You are here: Home :: Area CULI :: Linguistics and literature :: by language and culture :: German studies

Klaas Willems

Indeterminiertheit, Valenzvariation und Verbbedeutung vom Gesichtspunkt der funktionellen Syntax / Indeterminateness, valency variation and verb meaning from a functional syntax perspective

This paper deals with the problem of how inherent verb meanings are to be assessed in a synchronic theory of verb valency, given that verbs usually occur in different syntactic patterns and display considerable semantic variation. Moreover, in a recent paper, Fischer (2003) claims that valency is essentially “indeterminate”, because the way verbs build up constructions is subject to various interpretations by different speakers. In the present paper, the variability problem is approached from the point of view of “functional syntax”, a non-generative and non-cognitive theory of grammar developed by Eugenio Coseriu. The paper focuses on the question whether indeterminacy not only holds for valency, but for verb meanings as well. The empirical account is based on a case study of a set of sentences in which the German verb graben occurs in various instantiations, including transparent complex verbal phrases with idiomatic prepositions and metaphorical uses. To adopt the functional approach advanced by Coseriu implies a commitment to account for variability at the level of valency by assuming an invariant general meaning to the verb that licenses all productive occurrences.

Zeitschrift für Germanistische Linguistik, Walter de Gruyter

Print ISSN: 0301-3294
Volume: 34, 10/2006
Pages: 178 - 206

Show full article (external site)

Show all available items of this journal

 

Area CULI