0000000000335818
AUTHOR
Rita Finkbeiner
showing 7 related works from this author
Evaluative meaning
2012
Linguistic evaluation has become an important area of inquiry in recent years. In the traditions of, e.g., lexical semantics, phraseology, corpus linguistics, and interactional linguistics, a large inventory of linguistic means have been identified by which speakers can express evaluative meanings. However, the class of German sentential idioms, e.g., Das kannst du dir in die Haare schmieren (lit. ‘You can smear that into your hair’, fig. ‘That is useless’), has not gained much attention. This paper explores how the evaluative meaning of German sentential idioms is constructed syntactically, semantically, and pragmatically. In particular, it is investigated how the meaning of these idioms i…
Phraseologieerwerb und Kinderliteratur. Verfahren der ›Verständlichmachung‹ von Phraseologismen im Kinder- und Jugendbuch am Beispiel von Otfried Pre…
2011
In this paper, it is claimed that authors adjust their use of phraseology in children’s books to the still limited phraseological competence of children. Authors may apply procedures such as phraseme accumulation, phraseme paraphrasing, or phraseme modification in order to enhance the comprehensibility of phrasemes for children. With increasing phraseological competence of adolescents, the use of phraseology in books for adolescents changes. Three hypotheses are set up: (H1) The phraseme types used in children’s books are semantically and pragmatically rather ›easy‹ compared to those in adolescent’s books; (H2) the number of phrasemes which are accompanied by procedures of enhancing compreh…
Sprechakttheoretische Überlegungen zur Typographie – am Beispiel von Presseüberschriften
2021
AbstractUsing the example of newspaper headlines, this paper develops a speech-act theoretic approach to aspects of meaning that can be communicated through the use of typographic means. After considering, more generally, the relationship between speech act theory and writing, analogies between prosody and typography are discussed and the claim is developed that typographic means, just as prosodic means, may function as illocutionary force indicating devices. Using Gallmann’s (1985) system of graphic means, newspaper headlines are defined, more specifically, as typographic objects indicating the (meta-textual) illocution type of an announcement of the text topic. Finally, the relationship b…
“ArgumenteHin, ArgumenteHer.” Regularity and Idiomaticity in GermanN Hin,N Her
2017
This paper seeks to find the best linguistic analysis of the German semispecified, productive patternN 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 ofN hin, N hercan 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 ofN hin, N heris the identity of the nouns. This raises the question of whether or notN hin, N heris an instance of syntactic reduplication. It is shown that rule-based copying accounts fail when they are applied to the case ofN hin, N her. The paper argu…
Naja, normal und normal. Zur Syntax, Semantik und Pragmatik der x-und-x-Konstruktion im Deutschen
2012
This article deals with the syntax, semantics and pragmatics of the x und x (‘x and x’) construction in German, cf. A: Schade, dass die [Schabracken] so teuer sind! B: Naja, teuer und teuer, wenn die Qualitat stimmt, dann finde ich den Preis okay. (A: ‘What a pity that the horsetrappers are so expensive!’ B: ‘Well, expensive and expensive, if the quality is good, the price is fine with me.’). The specific discourse function of this construction is to negotiate the situational meaning of a previously used lexical item. Typologically, it has been claimed that the pattern is language-specific for Scandinavian. The paper challenges this assumption, providing empirical evidence from a questionna…
Identical constituent compounds in German
2014
The status of identical constituent compounds (ICCs) (e.g. Künstler-Künstler, ‘artist-artist’) is discussed controversially in the morphological literature on German. In this paper, it is claimed that ICC formation is a productive word formation pattern in German. In the first part of the paper, I investigate the formal, semantic and pragmatic properties of ICCs in German. Based on this description, I discuss in more detail two conflicting claims about their meaning constitution: the ‘prototype reading claim’ and the ‘context-dependency claim’. I argue that ICCs do not behave differently, in principle, from canonical N+N compounds with respect to context-dependency. Based on a discussion o…
Boris “Ich bin drin” Becker (‘Boris I am in Becker’). Syntax, semantics and pragmatics of a special naming construction
2016
Constructions such as Germ. Boris “Ich bin drin” Becker (‘Boris I am in Becker’) follow a startling pattern. A quotation (“Ich bin drin”) is inserted in between two constituents of a complex personal-name construction (Boris Becker). The quotation relates to the person bearing this name. Therefore, the whole construction cannot be understood without massive contextual knowledge, i.e. knowing when, where, and why Boris Becker said so, and how this is relevant in the interpretation of the construction. In general, N “CP” N constructions such as Boris “Ich bin drin” Becker not only differ from canonical personal-name constructions such as Boris Becker in requiring the import of background know…