Case and Referential Context: Argument Realization and Referential Context (Phase II)
The project investigates the impact of semantic-pragmatic features such as animacy, definiteness, specificity and topicality on case marking of verbal arguments. Our investigation of feature architectures which are relevant for Differential Object Marking in Mongolian, Romanian, Spanish, Turkish and Uzbek has shown that DOM is triggered not only by the properties of the subject, but emerges from the interaction of these with properties of the verb. In phase 2, we will investigate the impact of this interaction on semantically induced case assignment in argument alternations.
Principal investigator: Klaus von Heusinger (till March 2013), Artemis Alexiadou (from April 2013)
Researchers: Ljudmila Geist, Dolgor Guntsetseg
Former reserachers: Sofiana Chiriacescu (2011-2012), Umut Özge (6/2011-12/2012)
Former PhD-students: Janna Lipenkova (2011), Arianna Bravi (2011-2012)
Student researchers: Farinaz Bidarian, Patrick Lindert
Kasus und referenzieller Context (Phase I)
The project investigates the conditions of the referential context for Differentiated Object Marking (DOM) in Spanish, Romanian, Turkish and Mongolian. DOM denotes the phenomenon of certain languages to morpho-syntactically (case-) mark the direct object if it is highly `individuated', i.e. high on the scales for animacy, definiteness and topicality. We will develop a semantic model that accounts for the interaction of these three quite different categories and unify them in the new concept of referential context, which determines the specification process of underspecified lexical forms.
Principal investigator: Klaus von Heusinger
Researchers: Udo Klein, Edgar Onea, Ljudmila Geist
PhD Students: Dolgor Guntsetseg, Sofiana Chiriacescu