Weighting the Contraints on Word-order Variation in German Markus - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Weighting the Contraints on Word-order Variation in German Markus Bader & Jana H¨ aussler University of Konstanz QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 1

Introduction The expression of focus – syntax vs. phonology Sentence-focus (Context: What happened?): Rightmost stress and canonical word-order in English and Italian (1) a. English: [ F John has LAUGHED] b. Italian: [ F Gianni ha RISO] Subject-focus (Context: Who has laughed?): English retains canonical word-order, Italian retains rightmost stress (2) a. English: [ F JOHN] has laughed b. Italian: Ha riso [ F GIANNI] QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 2

Introduction Sentence-focus (Context: What happened?): Rightmost stress and canonical word-order (3) [ F Jan hat GELACHT] John has laughed Subject-focus (Context: Who has laughed?): Either canonical word-order is retained, or rightmost stress (4) a. [ F JAN] hat gelacht John has laughed b. Gelacht hat [ F JAN] laughed has John QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 3

Introduction Strategies to express focus English: fixed word-order and flexible focus assignment Italian: flexible syntax and fixed focus structure German: flexible syntax and flexible focus assignment Flexibility in German includes the ordering between subject and object: Who called the minister? (5) a. [ F Der VATER] hat den Pfarrer angerufen the father-NOM has the minister-ACC called b. Den Pfarrer hat [ F der VATER] angerufen the minister-ACC has the father-NOM called QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 4

Introduction Questions of the current study What are the relevant factors determining the order between subject and object in German? (Are all factors suggested in the literature indeed necessary to determine word-order in German?) What is the weight of each of these factors? Do the factors (or their weight) differ for embedded vs. main clauses? QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 5

Introduction Outline of the talk The grammar of word-order variation Previous corpus studies of word-order variation in German The current corpus study A comparison with results from language comprehension General discussion QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 6

The grammar of word-order variation ‘Word-order’ freedom involving the prefield (SpecCP): (Only possible in main clauses) (6) a. Der Vater hat den Pfarrer besucht the father-NOM has the minister-ACC visited b. Den Pfarrer hat der Vater besucht the minister-ACC has the father-NOM visited QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 7

The grammar of word-order variation ‘Word-order’ freedom involving the middlefield (between C ◦ and the clause-final verb(s)): (7) a. Sicher hat der Vater den Pfarrer besucht Surely has the father-NOM the minister-ACC visited b. Sicher hat den Pfarrer der Vater besucht Surely has the minister-ACC the father-NOM visited (8) a. dass der Vater den Pfarrer besucht hat that the father-NOM the minister-ACC visited has b. dass den Pfarrer der Vater besucht hat that the minister-ACC the father-NOM visited has QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 8

The grammar of word-order variation For German, SO is considered to be the canonical word-order. Two sources have been proposed for using OS: Information structure : In order to have focus in its default pre-verb position, a non-focused object may be moved to the left. In order to have the topic in its preferred initial position, an object in topic function might be moved to the left. Argument structure : Particular verbs (e.g. psych-verbs, unaccusative verbs) license the use of OS. QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 9

The grammar of word-order variation Factors that have been suggested to affect word-order discourse related properties: definiteness: definite < indefinite focus/background topichood: topic first semantic properties: agency: agent < non-agent animacy: animate < inanimate length: favoring OS when the object is shorter than the subject QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 10

Previous corpus studies Hoberg (1981): Base word order (N–D–A) pron – ((N–D–A) +ani – (N–D–A) − ani ) nom – (N,D,A) FN pronominal argument < non-pronominal argument ordering of pronouns: NOM < ACC < DAT non-pronominal arguments: animate < inanimate Semantically opaque arguments are adjacent to the verb (‘Funktionsverbgefüge’) QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 11

The current corpus study Data base Newspaper corpus of the IDS (Mannheim) We queried for den (object introduced by the definite article den ) with further restrictions (see below). Motivation for den : combination of corpus and comprehension studies Focus of comprehension studies: Syntactic ambiguity resolution Depending on the noun, objects with den are ambiguous between dative and accusative QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 12

The current corpus study Sentences were randomly sampled by the COSMAS-System four sets: 2 clause types x 2 positional restrictions dass (...) den : embedded clauses, unconstrained wrt. to the position of the object dass den : embedded clauses, object-initial (immediately following the complementizer) den : main clauses, unconstrained wrt. to the position of the object Den : main clauses, object-initial Sentences in which den was not a verbal argument were subsequently removed (e.g. den within PPs) QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 13

The current corpus study The sentence sets were annotated for the following properties: case voice animacy definiteness pronominality length of subject and object (number of words) QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 14

The current corpus study Table 1: Overview of embedded clauses Unconstrained Object-initial Total 1178 930 S=Nominal 835 838 S=Pronominal 335 0 no S 8 91 1 NP Arg 8 91 2 NP Args 1019 828 3 NP Args 151 11 4 NP Args 0 0 QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 15

The current corpus study Table 2: Overview of main clauses Unconstrained Object-initial Total 668 827 S=Nominal 518 602 S=Pronominal 146 198 no S 4 27 1 NP Arg 4 27 2 NP Args 559 719 3 NP Args 104 80 4 NP Args 1 1 QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 16

The current corpus study The position of subject pronouns: Embedded clauses : In our data, a pronominal subject precedes the non-pronominal den -object without exception This confirms earlier observations of a categorial constrain “S [+pron] < O [ − pron] ” in the middlefield Main clauses : Both orderings are attested, but when the object precedes a pronominal subject, the object is always in the prefield. This is expected given that the prefield and the middlefield-initial position have different syntactic characteristics. QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 17

Focus of this Presentation Factors determining word-order in German Comparison of word order in the middlefield and word-order involving the prefield Word-order variation in the middlefield: corpora containing embedded clauses (possible differences between the middlefield in main and embedded clauses won’t be discussed) Word-order variation involving the prefield: corpora containing main clauses, with all sentences in which both subject and object are in the middlefield removed Note: In the following, we will present data for sentences with a non-pronominal subject only. QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 18

Word-order: Basic Results Table 3: Percentages of SO-sentences by case and nr. of arguments Middlefield (emb.) Prefield (main) Accusative Dative Accusative Dative 2 Args. 99.25 50.93 89.2 49.2 3 Args. 98.65 96.10 87.5 94.3 QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 19

Word-order: Basic Results Table 4: Percentages of accusative-sentences by order and nr. of arguments Middlefield (emb.) Prefield (main) Sub > Obj Obj > Sub Sub > Obj Obj > Sub 2 Args. 88.0 5.4 (6.4) 91.6 56.2 (76.0) 3 Args. 49.7 25.0 (0) 48.5 71.4 (67.0) QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 20

Word-order: Basic Results Summary for 2-argument sentences: OS-order in the middlefield occurs mainly with dative objects For dative objects, there is no difference between middlefield and prefield For accusative objects, prefield OS is much more frequent than middlefield OS Summary for 3-argument sentences: Sentences with three arguments were almost always realized with SO-order. QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 21

Lexical-Conceptual Factors Animacy in accusative sentences 100 SO Middlefield OS Middlefield SO Prefield OS Prefield Percentage of sentences 80 60 40 20 0 S[+an] S[+an] S[−an] S[−an] O[+an] O[−an] O[+an] O[−an] Distribution of Animacy Features QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 22

Lexical-Conceptual Factors Animacy in accusative sentences 100 SO Middlefield OS Middlefield SO Prefield OS Prefield Percentage of sentences 80 60 40 20 0 S[+an] S[+an] S[−an] S[−an] O[+an] O[−an] O[+an] O[−an] Distribution of Animacy Features QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 23

Lexical-Conceptual Factors Animacy in dative sentences 100 SO Middlefield SO Prefield Percentage of sentences OS Middlefield 80 OS Prefield 60 40 20 0 S[+an] S[+an] S[−an] S[−an] O[+an] O[−an] O[+an] O[−an] Distribution of Animacy Features QITL 2 - Osnabr¨ uck 2006 – p. 24