Project B1 (von Heusinger, Brandtner)

“The interpretation of derived nominals“

Main question

Which phenomena that appear with deverbal nominalizations (concerning readings, indicators, interpretation in context etc.) does a semantic (or syntactic) theory have to account for…

…and which are due to more general processes such as discourse structuring, conceptual shift etc.?

Two main topics

Differentiation of different types of readings:

Which are the „core readings“ for der. nominals

Which ones emerge by more general principles

(cf. simple nouns etc.)

A pragmatic solution to copredication:

Two different reading indicators modify the same nominalization

Copredication and predicate transfer

(1) Die [wiederholten]EV Messungen [belegen]RE, dass es keine Verbesserung gab.‘The repeated measurements show …‘

(2) Die [wiederholten]EV Messungen {haben Resultate, die [belegen]RE }EV,dass...

‘…{have results that [show]...}

enrichment of the second indicator: only one reading for the nominalization

Constraints on predicate transfer

Salient relation, in this case between the event and the result

the enriched version is noteworthy in the utterance situation:

very general principle that has to be tested

Questionnaire

Speaker intuitions on examples with and without noteworthiness:

(3) Die [langwierige]EV Übersetzung [brachte mirviel Geld ein]RE.

‘The tedious translation earned me a lot of money.’ (4) ?Die Absperrung [aus Holz]RE [hat drei Tage

gedauert]EV. ‘The wooden blocking has taken three days.’

Questionnaire

Sentences with the following indications:

EV – EV / RE – RE

EV – RE / RE – EV + noteworthiness

EV – RE / RE – EV – noteworthiness

First outcome:

Noteworthiness is significant for the acceptability ofsuch sentences ( pragmatic principle is testable)