In German, unlike in English or Swedish, there are two different perfect auxiliaries: the more frequently used haben and the auxiliary sein. The latter only occurs with a restricted group of verbs. Against the traditional view, it has recently been argued that both periphrases do not form a homogenous category, i. e. there was no grammaticalisation of sein + second participle at all. According to this view the periphrases do not only differ formally but also functionally.In contrast, this article claims that the periphrasis consisting of sein + second participle has been grammaticalised in German. Although the construction had a resultative function in the Old High German period, it nowadays also refers to past situations which can be relevant to the point of speech. Therefore, its function is equivalent to the haben perfect. The reanalysis of sein + second participle is reflected by the distribution of the auxiliaries which is not strictly conditioned by aktionsart anymore. Though a corpus-based investigation of verbs of movement shows there are still restrictions for the periphrasis with sein: It is not permitted in prototypically transitive sentences. Whereas agentivity of the subject doesn't influence the auxiliary choice, sentences with prototypical objects prohibit the perfect with sein. Those objects are usually individuated or referential. Hence, they can underlie a change of state or position. Obviously, sein perfect has broken the actional restrictions, but there are still limitations concerning the argument structure. This shows that the sein periphrasis is only weakly grammaticalized.
This paper presents a case study conducted on 17th and 18th century German corpora, confirming that both attraction and differentiation are important mechanisms of change, which interact with socio-symbolic properties of constructions. The paper looks at the frequencies and semantics of wo ‘where’ clauses at the beginning of the New High German period, which are compared to the frequencies and semantics of the connector da ‘there, since’ in the same period. The study reveals that the subordinating connectors wo and da overlapped in their functions and were highly polysemous (or semantically vague), establishing spatial, temporal, causal, conditional, and contrast links between clauses. This suggests that the connectors had become functionally similar by means of mutual attraction; however, they differed in that they belonged to different registers. Over the course of the 18th century, the polysemy of wo and da clauses reduced. Being gradually confined to one single meaning, the connectors became less similar. This differentiation occurs because the connectors aligned to distinct high-level schemas in the associative network. The study confirms that analogy is crucial to both attraction and differentiation of functionally overlapping constructions. While attraction involves analogy of specific instances of constructions, differentiation occurs in analogy to high-level abstract constructions in the associative network.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.