructions in which one nominalization is understood as expressing two different readings simultaneously in order to match different semantic restrictions by modifiers or governing predicates. As these cases cannot be explained sufficiently by conventional strategies of interpreting nominalizations in context, I apply Nunberg’s notion of predicate transfer to shift the context rather than the noun: It is claimed that the nominalization expresses just one reading that fits the semantic restriction of the first modifier or predicate, while the second modifier or predicate changes its meaning through meaning enrichment. This analysis allows for the preserving of compositionality and releases other theories of these special cases.
Open Access
Descriptions and their domains : the patterns of definiteness marking in French-related creoles
(2008) Wespel, Johannes; von Heusinger, Klaus (Prof. Dr.)
This dissertation is about the interpretation of definite descriptions. Definite descriptions are nominal expressions with a predicative core and possibly a special article form in languages that have one. Examples in English would be the table, or the king of France. Their defining semantic characteristic is that they pick out an unambiguous referent from the ensemble of things to which the nominal content can apply. The theory proposed here assumes that unambiguity is the common semantic feature of all definite descriptions, but at the same time it is fine-grained enough to accommodate several sub-types of descriptions one may want to posit out of theoretical and empirical considerations. The central idea is that the contextual nature of reference is of prime importance in assigning representations to nominal expressions. In the realm of definite descriptions, this means that unambiguity of reference is recognized as a domain-relative phenomenon. The bulk of this study is about finding out what sub-types of domain-relative reference there are. Results gained from theoretical considerations are substantiated by investigating data from French-related creole languages, which are believed to have a particularly transparent syntax-semantics mapping. Thus the distribution of the creole definite marker has some importance in judging whether certain notional distinctions are justified on empirical grounds. A four-tiered schema of definite descriptions emerges, differentiated by the specific ways in which the context interacts with unambiguity requirements. The significance of this classification beyond the languages investigated in the study is also discussed.
Open Access
External argument PPs in Romanian nominalizations
(2008) Iordachioaia, Gianina
In this paper, I investigate the properties of Romanian complex event nominals (CENs, after Grimshaw 1990) with respect to the realization of the external argument. The goal of such an attempt is two-fold. On the one hand, in view of the claim in Grimshaw that the process of nominalization is similar to that of passivization – to the extent that both suppress the external argument – a comparison between the verbal and the nominal domain will provide us with a better understanding of the conditions under which external argument PPs are licensed. On the other hand, on the assumption that external arguments are licensed by a Voice projection (Kratzer 1994), we can establish whether CENs in Romanian do project Voice. From the behavior of the infinitive and that of the supine, the two most productive CENs in Romanian, I conclude that the latter obligatorily projects a VoiceP, which licenses the external argument PP. The behavior of the former is ambiguous, so the licensing conditions for the external argument PP are dependent on the nature of the verbal root within the nominalization.
Open Access
On the structure of the Scandinavian DP
(2008) Lohrmann, Susanne
Adjectives in definite Scandinavian DPs trigger an additional lexical determiner (‘double definiteness’). In a number of cases, one of the determiners is obsolete, and in some of these cases, different readings are obtained. The following questions arise: what is the function of this doubling pattern of determiners? Is there a semantic correlate? And what does this tell us about the structure of the DP? The presence or absence of weak adjectival inflection can also yield different readings, i.e. inflection interacts with interpretation. In the following I will show that multiple exponence in Scandinavian DPs contributes to interpretation. Furthermore I suggest that the notion of definiteness in Scandinavian DPs is made up of three aspects: discourse reference, specific reference, and identity. These aspects are expressed by three distinct morphemes: the preadjectival article, the suffixed article, and the adjectival inflection respectively.
Open Access
Differential object marking in Mongolian
(2008) Guntsetseg, Dolgor
In this paper, I will deal with the phenomenon of Differential Object Marking (DOM) in Mongolian. In this language some direct objects are overtly case marked and others not. In other languages that also exhibit this phenomenon different semantic and pragmatic factors have been identified which trigger it. In this paper I will try to give answers to the following two questions: (i) how relevant are these factors for DOM in Mongolian and (ii) do other factors play a role as well. The discussion is primarily based on my own native speaker intuition. Some results of an empirical survey, which was constructed to clarify some unclear cases, will also be discussed.
Open Access
Towards a uniform approach to postnominal PPs and genitives in German
(2008) Solstad, Torgrim
In Distributed Morphology analyses of German, genitives occurring postnominally to deverbal event nominals such as in die Beschreibung der Bürgermeisterin (‘the description of the mayoress’) are argued to occur in different syntactic positions depending on their interpretation. Whenever they are interpreted in a parallel fashion to the internal argument of the underlying verb, they are assumed to occupy some complement position internal to the nominalisation. However, if they are interpreted as more loosely associated with the event, such as in an interpretation of die Beschreibung der B¨urgermeisterin as a particular event of a description of something which the mayoress attended, they are assumed to be adjoined to the noun phrase. I argue that for lack of hard syntactic evidence with regard to these positions, we should seek a surface-oriented uniform analysis of the two interpretations. The varying interpretation of genitives is accounted for by assuming them to be introduced via an underspecified semantic relation r. The analysis is held in the framework of Underspecified Discourse Representation Theory.
Open Access
The semantics of eventive suffixes in French
(2008) Martin, Fabienne
This paper examines the properties of three of the suffixes available to create eventive deverbal nouns in French, namely -age, -ment and -ion. The explored hypothesis is that these suffixes have an abstract semantical and aspectual value which contributes to explain why verbs select different suffixes in the operation of nominalisation, as well as the semantical differences between two nominalisations derived from the same verbal base with different suffixes.
Open Access
Local dislocation in the distribution of french adjectives
(2008) Gengel, Kirsten
In the recent literature on the cross-linguistic placement of adjectives it has been observed (Cinque 2005, among others) that the Germanic languages and the Romance adjectives display a mirror pattern with respect to the placement of adjectives. In this paper I show that while the corresponding generalizations put forward in Cinque (2005) may hold for the majority of the Romance languages, French seems to be much freer in the distribution of adjectives than would be predicted on the basis of these generalizations. To account for the observed differences, I pursue the claim made by Lamarche (1991) and others that the placement of adjectives in prenominal or postnominal position in French is sensitive to information-structural and morphosyntactic restrictions that are not found in the other Romance languages. I show that in the cases where French exhibits unexpected adjectivenoun combinations these restrictions are relevant, and can be captured with the Local Dislocation Hypothesis (cf. Embick & Noyer 2001) in the framework of Distributed Morphology.
Open Access
Verbs, nouns and affixation
(2008) Alexiadou, Artemis; Grimshaw, Jane
What explains the rich patterns of deverbal nominalization? Why do some nouns have argument structure, while others do not? We seek a solution in which properties of deverbal nouns are composed from properties of verbs, properties of nouns, and properties of the morphemes that relate them. The theory of each plus the theory of how they combine, should give the explanation. In exploring this, we investigate properties of two theories of nominalization. In one, the verb-like properties of deverbal nouns result from verbal syntactic structure (a “structural model”). See, for example, van Hout & Roeper 1998, Fu, Roeper and Borer 1993, 2001, to appear, Alexiadou 2001, to appear). According to the structural hypothesis, some nouns contain VPs and/or verbal functional layers. In the other theory, the verbal properties of deverbal nouns result from the event structure and argument structure of the DPs that they head. By “event structure” we mean a representation of the elements and structure of a linguistic event, not a representation of the world. We refer to this view as the “event model”. According to the event model hypothesis, all derived nouns are represented with the same syntactic structure, the difference lying in argument structure – which in turn is critically related to event structure, in the way sketched in Grimshaw (1990), Siloni (1997) among others. In pursuing these lines of analysis, and at least to some extent disentangling their properties, we reach the conclusion that, with respect to a core set of phenomena, the two theories are remarkably similar – specifically, they achieve success with the same problems, and must resort to the same stipulations to address the remaining issues that we discuss (although the stipulations are couched in different forms).
Open Access
Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 13. Vol. I
(2009) Riester, Arndt; Solstad, Torgrim (eds.)
This is Volume I of the proceedings of the 13th installment of the annual conference "Sinn und Bedeutung 13" at the University of Stuttgart.
Open Access
Stress test for relative clauses
(2009) Riester, Arndt
A brief overview on the semantic differences between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses is given. Subsequently differences with regard to information status and focus alternatives are presented. I investigate, in a systematic way, which focus (accent) patterns on relative-clause constructions are (im)possible in which contexts and why this is so. In order to account for the infelicity of certain restrictive relative clause constructions a new proposal is made how to derive the contrastive properties of complex definite descriptions (focus phrases) involving relative clauses. The account presented in this paper gives rise to predictions on intonational phonology and sentence processing.
Open Access
Exhaustiveness of Hungarian focus : experimental evidence from Hungarian and German
(2009) Onea, Edgar
Preverbal focus in Hungarian has been argued to be more exhaustive or exhaustive in a distinguished way as compared to what has been generally called prosodic focus in languages like English or German. In virtually all analysis it has been assumed that the reason for this property of Hungarian focus is related to its immediately preverbal syntactic position. This effect has thus been derived compositionally at the syntax-semantics interface as part of the truth conditional content of the respective sentences. In this paper I present new data from a pilot experiment that suggests that exhaustiveness is not part of the truth conditional content of sentences containing preverbal focus in Hungarian. The data also shows, however, that Hungarian focus is indeed somewhat more exhaustive than prosodic focus in German. Hence there is definitely something to say about exhaustiveness in Hungarian. Finally I present a new empirical puzzle emerging from the experimental data.
Open Access
Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 13
(2009) Riester, Arndt; Solstad, Torgrim (eds.)
These are the proceedings of the 13th installment of the annual conference "Sinn und Bedeutung 13" at the University of Stuttgart.
Open Access
Focus at the syntax-semantics interface
(2009) Riester, Arndt; Onea, Edgar (eds.)
This volume contains a significant part of the talks presented at the Workshop on "Focus at the Syntax-Semantics Interface", which took place on April 6th-7th, 2008 at the University of Stuttgart. The aim of the workshop was to address some major semantic and syntactic issues of focus theory: focus representation, compositionality, focus interpretation, syntactic marking, presuppositions, focus sensitivity as well as focus movement. In addition, related phenomena such as the semantics of discourse particles and the relation between discourse prominence and case marking were raised.