Linguistische Berichte Heft 225

Numerous studies have shown markedness effects of German OVS word order, that is: decrease in acceptability and higher reading times. Some of these studies have shown these effects can be ameliorated by the presentation of context. These studies found that in certain contexts the acceptability and processing disadvantage of German marked word orders can be leveled out. We report on acceptability ratings and a self-paced reading study which addressed the question whether there are contexts in which German marked OVS word order is not only judged as being equally acceptable and as easy to process as its unmarked SVO counterpart, but where OVS structures are strongly licensed in the sense that they are actually judged as more acceptable and are easier to process than the unmarked SVO order. Our results show that whole-part contexts are strongly licensing in this sense, and that, an adversative relation between the marked word order sentence and the context does not play an indispensable role in the contextual licensing effect.

This paper deals with morphosyntactic differences between proper names and common nouns in German, focusing on the realization of case and the syntax of adnominal genitives. Reviewing the historical development of the relevant contrasts, it is argued that the deviating behavior of proper names should not be taken to reflect a difference in syntactic category (D vs. N). Instead, it is proposed that the synchronic differences between proper names and common nouns can be attributed to a change in which the genitive case suffix -s of (prenominal) proper names has been reanalyzed as a clitic possessive marker located in D0. This approach predicts the development of new possessor constructions in German similar to the English group genitive, which seems to be borne out by the facts.

In this paper a new analysis of German correlative clauses such as Je weniger Gepäck wir haben, umso leichter werden wir wandern (the less luggage we have, the easier we will be able to hike) is put forward, based on work by den Dikken. Correlative clauses are seen as base generated as part of their correlate phrase in the matrix clause. The above example is thus base generated as ...wir [umso leichter,[je weniger Gepäck wir haben]], wandern werden (which is a licit constituent order in German). This status as a partial constituent explains certain similarities with relative clauses (being partial constituents as well) such as the impossibility of movement to a position such as the prefield or the middle field. Correlative clauses are often leftward dislocated, the area left of the clause proper being virtually the only place they can be moved to. The reason why left dislocation of correlative clauses is so frequent is that this is the only possibility to avoid a stress clash which is inevitable in the base position of correlative clauses because both, the introductory element of the correlative clause (je weniger Gepäck) and the matrix correlate (umso leichter) bear focus. This explains also, why both clauses, matrix and correlative clause, have independent focus-background-structures; as this fact is conditioned by the shape of the sentences themselves it cannot serve as argument against embeddedness of correlative clauses.

Our paper states our position on Rezec (2010). In his paper, he tries to deconstruct Primus' letter analysis (Primus 2004), portraying it as implausible on the whole. In Primus (2004), the author describes the form of lowercase letters and begins to establish a system that relates the letters' graphic features to the corresponding sounds' phonological features. In this paper, we fiercly reject Rezec's theses and give reasons why we agree with Primus' approach. We argue on the basis of the graphematic syllable and the length hierarchy, both presented in Fuhrhop/Buchmann (2009). Compared to Primus' system, we only had to make one major change (the implementation of skewness) in order to answer a question completely different from the one posed by Primus. We clearly regard this as a strength of Primus' system.