Project B8

3rd Phase - Grammatical status and pragmatic function of the Nachfeld

The literature offers a multitude of theories on the relation between information structure and word order in the left periphery of a sentence. The right periphery, on the contrary, has not yet been studied in detail. The project on the grammar and the pragmatics of the postverbal position seeks to fill that gap by examining the correlation between the syntactic position of a postverbal constituent and its pragmatic function in verb final languages (SOV languages). There are two aims: On the one hand the project contributes to the research on the grammar and pragmatics of the German Nachfeld, the position of certain phrases after the verb in sentence final position. On the other hand, it includes a comparative study of postverbal constituents in different SOV languages (based on results on the German Nachfeld). The plan is to look at Dutch, Turkish, Japanese and Hindi. The focus of the project is on the investigation of factors related to information structure (complexity for instance) which promote, force, or prevent the realization of postverbal constituents in SOV languages. The hypothesis to be tested is that the non-sentential prepositional, nominal, and adverbial phrases in the postverbal position (just like preverbal ones) are multifunctional and serve to structure the discourse. The research also involves the question whether the information structural interpretation influences the syntactic structure directly or whether this relation is rather indirect.

Principal Investigators

  • PD Dr. Katharina Hartmann
  • Dr. Anja Kleemann-Krämer

Former Staff Members

  • Maria Balbach
  • Marianna Patak

Student Assistants

  • Sarah Poetzl

Activities

January 2014 Talk Hartmann, K. & Patak, M.: Und zwar haben wir hier ein Problem – Zur Syntax und Semantik von und zwar. Das ‚Nachfeld’ im Deutschen zwischen Syntax, Informationsstruktur und Textkonstitution: Stand der Forschung und Perspektiven. L'Université Paris-Sorbonne
January 2014 Talk Balbach, M.: Das Nachfeld des prädikativen Adjektivs. Das ‚Nachfeld’ im Deutschen zwischen Syntax, Informationsstruktur und Textkonstitution: Stand der Forschung und Perspektiven. L'Université Paris-Sorbonne
January 2014 Talk Kleemann-Krämer, A. & Pötzl, S.: Zur Anbindung extraponierter und rechtsversetzter PPn an das deutsche Nachfeld. Das ‚Nachfeld’ im Deutschen zwischen Syntax, Informationsstruktur und Textkonstitution: Stand der Forschung und Perspektiven. L'Université Paris-Sorbonne
November 2013 Talk Hartmann, K. & Patak, M. and Laszakovits, S.: Postverbal focus? A comparison between German and Turkish. 18th Internal Workshop of the SFB 632
May 2013 Talk Balbach, M.: Direction of argument licensing of German adjectives. L’adjectif: Approaches sémantico-pragmatiques et discursives. Université Blaise Pascal Clermont Ferrand
November 2012 Workshop Non-sentential constituents in the right periphery in German. HU Berlin, SFB 632 B4
May 2012 Talk Balbach, M.: Focus in the German Postfield. Generative Grammatik des Südens 2012.
April 2012 Talk Balbach, M.: A Focus Position in the German Nachfeld. 1. Doktorandentagung der Arbeitsgruppe: Linguistischer Arbeitskreis Wuppertal: Diskurs, Informationsstruktur und Grammatik.
March 2012 Talk Hartmann, K.: Deaccenting by Extraposition. AG 5: Towards a Complex Architecture of Grammar? On the Interaction of Prosody and Syntax. DGfS Jahrestagung 2012.
March 2012 Talk Kleemann-Krämer, A. & Balbach, M.: On the information structure of double constituents in the German Nachfeld. AG 15: Information Structure and its Role in Non-typical Environments. DGfS Jahrestagung 2012.