Gisela Zifonun

• Prof. Dr.
• Head of Department at Leibniz Institute for the German Language

What is the subject of German linguistics? This seemingly simple question has no obvious answer. In the ZGL’s first issue, the editors required contributions to cover the whole of the German language and to be theoretically sound but application-orientated, whereas the current ZGL-homepage defines the German language of present and history in all i...

Ziel des Beitrags ist es, in einer explorativen Untersuchung zu ermitteln, ob und wie in Deutschland und in Polen geschlechtergerechter Sprachgebrauch praktiziert wird. In beiden Gesellschaften wird derzeit mit den einschlägigen Verfahren noch experimentiert. Die feministische Presse spielt dabei eine Vorreiterrolle. Der Beitrag ist in drei inhaltl...

This article proposes a brief state-of-the-art report on the syntax of German. To this purpose five syntactic areas have been selected to highlight major developments in the analysis of certain structural types, each of them considered as challenging within functional and formal research traditions: noun phrase structure, verbal syntax relating to...

Die Entstehung der Kulturwissenschaften hat das Feld der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften in den letzten Jahren gehörig in Bewegung gebracht. Neue transdisziplinäre und zunehmend auch transkulturelle Wissensordnungen bilden sich heraus, eine Vielzahl neuer Studiengänge wurde ins Leben gerufen. Doch was ist eigentlich der Kern der »Kulturwissenscha...

Relational adjectives, i.e. adjectives derived from nouns and in attributive constructions with a noun head expressing a non-specific relationship between the concept of the head and the concept of the base, play an important role in the classical languages. Taking the silvestris musa, Virgil's sylvan muse, as its starting point, the present articl...

In this paper we examine aspects of the textual use of possessives in German, Polish and Hungarian, which we seek to explain on the basis of formal possessive systems and their integration in the grammar of each language. The article focuses on possessives with anaphoric reference in the 3rd Person in German, Polish and Hungarian texts. We address...

In this article the author develops a new, functionally motivated systematic analysis of the adnominal genitive and corresponding phrases with von, which are grouped together under the term 'possessive attribute'. The analysis is based on the findings of research into linguistic typologies and comparisons with other, particularly Germanic, language...

Complex common names such as Indian elephant or green tea denote a certain type of entity, viz. kinds. Moreover, those kinds are always subkinds of the kind denoted by their head noun. Establishing such subkinds is essentially the task of classifying modifiers that are a defining trait of endocentrically structured complex common names. Examining c...

In English and French relational adjectives occurring in construction with deverbal nominalizations can be thematically associated with subject as well as object ar-guments. By contrast, in German object-related readings of relational adjectives seem to be inadmissible. The greater flexibility of English and French in terms of the thematic interpre...

This article presents a proposal for the word class differentiation of nominal function words based on the principle of underspecification. The feature for which the nominal function words can be underspecified is 'independence'. In this way, 'exclusively independent nominal function words' (genuine pronouns) can be distinguished from 'exclusively...

The nominal possessive construction of the type dem Vater sein Hut, common in spoken colloquial German and in dialects, is morphologically, syntactically and semantically exceptional. In spite of this it survives obstinately in the varieties mentioned and thus appears to be functionally appropriate. This article gives an overview of the data situat...

The nominal possessive construction of the type dem Vater sein Hut, common in spoken in colloquial German and in dialects, is morphologically speaking, syntactically and semantically exceptional. In spite of this it survives obstinately in the varieties mentioned and thus appears to be functionally appropriate. This article gives an overview of the...

‘Perspective’ and ‘viewpoint’ are widely used in everyday talk as well as in the specialist languages of the social, cognitive, and literary sciences. Taken from the field of visual perception and representation, these concepts have acquired a general meaning and significance, as characteristics of human cognitive processing. Since, however, this f...

The traditional classification of man as an indefinite pronoun is questioned and other possible classes are checked. For this purpose the morphosyntax and semantics of man are examined, including in particular a discussion of the dichotomy 'generic' versus 'individual' use. Finally there is a short section on man from the perspective of the learner...

A comprehensive grammatical model produced for analyzing the agglutinated structure which characterizes the Japanese language is presented. This model, which includes extensively idiomatic postpositional expressions as terminals, is quite effective for ...

An extended first order predicate calculus language ‘KS’ is defined as the internal representation language for the deductive question-answering system PLIDIS. It serves the functions of a semantic representation language for German, of a knowledge representation language, and of a data base query language. KS incorporates the following extensions:...

Das unscheinbare Wort, oder besser: die Wortform, dessen hat mich schon immer fasziniert. Dessen und das feminine/pluralische Pendant deren gehören zusammen mit wessen, jemandes und niemandes zu den wenigen Genitivformen eines selbstständigen Pronomens, die ohne Einschränkung pränuklear, also vor dem substantivischen Kopf bzw. Kern, vorkom- men und...