Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T08:14:32.323Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Conceptual Structure of German Impersonal Constructions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2005

Michael B. Smith
Michael B. Smith
Affiliation:
Oakland University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

German impersonal constructions manifest an array of morphosyntactic properties, such as so-called expletive dummy subjects, 3rd person singular verb agreement, and, in some cases, experiencer nominals bearing “quirky” case (usually dative), that have traditionally been regarded as purely accidental, idiosyncratic, or semantically vacuous. This article argues that these properties typically associated with impersonal constructions in German can be semantically motivated and explained within the theoretical framework of Cognitive Grammar (see Langacker 1987a, 1991a, 1991b). Within this framework, it is assumed that morphosyntactic markers are meaningful and polysemous: they are complex conceptual categories with distinct but related senses radiating from a prototypical sense. As a result, impersonal constructions and their component substructures are seen to be meaningful in their own right in reflecting a particular way of construing a scene, rather than as epiphenomena of autonomous syntactic processes.I would like to acknowledge the perceptive and helpful feedback of the anonymous JGL reviewers. I have tried to follow their suggestions wherever possible. Of course, I take full responsibility for any errors or lack of clarity that may remain.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
Journal of Germanic Linguistics , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , June 2005 , pp. 79 - 140
Copyright
© 2005 Society for Germanic Linguistics

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achard Michel. 1998. Representation of cognitive structures: Syntax and semantics of French sentential complements Cognitive Linguistics Research, 11. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Andrews Avery D. 1982. The representation of case in modern Icelandic. The mental representation of grammatical relations, ed. by Joan Bresnan, 427– 503. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bellettii Adriana, and Luigi Rizzi. 1988. Psych-verbs and theta-theory. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 6. 291– 352.
Breckenridge Janet. 1975. The post-cyclicity of es -insertion in German. Chicago Linguistic Society 11. 81– 91.
Cardinaletti Anna. 1997. Agreement and control in expletive constructions. Linguistic Inquiry 28. 521– 533.
Carnie Andrew. 2002. Syntax: A generative introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Chomsky Noam. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky Noam. 1981. Lectures on government and binding. The Pisa lectures. Dordrecht, Holland and Cinnaminson, USA: Foris Publications.
Chomsky Noam. 1986. Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin, and use. NewYork: Praeger.
Chomsky Noam. 1993. A minimalist program for linguistic theory. The view from building 20, ed. by Ken Hale and Samuel J. Keyser, 1– 52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky Noam. 1995. Bare phrase structure. Government and binding theory and the minimalist program. Principles and parameters in syntactic theory, ed. by Gert Webelhuth, 383– 439. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cole Peter, Wayne Harbert, Gabriella Hermon, and S. N. Sridhar. 1980. The acquisition of subjecthood. Language 56. 719– 743.
Cook Vivian J., and Mark Newson (eds.). 1996. Chomsky's universal grammar. An introduction. 2nd edition. Oxford: Blackwell.
Croft William. 1991. Syntactic categories and grammatical relations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Croft William. 1995. Autonomy and functionalist linguistics. Language 71. 490– 532.
Fagan Sarah M. B. 1992. The syntax and semantics of middle constructions. A study with special reference to German. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fauconnier Gilles. 1985. Mental spaces: Aspects of meaning construction in natural language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Franks Steven. 1990. On the status of null expletives. Lingua 81. 1– 24.
Goldberg Adele E. 1995. Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure (Cognitive Theory of Language and Culture Series). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Haegeman Liliane. 1994. Introduction to government and binding theory. 2nd edition. Oxford: Blackwell.
Harris Alice C.. 1984. Inversion as a rule of universal grammar: Georgian evidence. Studies in relational grammar 2, ed. by David M. Perlmutter and Carol G. Rosen, 259– 291. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Haspelmath Martin. 2000. Why can't we talk to each other? Lingua 110. 235– 255.
Hoeing Robert G.. 1994. Empty, expletive, and missing subjects in German. New York: Peter Lang.
Hoeing Robert G. 1995. Subject sich and expletive pro : impersonal reflexive passives in German. Insights in Germanic linguistics I: Methodology in transition (Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs, 83.), ed. by Irmengard Rauch and Gerald F. Carr, 161– 167. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Jackendoff Ray. 1990. Semantic structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Jackendoff Ray. 2002. Foundations of language. Brain, meaning, grammar, evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Johnson Mark. 1987. The body in the mind: the bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kirsner Robert S. 1979. The problem of presentative sentences in modern Dutch (North-Holland Linguistic Series, 43). Amsterdam and New York: North-Holland Publishing Company.
Lakoff George. 1987. Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff George and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Langacker Ronald W. 1986. Settings, participants, and grammatical relations.Proceedings of the annual meeting of the Pacific Linguistics Conference 2. 1– 31.
Langacker Ronald W. 1987a. Foundations of cognitive grammar, vol. 1: Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Langacker Ronald. W. 1987b. Grammatical ramifications of the setting/participant distinction. Proceedings of the annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 13. 383– 394.
Langacker Ronald W. 1988. Autonomy, agreement, and cognitive grammar. Chicago Linguistic Society 24. 147– 180.
Langacker Ronald W. 1991a. Concept, image, and symbol. The cognitive basis of grammar (Cognitive Linguistics Research, 1). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Langacker Ronald W. 1991b. Foundations of cognitive grammar, vol. 2: Descriptive application. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Langacker Ronald W. 1993a. Clause structure in cognitive grammar. Studi Italiani di Linguistica: Teorica e Applicata 22. 465– 508.
Langacker Ronald W. 1993b. Grammatical traces of some “invisible” semantic constructs. Language Sciences 15. 323– 355.
Langacker Ronald W. 1993c. Reference-point constructions. Cognitive Linguistics 4. 1– 38.
Langacker Ronald W. To appear. On the subject of impersonals. Ms, Department of Linguistics, University of California, San Diego.
Maling Joan. 2001. Dative: The heterogeneity of the mapping among morphological case, grammatical functions, and thematic roles. Lingua 111. 419– 464.
McKay Terence. 1985. Infinitival complements in German. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Perlmutter David M. (ed.). 1983. Studies in relational grammar 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Perlmutter David M., and Paul M. Postal. 1983. Some proposed laws of basic clause structure. Studies in relational grammar 1, ed. by David M. Perlmutter, 83– 128. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Perlmutter David M., and Paul M. Postal. 1984. Impersonal passives and some relational laws. Perlmutter and Rosen 1984, 126– 170.
Perlmutter David M., and Carol G. Rosen (eds.). 1984. Studies in relational grammar 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Perlmutter David M., and Annie Zaenen. 1984. The indefinite extraposition construction in Dutch and German. Perlmutter and Rosen 1984, 171– 216.
Postal Paul M., and Geoffrey K. Pullum. 1988. Expletive noun phrases in subcategorized positions. Linguistic Inquiry 19. 635– 670.
Pütz Herbert. 1986. Über die Syntax der Pronominalform “es” im modernen Deutsch. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
Reuland Eric J. 1983. On the subject of nonargument subjects. On the formal syntax of the Westgermania, ed. by Werner Abraham, 3– 46. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Safir Ken. 1985. Missing subjects in German. Studies in German grammar, ed. by Jindrich Toman, 193– 229. Dordrecht, Holland and Cinnaminson, USA: Foris Publications.
Shibatani Masayoshi. 1985. Passives and related constructions: A prototype analysis. Language 61. 821– 848.
Siewierska Anna. 1984. The passive. A comparative linguistic analysis. London: Croom Helm.
Smith Henry. 1994. “Dative sickness’ in Germanic. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 12. 675– 736.
Smith Michael B. 1985a. An analysis of German dummy subject constructions in cognitive grammar. Proceedings of the first annual meeting of the Pacific Linguistics Conference, ed. by Scott Delancey and Russell S. Tomlin. 412– 425. Eugene, OR: Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon.
Smith Michael B. 1985b. Event chains, grammatical relations, and the semantics of case in German. Chicago Linguistic Society 21. 388– 407.
Smith Michael B. 1985c. On the correlation of subjecthood and ephemeral dummies in German. Linguistic Notes from La Jolla 13. 96– 132.
Smith Michael B. 1987. The semantics of dative and accusative in German: An investigation in cognitive grammar. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, San Diego.
Smith Michael B. 1992. The role of image schemas in German grammar. Leuvense Bijdragen 81. 385– 410.
Smith Michael B. 1993a. Aspects of German clause structure from a cognitive grammar perspective. Studi Italiani di Linguistica: Teorica e Applicata 22. 601– 638.
Smith Michael B. 1993b. Cases as conceptual categories: Evidence fromGerman. Conceptualizations and mental processing in language (Cognitive Linguistics Research, 2), ed. by Richard A. Geiger and Brygida Rudzka-Ostyn, 531– 565. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Smith Michael B. 1993c. German sich and polysemy: The meaning and structure of a (pseudo)-grammatical category. Paper presented at the 1993 International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Leuven, Belgium.
Smith Michael B. 1994. Agreement and iconicity in Russian impersonal constructions. Cognitive Linguistics 5. 5– 56.
Smith Michael B. 2000. Cataphors, spaces, propositions: Cataphoric pronouns and their function. Chicago Linguistic Society 36. 483– 500.
Smith Michael B. 2001. Why quirky case really isn't quirky, or how to treat dative sickness in Icelandic. Polysemy in Cognitive Linguistics (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 177), ed. by Hubert Cuyckens and Britta Zawada, 115– 159. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Smith Michael B. 2002. The polysemy of German es, iconicity, and the notion of conceptual distance. Cognitive Linguistics 13. 67– 112.
Smith Michael B. 2004. Cataphoric pronouns as mental space designators:Their conceptual import and discourse function. Cognitive and Communicative Approaches to Linguistic Analysis (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics, 51), ed. by Ellen Contini-Morava, Robert S. Kirsner, and Betsy Rodriguez-Bachiller, 61– 90. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Stroik Thomas S. 1996. Extraposition and expletive-movement: A minimalist account. Lingua 99. 237– 251.
Sweetser Eve. E. 1988. Grammaticalization and semantic bleaching. Berkeley Linguistics Society 14. 389– 405.
Taylor John R. 1995. Linguistic categorization: Prototypes in linguistic theory. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Van Valin, Jr. Robert. 1991. Another look at Icelandic case marking and grammatical relations. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 9. 145– 194.
Verma Manindra K., and K. P. Mohanan. 1990. Experiencer subjects in south Asian languages. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information.
Vikner Sten. 1995. Verb movement and expletive subjects in the Germanic languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Webelhuth Gert. 1995. X-bar theory and case theory. Government and binding theory and the minimalist program. Principles and parameters in syntactic theory, ed. by Gert Webelhuth, 15– 95. Oxford: Blackwell.
Zaenen Annie, Joan Maling, and H. Thráinsson. 1985. Case and grammatical functions: The Icelandic passive. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 3. 441– 483.