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Title:
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Adverbiale der Art & Weise im Deutschen – eine semantische und konzeptuelle Studie (Manner Adverbials in German - a Semantic and Conceptual Approach)
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Author:
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Kerstin Hansson
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Email:
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Degree Awarded:
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University of Gothenburg
, Ph.D. program at the Department of German and Dutch
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Degree Date:
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2007
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Semantics
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Subject Language(s):
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German, Standard
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Director(s):
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Sven-Gunnar Andersson
Wolfgang Koch
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Abstract:
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This thesis questions the standard view of the interpretation of Manner
Adverbials, according to which this part of speech modifies the
process/action denoted by the verb like in (1) or the underlying event
denoted by the sentence.
(1) Sie sammelte die Nägel laut auf.
(1') She gathered up the nails loudly.
Corpus studies and acceptability tests with native speakers of German of
the semantic and syntactic properties of Manner Adverbials in contemporary
German show that this is to narrow a definition. Examples like the ones in
(2)-(5) show that this kind of modifier gives rise to other interpretations
as well, namely the qualifying of a result state of the process/action
denoted by the verb (2), of an inherent 'hidden' component of the verb
semantics (3), of an inherent parameter of the verb semantics (4) and of
the internal event structure (5).
(2) Sie färbten den Stoff schön ein.
(2') They coloured the tissue beautifully.
(3) Sie zogen das Kind bunt an.
(3') They dressed the child colourfully.
(4) Das Auto fuhr langsam.
(4') The car went slowly.
(5) Er übte das Musikstück gründlich.
(5') He rehearsed the piece of music thoroughly.
The data raises the issue of whether these various interpretations can be
theoretically accounted for in a general and systematic way. However, a
precondition for a systematic account of the variation in the
interpretation of Manner Adverbials reported by the tests are suitable
taxonomies of the word classes involved in this kind of modification, i.e.
verbs and adjectives. Therefore, a proposal for such taxonomies is put
forward. The target units of the Manner Adverbials in (1)-(5) are analyzed
within the theoretic framework of event semantics, taking an internal
structure of the event into account. A formal model of the semantic and
conceptual representation of the modification by Manner Adverbials is
proposed which attempts to cover all semantic relevant distinctions
reported by the data. The thesis concludes with a brief overview of the
syntactic characteristics of Manner Adverbials in German which is linked to
the semantic and conceptual account proposed.
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