Linguistische Berichte Heft 186

Degemination in German applies not only in regular but also in irregular verbal inflexion. According to Wiese's (1996) stratal organization for German, these two morphological processes will be placed on two discontinuous levels of lexicon, posing the problem that a rule of degemination disobeys the general restriction in Lexical Phonology (Mohanan 1982, 1986); the domain of a rule may not contain nonadjacent strata. In this paper, I argue that Optimality Theory (and in its more recent versions like Correspondence Theory McCarthy & Prince 1995) provides the solution to this problem in terms of constraints on correspondence relations. More importantly the presented analysis offers a paradigm-based account for the two different strategies of anti- geminates (degemination and schwa-epenthesis) revealing that the otherwise unmotivated deletion and epenthesis within the serial operational theory is due to the uniformity in paradigms between 2. and 3. ps. sg. verbal form. The central role of the constraint Uniform Exponence within the paradigm-based theory is further supported by the contrast between the prefixes in- and un-.

Laymen often have difficulty in understanding legal language. They criticize the fact that expressions of general language are used in a technical meaning with which they are not familiar. This can infringe on the constitutional principle of clarity and definiteness as it is laid down in article 103 section 2 ofthe German Constitution (Grundgesetz). This article describes how terms such as „violence'" (Gewalt), ,,threat" (Drohung) and „harm" (Übel) of § 240 section I German Penal Code (Strafgesetzbuch) are interpreted by experts and by laymen. The problem of comprehensibility in courtroom proceedings is also covered.

Our central question studied here is whether there exists a preferred Gerrnan constituent order in sentences. Assuming that there are several factors controlling deviations from the preferred constituent order, we focus on the influence grammatical function has on the constituent order in the middle field. To this end we present a model of preferred German constituent order in the middle field and its experimental evaluation. Structure of this text. After a short synopsis of important research done in the field of constituent order we present our own model of preferred Gerrnan constituent order in the so called Mittelfeld. Finally, the evaluation of this model by a sentence generation experiment is presented and discussed. Further statistical analyses of the experimentally gained data made it possible to expand our predictions from the middle field into the whole sentence. Some aspects of the relation between preferred and canonical constituent order are also discussed.

The semantic competition model is a connectionist model ofword meaning. Following traditional semantic theories, word meaning is considered as the usage of the word consisting of weighted mappings between its syntactic forms and prototypical aspects of its usage. The weights between form und usage are determined by two variables: cue availability and cue reliability. While cue availability indicates the frequency of applying one mapping, cue reliability indicates its contribution to maximal discrimination. To prove the relevance of both variables, three-to six-year-old children were presented with cues for an unknown object that differed in their availability and reliability. In referring to the relatum, the majority of the children oriented themselves significantly towards both, the most available as weil as the most reliable cue. These results confirm the semantic competition model.