Werner Frey

Abstracts
Finkbeiner, Rita: Konstruktionen an der Grammatik-Pragmatik- Schnittstelle.
This paper provides an overview of recent developments in research on the grammar/pragmatics interface. The focus is on Construction Grammar and conte [...]

Karin Pittner, Daniela Elsner & Fabian Barteld (eds.) (2015): Adverbs. Functional and diachronic aspects. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Claus Ehrhardt & Eva Neuland (Hgg.) (2017): Sprachliche Höflichkeit. Historische, aktuelle und künftige Perspektiven. Tübingen: Narr.Katharina Turgay (2017): Frequenz vs. Akzeptabilität: Medialitätsabhängige Abfolgetendenzen im Mittelfeld. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag.

Drawing on a variety of different phenomena the paper argues for the existence of a designated topic position in the middle field of the German clause. This implies that German is discourse configurational with regard to topics. The result allows some basic questions to be addressed, including the possible number of sentence topics, the possibility of topics in embedded clauses, the question whether there is a dependence between scrambling and topicality, and the question whether the generic interpretation of a bare plural subject is dependent on its topical status. Moreover, a proposai for the structural representation of the media! topic position is put forward.