Linguistics and English Language

Cognitive linguistics seminar

Speaker: Ina Mangold (University of Edinburgh)

Title: Reanalysis, Reintegration, Reinforcement? Re-examining the origins of the German PPPC

Abstract: The prenominal periphrastic possessive construction (PPPC) of the type “dem Mann sein Hut” (the.DAT man his hat) is a phenomenon that is attested in almost all non-standard varieties of German. Both its status as a syntactic outlier in contemporary German as well as its diachronic development have been the subject of discussion in the literature. There have been several attempts at explaining its origin, yet so far none of the proposals seem to be able to account for all of the facets of the construction (e.g. the range of different case-marking strategies of the possessor). In this talk, I will re-examine and critically evaluate the different origin hypotheses that have been put forward. I will show the shortcomings of these approaches by re-evaluating historical data cited in the literature. Based on these findings, I will outline a new proposal which makes use of the concept of reinforcement. I will argue that this approach can not only explain the apparent redundancy in possessive marking, but also allows for a contextualisation of the emergence of the PPPC within the wider structural changes in non-standard varieties of German, specifically the gradual loss of genitive case marking.

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Dec 04 2020 -

Cognitive linguistics seminar

2020-12-04: Reanalysis, Reintegration, Reinforcement? Re-examining the origins of the German PPPC

Online via link invitation