On Particle Verbs and Similar Constructions in German

This book deals with the so-called particle verbs (or separable verbs) in German. It shows that particle verbs cannot be clearly distinguished from similar constructions (like e.g. resultative constructions) by discussing the linguistic tests that have been used in the literature. It is argued that those constructions that are commonly called particle verbs are phrasal constructions (of various sorts) instead of words. The only difference between particle verbs and similar constructions is non-transparency or listedness. It is shown that much of the behavior of particle verbs that is commonly claimed to be due to structural facts (topicalization of the particle, question-answer sequences etc.) is really due to semantic factors (like non-transparency). Many of the word formation facts cannot be explained by structural differences but seem to be influenced by the listed/unlisted distinction as well.

Anke Lüdeling is at the Institut für Maschinelle Sprachverabeitung, Universitaet Stuttgart.

Introduction

1 What are Particle Views?

1.1 Introduction to the Structure Problem
1.2 Introduction to the Delimination Problem
1.3 The Example Set
1.4 Summary

2 Particle Verbs in Syntax, Semantics and Phonology

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Semantic Properties
2.3 Phonological Properties
2.4 Syntactic Properties
2.5 Conclusion

3 Significance Testing

3.1 PVCs in Word Formation—a Test for Structural Differences?
3.2 PVCs in the Lexicon
3.3 PVCs in Word Formation
3.4 Nominalization
3.5 Adjective Derivation
3.6 Un- Prefixing of the Past Participle
3.7 Summary

4 Strange Words or Strange Phrases?

4.1 Particle Verbs in Descriptive German Grammars
4.2 Early Generative Approaches
4.3 Morphological Analyses of Dutch and German Particle Verbs
4.4 Syntactic Analyses of Particle Verbs
4.5 The Semantics of Particular Verbs
4.6 Summary

5 Proverbs as Secondary Predicates or Adverbs

5.1 Analysis
5.2 Complex Predicates
5.3 Preverbs as Adjuncts
5.4 Consequences
5.5 When is a PVC Called a Particle Verb?
5.6 Summary

6 Conclusion

6.1 Summary
6.2 Coda

7 Nonarbitrary Vocabulary

7.1 Grammatical Elements

8 Historical Connection vs. Relatedness

9 Language-Internal Cognates

9.1 Item Deletion
9.2 Trimming Words
9.3 Stratificational Approaches

10 Recurrence Metrics

10.1 Chi-Squared Versus Recurrence
10.2 Phonetic Features
10.3 Multiple Phoneme Matches
10.4 Subsample Averaging
10.5 Multilateral Comparisons

References
Subject Index
Author Index

4/1/2001

ISBN (Paperback): 1575863022 (9781575863023)
ISBN (Cloth): 1575863014 (9781575863016)
ISBN (Electronic): 1575869659 (9781575869650)

On Particle Verbs and Similar Constructions in German

Contents