The German Demonstratives

The German Demonstratives
Author: Lin Lin
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2019-12-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9811385580

This book explores, analyzes, and compares the use of German and Chinese demonstratives. Discourse and textual uses of the forms are considered, as well as their locative and temporal uses. The author observes that in both languages the demonstratives can be used to refer to referents. However, she departs from the common assumption that proximal demonstratives refer to entities or places close to the speaker, while non-proximal demonstratives refer to entities or places far from the speaker. Having analyzed a representative sampling consisting of a German text and a Chinese text, the author argues that both German and Chinese proximal demonstratives can signal the meaning of HIGH DEIXIS in a system of DEIXIS in the Columbia School of linguistics framework, whereas their non-proximal demonstratives can signal the meaning of LOW DEIXIS. In addition, Chinese demonstratives can be used under more circumstances than German demonstratives due to the lack of articles in Chinese. The author also argues that Cognitive Linguistic analysis is more helpful for new language learners, whereas the Columbia School of linguistics may be better suited to advanced learners who wish to know more about the intrinsic differences between words with similar meanings and uses. This book aims to help German learners better understand the German reference system. Readers with a Chinese language background will definitely benefit more from the book, as well as Chinese learners with a German language background. For pure linguistic enthusiasts and multi-linguals, the book offers an extensive introduction to the Columbia School of linguistics, and can open a new horizon for learning a new language comparatively.

Demonstratives

Demonstratives
Author: Holger Diessel
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 217
Release: 1999
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027229422

All languages have demonstratives, but their form, meaning and use vary tremendously across the languages of the world. This book presents the first large-scale analysis of demonstratives from a cross-linguistic and diachronic perspective. It is based on a representative sample of 85 languages. The first part of the book analyzes demonstratives from a synchronic point of view, examining their morphological structures, semantic features, syntactic functions, and pragmatic uses in spoken and written discourse. The second part concentrates on diachronic issues, in particular on the development of demonstratives into grammatical markers. Across languages demonstratives provide a frequent historical source for definite articles, relative and third person pronouns, nonverbal copulas, sentence connectives, directional preverbs, focus markers, expletives, and many other grammatical markers. The book describes the different mechanisms by which demonstratives grammaticalize and argues that the evolution of grammatical markers from demonstratives is crucially distinct from other cases of grammaticalization.

Demonstratives in discourse

Demonstratives in discourse
Author: Åshild Næss
Publisher: Language Science Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3961102864

This volume explores the use of demonstratives in the structuring and management of discourse, and their role as engagement expressions, from a crosslinguistic perspective. It seeks to establish which types of discourse-related functions are commonly encoded by demonstratives, beyond the well-established reference-tracking and deictic uses, and also investigates which members of demonstrative paradigms typically take on certain functions. Moreover, it looks at the roles of non-deictic demonstratives, that is, members of the paradigm which are dedicated e.g. to contrastive, recognitional, or anaphoric functions and do not express deictic distinctions. Several of the studies also focus on manner demonstratives, which have been little studied from a crosslinguistic perspective. The volume thus broadens the scope of investigation of demonstratives to look at how their core functions interact with a wider range of discourse functions in a number of different languages. The volume covers languages from a range of geographical locations and language families, including Cushitic and Mande languages in Africa, Oceanic and Papuan languages in the Pacific region, Algonquian and Guaykuruan in the Americas, and Germanic, Slavic and Finno-Ugric languages in the Eurasian region. It also includes two papers taking a broader typological approach to specific discourse functions of demonstratives.

German for Everyone Junior: 5 Words a Day

German for Everyone Junior: 5 Words a Day
Author: DK
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2021-07-06
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0744052890

The easiest way for kids to learn their first 1,000 German words! This German vocabulary book will lay the foundations for your child’s journey to learn and understand German at school or home. It introduces vocabulary in bite-sized chunks every day to make learning a new language feel less intimidating. Discover the perfect introduction to German for children ages 6-9. It’s the ultimate German lesson for kids! It includes: • Beautifully illustrated scenes that teach and test five words at a time. New vocabulary is practiced again at the end of each week in two pages of exercises. • Clever flaps on the jacket that cover the scene so your child can practice what they have just learned. • Uses the effective rote-learning method to teach new vocabulary. • Teaches a range of nouns and verbs that are useful in everyday life. Audio is available online and via a handy app to help with pronunciation. Help your child learn German Learning a foreign language can be intimidating, but German for Everyone Junior: 5 Words a Day is designed to make learning a new language engaging and fun for children! This introduction to German includes a mix of nouns and verbs taught through fun illustrations of a wide range of everyday objects with new words clearly labeled. Over a year, your child will build up a vocabulary of more than 1,000 German words. Each week, 20 new words are introduced and learned over four days. At the end of the week, kids can test themselves using the cleverly designed flaps that hide the words they just learned to help ingrain them in their memory. This German teaching guide includes accompanying audio, so kids can also practice their pronunciation as many times as they want. More titles in the series! The colorful, clear and comprehensive 5 Words a Day series from DK lays the foundations for your child's journey in learning a foreign language, at school or home. Look out for other workbooks in the series! Help your child learn, practice and understand 1,000 French words in French for Everyone Junior: 5 Words a Day.

Transfer Effects in Multilingual Language Development

Transfer Effects in Multilingual Language Development
Author: Hagen Peukert
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2015-04-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 902726869X

This volume, dedicated to language transfer, starts out with state-of-the-art psycholinguistic approaches to language transfer involving studies on psycho-typological transfer, lexical interference and foreign accent. The next chapter on Transfer in Language Learning, Contact, and Change presents new empirical data from several languages (English, German, Russian, French, Italian) on various transfer phenomena ranging from second language acquisition and contact-induced change in word order to cross-linguistic influences in word formation and the lexicon. Transfer in Applied Linguistics scrutinizes, on the one hand, the external sources of language transfer by investigating bilingual resources and the school context, but also by pointing out the differences in academic language in multilingual adolescents. On the other hand, internal sources of language transfer in multilingual classrooms are illuminated. A final chapter directs its focus on methodological issues that arise when more than one language is studied systematically and it offers a solution on causal effects for the investigation of heritage language proficiencies. The chapter also includes studies that exploit more innovative methodologies on L1 identification and clitic acquisition.

Europe and the Mediterranean as Linguistic Areas

Europe and the Mediterranean as Linguistic Areas
Author: Paolo Ramat
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2007-07-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027292221

This volume is a collection of 12 papers which originated from a research project on ‘Europe and the Mediterranean from a linguistic point of view: history and prospects’. The papers deal with specific morphosyntactic aspects of language structure and evolution. The comparative perspective is adopted both from a synchronic (typological) and a diachronic (historical) angle, focusing in particular on possible contact phenomena. Therefore, methodological key words of this book are areal typology and linguistic area. The issues addressed cover such diverse aspects of language structure and change as verb morphology, relative clause formation, Noun Phrase determination, demonstrative systems, possessive markers in Noun Phrases, conjunctive, disjunctive and adversative constructions, non-canonical object marking, impersonal constructions, reduplication and early translations of the Gospels. These topics are discussed particularly in relation to Romance, Germanic, Celtic and Semitic languages, both modern and ancient. This book will interest researchers in typological, historical, functional and general linguistics.

The Impact of Pronominal Form on Interpretation

The Impact of Pronominal Form on Interpretation
Author: Patrick Grosz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2016-04-11
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1501500775

The interplay between the interpretation of pronouns (e.g. bound/referential) and their form (e.g. null/overt) is still ill-understood. This volume has a cross-linguistic orientation with in-depth investigations of more than 10 different languages. It unites researchers from the linguistic subfields of syntax, semantics, and psycholinguistics, thus furthering dialogue with the goal of shedding new light on the form/interpretation connection.

Historical Linguistics 1991

Historical Linguistics 1991
Author: Jaap van Marle
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 415
Release: 1993-08-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027277044

This volume contains 22 of the 95 papers presented during ICHL 10. The articles included here clearly reflect the on-going interest in the general mechanisms of language change, the close relationship between present-day historical linguistics and linguistic theory, and the renewed interest in language contact. The papers deal with more general issues as well as with specific problems in diverse languages and language groups. The volume contains three indexes: of names, of languages, and of subjects.

Anaphors in Text

Anaphors in Text
Author: Monika Schwarz-Friese
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9789027230966

This volume contains a careful selection of papers concerned with actual research questions on anaphoric reference, a subject of current interest with various linguistic subdisciplines. This is reflected in this book as it methodically covers broadly invested approaches from cognitive, neurolinguistic, formal and computational perspectives, each contribution representing the respective 'state of the art' on a high theoretical and empirical level. The volume contains three thematic parts: Anaphors in Cognitive, Text- and Discourse Linguistics; The Syntax and Semantics of Anaphors; and Neurolinguistic Studies on the reception of anaphoric reference. The contributions investigate several Indo-European languages.