LINGUIST List 12.1065

Sun Apr 15 2001

Books: German Linguistics

Editor for this issue: Naomi Ogasawara <naomilinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Kim Lewis Brown, German Ling: On Particle Verbs and Similar Constructions in German

L�deling, Anke (Universit�t Stuttgart ), 
ON PARTICLE VERBS AND SIMILAR CONSTRUCTIONS IN GERMAN; 
paperback ISBN: 1-57586-302-2, $23.00; 
cloth ISBN: 1-57586-301-4, $65.00; 
182 pages. CSLI Publications 2001. 
http://cslipublications.stanford.edu 
email: pubscsli.stanford.edu.

To order this book, contact The University of Chicago Press. Call 
their toll free order number 1-800-621-2736 (U.S. & Canada only) or 
order online at http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ (use the search 
feature to locate the book, then order).

Book description:

Distinctions between the notions of a phrase, a word, and their
components are challenged by so-called particle verbs in German and
similar features in other languages. Particle verbs look like single
words, yet are typically assembled from word-like fragments that
together behave more like components of a phrase than of a word. The
resolution of existing scholarly ambivalence has exciting
ramifications, from questioning the existence of particle verbs to a
broader understanding of what constitutes a word.

Particle verbs have previously been analyzed as morphological objects
or as phrasal constructions, but neither approach fits cleanly within
its chosen framework. The resolution presented here is that particle
verbs should be seen as lexicalized phrasal constructions.
Emphasizing morphological and syntactic testability, over a hundred
colloquial examples are shown to break the rules of previous
approaches while remaining consistent with this book's proposition.
To distinguish particle verbs from similar constructions, and to
demonstrate how structural and morphological factors have been
misidentified in the past, preverb verb constructions (PVCs) are
introduced and diagrammed. This reveals the roles of listedness and
non-transparency in word formation and clarifies the conclusion that
particle verbs do not form a definable class of words.