Naja, normal und normal. Zur Syntax, Semantik und Pragmatik der x-und-x-Konstruktion im Deutschen

Abstract

This article deals with the syntax, semantics and pragmatics of the x und x ('x and x') construction in German, cf. A: Schade, dass die [Schabracken] so teuer sind! Ϫ B: Naja, teuer und teuer, wenn die Qualität stimmt, dann finde ich den Preis okay. (A: 'What a pity that the horsetrappers are so expensive!' Ϫ B: 'Well, expensive and expensive, if the quality is good, the price is fine with me.'). The specific discourse function of this construction is to negotiate the situational meaning of a previously used lexical item. Typologically, it has been claimed that the pattern is language-specific for Scandinavian. The paper challenges this assumption, providing empirical evidence from a questionnaire study with German students and a corpus of German examples from internet forum and newsgroup dialogues. Theoretically, the aim of the paper is to show that the specific discourse function of the pattern can be accounted for by regular interactions between syntax, semantics and pragmatics. A central assumption is that the x-expressions are pure quotations. The quotation analysis can account for the fact that the construction licenses a range of different syntactic categories as x-expressions. It also accounts for the fact that it is the lexical meaning of the x-expressions which is focused by the construction. The illocutionary force of the construction is derived via an I-implicature.

On the emergence of reduplication in German morphophonology

“…In contrast to reduplication, however, the rhyming or ablauting conjuncts are generally both lexical words -but the meaning of the coordination phrases is not necessarily compositionally transparent. 8 As a counterpart to frozen coordinations, the "X-and-X-construction" (7) is a coordination of two identical (lexical) words (Finkbeiner 2012, for German).…”

“…As the core lexical meaning of the two conjuncts is trivially identical, the contrast is only valid when the specific situational context and the relevant pragmatic meaning are taken into account. That is, the X-and-X-construction is used to "negotiate the situational meaning of a previously used lexical item" (Finkbeiner 2012: 1, and references therein). Interestingly, the X-and-X-construction is a syntactically and prosodically autonomous entity.…”

Partial intersubjectivity and sufficient understandings for current practical purposes: On a specialized practice in Swedish conversation

“…Further, this conversational practice has been attested in Icelandic and Swedish-influenced Estonian (for details, see Lindström & Linell 2007). In a study of German, Finkbeiner (2012) showed that a corresponding pattern ( x-und-x ) occurs in electronic discussion forums, but the construction is not attested in spoken German data. The languages above are Scandinavian or spoken in the Circum-Baltic region, which suggests that this particular reactive construction is an areal phenomenon.…”

Contrastive focus reduplication and the modification puzzle

“…Also called the "double construction" (Dray 1987;Horn 1993) or "lexical cloning" (Horn 2006;Huang 2015), CR concerns the reduplication of a lexical item to single out a default or prototypical meaning in which one of the duplicates receives contrastive (focal) stress (Ghomeshi et al 2004). CR has been analyzed as head movement into a CR projection (Ghomeshi et al 2004 andsimilarly Travis 2003) and, especially in the German literature, as a word formation process, or to be more precise, as compounding (see, for example, Hohenhaus 2004;Stolz 2009;Finkbeiner 2012;Kentner 2017). In this squib we provide evidence that both accounts, especially the compounding analysis, cannot be correct and instead propose that CR involves phrasal focus movement.…”