Leuvense Bijdragen - Leuven Contributions in Linguistics and Philology

Editing Medieval German Texts in the Twenty-First Century

poj@peeters-leuven.be — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:28:06 GMT

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Gottlob Frege Revisited

poj@peeters-leuven.be — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:28:00 GMT

More than a century ago G. Frege caused a modest revolution in linguistic description, more particularly in semantics, by distinguishing meaning and reference, the first a language-internal function, the second a relation to phenomena in the outside world. His scientific heirs, Kripke, Quine, Montague and others elaborated the consequences of his approach in model-theoretic semantics and, especially, in so-called Possible World semantics, in which 'truth in a model' became a central parameter. Although this theory has been obliged to leave the stage for more psychological approaches such as cognitive and psycho-linguistcs, some of its principles seem inspiring enough to be revisited. We will do that in a cognate framework, in what we call a cModel theory (for c = communicative). The notions reference and referent will be critically examined.

Verklaringen van substandaardisering

poj@peeters-leuven.be — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:36:33 GMT

Current accounts of Dutch substandard language use or 'tussentaal' come in two varieties. Thus, we find systemic explanations that are mostly linguistic in nature and in which substandard language is considered part of a general and rule-governed process of standardization. Other, generally less academically presented explanations focus on the individual as a strategic language user embedded in a social context. Both types of explanation are not theoretically unproblematic, and each struggles particularly with integrating individual purposeful actions and systematic or normative routines in the analysis. The present article suggests that analysing 'tussentaal' as situated social praxis allows both individual and systematic aspects of language use to be seen as mutually constitutive (and not just complementary). This affects the epistemic status and locus of 'tussentaal' as a research object, and also has important methodological repercussions.

Aspects of the Rise and Fall of the Compound gomman in Tatian

poj@peeters-leuven.be — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:48:14 GMT

This paper first addresses the development of Old High German gomman 'husband, man' in terms of semantics and morphosyntax. Previoud treatment of the subject has mostly focused on form in terms of and only up to its compounding from the Germanic roots *gumōn 'man, human being/person' and *man(n)- 'man, human being/person'. The processes involved in this type of compounding tend to be characterized mechanically and with little attention to motivation and explanation. This paper elaborates throughout and beyond the dynamic compounding process, also contributing ideas on motivation and explanation. I further draw on recent typological evidence from compounding and reduplication studies, as well as gestalt linguistics, to characterize the development of this construction in the history of German. Evidence presented comes in large part from Tatian, a standard source of Old High German, and the standard dictionaries and handbooks of German complement the data with furhter examples. Certain non-Old High German linguistic examples are also utilized, though most come from within the Germanic family of languages.

A Parenthetical Approach to Backward Conjunction Reduction

poj@peeters-leuven.be — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:56:54 GMT

This paper identifies backward conjunction in Dutch as a special instance of coordinated comment clauses. This approach is argued to be superior to the standard approaches within the traditional and generative framework, in that it not only refrains from theoretically suspect mechanisms as needed in the other analyses, but also gives a better explanation for the constituent behaviour and the intonation pattern of resulting surface structures. Moreover, it generalizes over backward conjunction reduction, gapping and ambi-ellipsis, which have been analyzed as unrelated constructions until now.

The Recent History of Dutch Orthography (II)

poj@peeters-leuven.be — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:27:47 GMT

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Those There Demonstratives

poj@peeters-leuven.be — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:28:08 GMT

not available

Statal and Processual Passives in Old Saxon

poj@peeters-leuven.be — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:45:41 GMT

In this paper, I present an analysis of the statal and processual passive in Old Saxon, using the theory of Cognitive Grammar. The data to be discussed are the examples of the statal and processual passive from the Heliand and Genesis. Traditional grammars are mainly concerned with which types of clauses can passivize. Further, they assume the traditional distinction between processual passives and stative passives, that is that processual statives are formed with the auxiliary uuerđan and statal passives are formed exclusively with the auxiliary uuesan. The handbooks also provide little information about aspect and the semantic contribution of the auxiliary. In contrast to the traditional grammars, Rauch provides a thorough description of diathesis in Old Saxon within a formal theoretical framework. This paper builds on this description and provides a semantic analysis of the auxiliaries and the participles in Old Saxon that are used to form the processual and statal passives.

Recensies

poj@peeters-leuven.be — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:46:20 GMT

Book reviews