1887
Volume 7, Issue 1-2
  • ISSN 2210-2116
  • E-ISSN: 2210-2124
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

This article addresses the semantic and morphosyntactic development of the German evidential adverbs , and ‘obviously’/‘apparently’/‘seemingly’ and their meaning contribution in present-day German. It will be argued that these expressions, most of which are historically derived from adjectives, innovated separate lexical entries as sentence adverbs in New High German resulting from a morphosyntactic reanalysis of an ambiguous surface structure. This reanalysis was accompanied by a profound semantic change, as a result of which the expressions acquired a wide-scope reading of the type ‘there is (clear) evidence that p’. The diachronic results are corroborated by experimental data from Present-Day German that show that these evidential sentence adverbs are underspecified with respect to evidence type (inference and report). The diachronic and synchronic findings are furthermore discussed in the light of grammaticalization and subjectification theory.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/jhl.7.1-2.02axe
2017-11-23
2025-04-30
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Die althochdeutschen Glossen gesammelt und bearbeitet von Elias von Steinmeyer und Eduard Sievers . 5Bände. Berlin 1879–1922: Weidmann.
  2. DeReKo = Deutsches Referenzkorpus / Archiv der Korpora geschriebener Gegenwartssprache 2015-II (Release vom28.09.2015). Mannheim: Institut für Deutsche Sprache. Available online atwww.ids-mannheim.de/DeReKo.
  3. DTA = Deutsches Textarchiv. Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften Deutsches Textarchiv. Available online atdeutschestextarchiv.de.
  4. DUDEN Deutsches Universalwörterbuch, 7.
    DUDEN Deutsches Universalwörterbuch, 7., überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage, hrsg. von der Dudenredaktion. Berlin: DUDEN-Verlag 2011.
  5. DWb = Grimm, Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm 1854–1954: Deutsches Wörterbuch. Band 1–16. Leipzig: Hirzel. See also CD-ROM 2004: Der digitale Grimm. Frankfurt am Main: Zweitausendeins. Available online atwww.woerterbuchnetz.de.
  6. MHDBDB = Middle High German Conceptual Database of the University of Salzburg. Available online atmhdbdb.sbg.ac.at.
  7. TITUS = Thesaurus Indogermanischer Text- und Sprachmaterialien. Available online attitus.uni-frankfurt.de.
  8. Abraham, Werner
    2011 Über Unhintergehbarkeiten in der modernen Modalitätsforschung. In Gabriele Diewald & Elena Smirnova , eds., 149–169.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Abraham, Werner & Elisabeth Leiss
    eds. 2009Modalität. Epistemik und Evidentialität bei Modalverb, Adverb, Modalpartikel und Modus. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Aikhenvald, Alexandra
    2003 Evidentiality in Typological Perspective. Studies in Evidentialityed. by Alexandra Aikhenvald & Robert M. W. Dixon , 131–164. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/tsl.54.09aik
    https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.54.09aik [Google Scholar]
  11. 2004Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. 2007 Information Source and Evidentiality: What can we conclude. Rivista di Linguistica19:1.209–227.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Anderson, Lloyd B.
    1986 Evidentials, Paths of Change, and Mental Maps: Typologically regular asymmetries. In Wallace Chafe & Johanna Nichols , eds., 273–312.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Askedal, John Ole
    1998 Satzmustervariation und Hilfsverbproblematik beim deutschen Verb ‚scheinen’. Deutsche Grammatik – Thema in Variationened. by Karin Donhauser & Ludwig Eichinger , 49–74. Heidelberg: Winter.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Axel-Tober, Katrin
    2016 Satzadverbiale im Deutschen: synchrone und diachrone Fragen bei einem ‘scheints’ alten Thema. “dat ih dir it nu bi huldi gibu” – Linguistische, germanistische und indogermanistische Studien Rosemarie Lühr gewidmeted. by Sergio Neri , Roland Schuhmann & Susanne Zeilfelder , 23–33. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Ballweg, Joachim
    2009 Modalpartikel. Handbuch der deutschen Wortartened. by Ludger Hoffmann , 547–554. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Bellert, Irena
    1977 On Semantic and Distributional Properties of Sentential Adverbs. Linguistic Inquiry8.337–351.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Bybee, Joan
    1985Morphology: A Study of the relation between meaning and form. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/tsl.9
    https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.9 [Google Scholar]
  19. Chafe, Wallace & Johanna Nichols
    eds. 1986Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology. Norwood: Ablex.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Chafe, Wallace
    1986 Evidentiality in English Conversation and Academic Writing. In Wallace Chafe & Johanna Nichols , eds., 261–272.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Cinque, Guglielmo
    1999Adverbs and Functional Heads: A cross-linguisic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Cornillie, Bert
    2007 The Continuum Between Lexical and Grammatical Evidentiality: A functional analysis of Spanish ‘parecer’. Rivista di Linguistica19:1.109–128.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. 2010 An Interactional Approach to Evidential and Epistemic Adverbs in Spanish Conversation. In Gabriele Diewald & Elena Smirnova , eds., 309–330.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Cruschina, Silvio
    2010 On the Syntactic Status of Sentential Adverbs and Modal Particles. STUF Language Typology and Universals63:4.345–357. doi: 10.1524/stuf.2010.0027
    https://doi.org/10.1524/stuf.2010.0027 [Google Scholar]
  25. Cruschina, Silvio & Eva Remberger
    2008 Hearsay and Reported Speech: Evidentiality in Romance. Selected Proceedings of the 34th Incontro di Grammatica Generativaed. by Paola Benincà , Federico Damonte , & Nicoletta Penello . Special issue of theRivista di Grammatica Generativa33.99–120.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. De Haan, Ferdinand
    1999 Evidentiality and Epistemic Modality: Setting boundaries. Southwest Journal of Linguistics18:1.83–101.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Dendale, Patrick & Julie van Bogaert
    2007 A Semantic Description of French Lexical Evidential Markers and the Classification of Evidentials. Rivista di Linguistica19:1.65–89.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Diewald, Gabriele & Elena Smirnova
    2010aEvidentiality in German: Linguistic realization and regularities in grammaticalization. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110241037
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110241037 [Google Scholar]
  29. eds. 2010bThe Linguistic Realization of Evidentiality in European Languages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110223972
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110223972 [Google Scholar]
  30. eds. 2011Modalität und Evidentialität. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Ebert, Robert P.
    1976Infinitival Complement Constructions in Early New High German. Tübingen: Niemeyer. doi: 10.1515/9783111355832
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111355832 [Google Scholar]
  32. Eisenberg, Peter
    1999Grundriss der deutschen Grammatik. Vol. 2: Der Satz. Stuttgart: Metzler. doi: 10.1007/978‑3‑476‑03765‑7
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-03765-7 [Google Scholar]
  33. Ernst, Thomas
    2002The Syntax of Adjuncts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Eroms, Hans-Werner
    2006 Satzadverbien und Diskurspartikeln. Dependenz und Valenz, Band 2, ed. by Vilmos Ágel , 1017–1036. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Fabricius-Hansen , Cathrine & Kjell J. Sæbø
    2004 In a Mediative Mood: The semantics of the German reportive subjunctive. Natural Language Semantics12:3.213–257. doi: 10.1023/B:NALS.0000034514.27887.d9
    https://doi.org/10.1023/B:NALS.0000034514.27887.d9 [Google Scholar]
  36. Faller, Martina
    2002 Semantics and Pragmatics of Evidentials in Cuzco Quechua. Stanford University PhD thesis.
  37. Ferraresi, Gisella
    2011 Das Vorfeld als Baustelle des Deutschen: Wandel und Variation bei Adverbkonnektoren. Konnektoren im Deutschen und im Sprachvergleich: Beschreibung und grammatische Analyseed. by Gisella Ferraresi , 225–250. Tübingen: Narr.
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Flury, Robert
    1964 Struktur- und Bedeutungsgeschichte des Adjektiv-Suffixes ‘-bar’. University of Zurich PhD thesis.
  39. Frey, Werner & Karin Pittner
    1998 Zur Positionierung der Adverbiale im deutschen Mittelfeld. Linguistische Berichte176.489–534.
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Grice, Paul
    1975 Logic and Conversation. Syntax and Semantics 3ed. by Peter Cole & Jerry L. Morgan , 41–58. New York: Academic Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Hacquard, Valentine
    2013 On the Grammatical Category of Modality. Proceedings of the 19th Amsterdam Colloquiumed. by Maria Aloni , Michael Franke , and Floris Roelofsen . Available online atmaloni.humanities.uva.nl/AC2013/AC_proceedings.pdf.
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Haider, Hubert
    2000 Adverb Placement: Convergence of structure and licensing. Theoretical Linguistics26:1–2.95–134. doi: 10.1515/thli.2000.26.1‑2.95
    https://doi.org/10.1515/thli.2000.26.1-2.95 [Google Scholar]
  43. 2004 Pre- and postverbal adverbials in OV and VO. Lingua114.779–807. doi: 10.1016/S0024‑3841(03)00051‑2
    https://doi.org/10.1016/S0024-3841(03)00051-2 [Google Scholar]
  44. Halliday, Michael A. K.
    1994An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 2nd ed.London: Arnold.
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Helbig, Gerhard
    1970 Sind Negationswörter, Modalwörter und Partikeln im Deutschen besondere Wortarten?Deutsch als Fremdsprache7.393–401.
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Hetland, Jorunn
    1992Satzadverbien im Fokus. Tübingen: Narr.
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Hopper, Paul J. & Elisabeth C. Traugott
    2003Grammaticalization. 2nd ed.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139165525
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139165525 [Google Scholar]
  48. Katny, Andrzej
    1980Die Modalverben und Modalwörter im Deutschen und im Polnischen. Rzeszów, Wyd. Uczelniane.
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Kratzer, Angelika
    1991 Modality. Semantics: An international handbook of contemporary researched. by Dieter Wunderlich & Arnim von Stechow , 639–650. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
    [Google Scholar]
  50. 2012Modals and Conditionals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199234684.001.0001
    https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199234684.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  51. Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson
    1999Philosophy in the Flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York: Basic Books.
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Lang, Ewald
    1979 Zum Status der Satzadverbiale. Slovo a SlovenostXL3.200–213.
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Leiss, Elisabeth
    2009 Drei Spielarten der Epistemizität, drei Spielarten der Evidentialität und drei Spielarten des Wissens. Modalität. Epistemik und Evidentialität bei Modalverb, Adverb, Modalpartikel und Modused. by Werner Abraham & Elisabeth Leiss , 3–24. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.
    [Google Scholar]
  54. 2011 Lexikalische versus grammatische Epistemizität und Evidentialität: Plädoyer für eine klare Trennung von Lexikon und Grammatik. In Gabriele Diewald & Elena Smirnova , eds., 149–169.
    [Google Scholar]
  55. Matthewson, Lisa , Henry Davis , & Hotze Rullmann
    2007 Evidentials as Epistemic Modals: Evidence from St’át’imcets. Linguistic Variation Yearbook7.201–254. doi: 10.1075/livy.7.07mat
    https://doi.org/10.1075/livy.7.07mat [Google Scholar]
  56. Moltmann, Friederike
    2007 Events, Tropes and Truthmaking. Philosophical Studies134.363–403. doi: 10.1007/s11098‑005‑0898‑4
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-005-0898-4 [Google Scholar]
  57. 2009 Degree Structure as Trope Structure: A trope-based analysis of comparative and positive adjectives. Linguistics and Philosophy32.51–94. doi: 10.1007/s10988‑009‑9054‑5
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-009-9054-5 [Google Scholar]
  58. Mortelmans, Tanja
    2000 On the Evidential Nature of the Epistemic Use of the German Modals ‘müssen’ and ‘sollen’. Modal Verbs in Germanic and Romance Languagesed. by Johan van der Auwera & Patrick Dendale , 131–148. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
    [Google Scholar]
  59. Newmeyer, Frederick
    2001 Deconstructing Grammaticalization. Language Sciences23.187–229. doi: 10.1016/S0388‑0001(00)00021‑8
    https://doi.org/10.1016/S0388-0001(00)00021-8 [Google Scholar]
  60. Paraschkewoff, Boris
    1976 Zur Entstehung und Entwicklungsgeschichte der Bildungen auf ‘-weise’ (part 1). Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur ( Halle ) 97.165–211.
    [Google Scholar]
  61. Pittner, Karin
    1999Adverbiale im Deutschen. Untersuchungen zu ihrer Stellung und Interpretation. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Plungian, Vladimir
    2010 Types of Verbal Evidentiality Marking: An overview. In Gabriele Diewald & Elena Smirnova , eds., 15–58.
    [Google Scholar]
  63. Portner, Paul
    2009Modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  64. Reis, Marga
    2001 Bilden Modalverben im Deutschen eine syntaktische Klasse?Modalität und Modalverben im Deutschened. by Reimar Müller & Marga Reis , 287–318. Hamburg: Buske.
    [Google Scholar]
  65. 2005 Zur Grammatik der sog. Halbmodale drohen/versprechen +  Infinitiv. Deutsche Syntax: Empirie und Theorieed. by Franz J. D’Avis , 125–145. Göteborg. (Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis).
    [Google Scholar]
  66. 2007 Modals, So-called Semi-Modals, and Grammaticalization in German. Interdisciplinary Journal for Germanic Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis12.1–57.
    [Google Scholar]
  67. Rizzi, Luigi
    1997 The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery. Elements of Grammar. A handbook in generative syntaxed. by Liliane Haegeman , 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
    [Google Scholar]
  68. Roberts, Ian & Anna Roussou
    2003Syntactic Change: A Minimalist approach to grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511486326
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486326 [Google Scholar]
  69. Rullmann, Hotze , Lisa Matthewson , & Henry Davis
    2008 Modals as Distributive Indefinites. Natural Language Semantics16:4.317–357. doi: 10.1007/s11050‑008‑9036‑0
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-008-9036-0 [Google Scholar]
  70. Schäfer, Martin
    2013Positions and Interpretations. German Adverbial Adjectives at the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110278286
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110278286 [Google Scholar]
  71. Schenner, Mathias
    2008 Double Face Evidentials in German: Reportative ‘sollen’ and ‘wollen’ in embedded contexts. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung12.552–566.
    [Google Scholar]
  72. Schützeichel, Rudolf
    2012Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed.Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110268812
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110268812 [Google Scholar]
  73. Socka, Anna
    2010 Reportative Partikeln in kontrastiver Sicht (Polnisch – Deutsch). Modalität, Temporalität in kontrastiver und typologischer Sichted. by Andrzej Katny & Anna Socka , 239–264. Frankfurt: Lang.
    [Google Scholar]
  74. 2011 Evidentialität und Epistemizität in der Bedeutung reportativer Satzadverbien im Polnischen und Deutschen. In Gabriele Diewald & Elena Smirnova , eds., 49–68.
    [Google Scholar]
  75. Stolterfoht, Britta
    2015 Ambiguity and Sentence Position: An experimental case study on manner adverbs. Ambiguityed. by Susanne Winkler , 171–183. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
    [Google Scholar]
  76. Störzer, Melanie
    2013Syntaktische Basispositionen für Adjunkte? Psycholinguistische Untersuchungen zum Stellungsverhalten von Frameadverbialen und Satzadverbialen. Hamburg: disserta Verlag.
    [Google Scholar]
  77. Swan, Toril
    1981 Modal Adverbs. Papers from the First Nordic Conference for English Studiesed. by Stig Johansson & Bjørn Tysdahl , 17–19. Oslo: Institute of English studies.
    [Google Scholar]
  78. 1988Sentence Adverbials in English: A synchronic and diachronic investigation. Oslo: Novus.
    [Google Scholar]
  79. Tabor, Whitney & Elizabeth C. Traugott
    1998 Structural Scope Expansion and Grammaticalization. The Limits of Grammaticalizationed. by Anna Giacalone Ramat , & Paul J. Hopper , 227–270. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/tsl.37.11tab
    https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.37.11tab [Google Scholar]
  80. Traugott, Elizabeth C.
    1989 On the Rise of Epistemic Meanings in English: An example of subjectification in semantic change. Language57.33–65.
    [Google Scholar]
  81. 2010 Revisiting Subjectification and Intersubjectification. Subjectification, Intersubjectification and Grammaticalizationed. by Kristin Davidse , Lieven Vandelanotte , & Hubert Cuyckens , 29–70. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
    [Google Scholar]
  82. Van Gelderen, Elly
    2004Grammaticalization as Economy. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/la.71
    https://doi.org/10.1075/la.71 [Google Scholar]
  83. 2011The Linguistic Cycle: Language change and the language faculty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199756056.001.0001
    https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199756056.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  84. Wiemer, Björn
    2005 Conceptual Affinities and Diachronic Relationships Between Epistemic, Inferential and Quotative Functions. Modality in Slavonic Languages: New perspectivesed. by Bjoern Hansen & Petr Karlík , 107–131. München: Sagner.
    [Google Scholar]
  85. 2010 Hearsay in European Languages. In Gabriele Diewald & Elena Smirnova , eds., 59–129.
    [Google Scholar]
  86. Willett, Thomas L.
    1988 A Cross-Linguistic Survey of the Grammaticization of Evidentiality. Studies in Language12:1.51–97. doi: 10.1075/sl.12.1.04wil
    https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.12.1.04wil [Google Scholar]
  87. Zifonun, Gisela , Ludger Hoffmann , & Bruno Strecker
    1997Grammatik der deutschen Sprache. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/jhl.7.1-2.02axe
Loading
/content/journals/10.1075/jhl.7.1-2.02axe
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): adverbs; evidential adverbials; evidentiality; German; grammaticalization; reanalysis
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error