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Grammaticalization Paths of English and High German Existential Constructions
Simone E. Pfenninger
其他書名
A Corpus-based Study
出版Peter Lang, 2009
主題Foreign Language Study / English as a Second LanguageForeign Language Study / GermanLanguage Arts & Disciplines / GeneralLanguage Arts & Disciplines / Grammar & PunctuationLanguage Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / GeneralLanguage Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / Historical & ComparativeLanguage Arts & Disciplines / ReferenceLiterary Criticism / Ancient & Classical
ISBN30343002129783034300216
URLhttp://books.google.com.hk/books?id=zDuK65jVw-oC&hl=&source=gbs_api
EBookSAMPLE
註釋Existential constructions are a fundamental feature of many Indo-European languages, and constructions with non-referential subjects have developed in all of the latter, albeit at different stages in their histories.
High German does not feature a prototypical existential construction that is equivalent in syntactic and pragmatic function and semantic meaning to the English existential there-construction. How did a prototypical existential structure originate in English? Why is it that High German has never developed such a construction? Has it ever shown a tendency towards developing one? How did two closely related languages such as English and High German come to differ so much with respect to these constructions?
By means of investigating a variety of historical and contemporary data this study shows that not only semantic, pragmatic and syntactic factors are involved, which decide the choice of a certain construction, but also very much the more general different linguistic development that the two languages underwent in the course of time.