Pre- and post-positioning of wenn-clauses in spoken and written German

Auer, Peter

Pre- and post-positioning of wenn-clauses in spoken and written German

Files

461_1.pdf(119.47 KB)

Date

2000

Authors

Auer, Peter

Series

InLiSt - Interaction and Linguistic Structures; 15

Publication type

Working Paper/Technical Report

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the distinction between pre- and
postpositioned (initial and final) wenn-clauses in German, and
with the distinction between written and spoken language. A
simple cross-tabulation of the two features [spoken/written]
and [pre-/ postpositioned] (section 3) shows that initial
wenn-clauses are preferred in spoken German, but final
wenn-clauses are preferred in written German. These findings
are in need of an explanation, which will be given in sections 4
and 5. Section 2 sketches the main characteristics of German
wenn-clauses as compared to English conditional (if-) clauses.

The findings and discussions in this paper are corpus-based.
They are partly quantitative, partly qualitative. With respect
to both dimensions, the claim is that a full understanding of
the syntax of (particularly) spoken language eludes the
possibilities of a purely introspective methodology. Of course,
no (quantitative or qualitative) corpus-based investigation can
do without a strong reliance on the analyst's knowledge
( intuition') about the language being researched; in fact,
finding valid generalizations always involves
Gedankenexperimente playing with structural changes in and
recontextualizations of the examples'

Subject (DDC)

430 German

Cite This

ISO 690

AUER, Peter, 2000. Pre- and post-positioning of wenn-clauses in spoken and written German

BibTex

@techreport{Auer2000postp-12334,
  year={2000},
  series={InLiSt - Interaction and Linguistic Structures},
  title={Pre- and post-positioning of wenn-clauses in spoken and written German},
  number={15},
  author={Auer, Peter}
}

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