Grammaticalization Paths of English and High German Existential Constructions; A Corpus-based Study

by Simone E. Pfenninger

Existential constructions are a fundamental feature of many Indo-European languages, and constructions with non-referential subjects have developed in all of the latter, albeit at different stages in their histories. High German does not feature a prototypical existential construction that is equivalent in syntactic and pragmatic function and semantic meaning to the English existential there -construction. How did a prototypical existential structure originate in English? Why is it that High German has never developed such a construction? Has it ever shown a tendency towards developing one? How did two closely related languages such as English and High German come to differ so much with respect to these constructions? By means of investigating a variety of historical and contemporary data this study shows that not only semantic, pragmatic and syntactic factors are involved, which decide the choice of a certain construction, but also very much the more general different linguistic development that the two languages underwent in the course of time.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3034300212
• ISBN13: 9783034300216
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing
• Length: 370 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 8.8"