Cover not available
Part of
Perspectives on Abstract Concepts: Cognition, language and communication
Edited by Marianna Bolognesi and Gerard J. Steen
[Human Cognitive Processing 65] 2019
► pp. 185–214

Chapter 9
Cognitive and linguistic aspects of composition in German particle verbs

Most German particle verbs (PVs) are composed of a prepositional particle (P) and a base verb (BV). For instance, anstrahlen is formed from the P an and the BV strahlen. The meaning of a PV results from often systematic interactions between the P and BV meanings. But many Ps and BVs are ambiguous and, moreover, a single P meaning and a single BV meaning can be combined in several ways. Finally, the interactions between P and BV meanings depend on the context.
This chapter presents a case study of how two particles, auf and ab, interact with certain BVs and contextual factors, while focusing on the difference between abstract and concrete BV/PV concepts, and between abstract and concrete contexts.
Keywords: abstract/concrete concepts, complex verbs, meaning shifts, neologisms
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.More data and some hypotheses
    • 2.1Particles: Core concepts and specific meanings
    • 2.2Concepts and Domains
    • 2.3Hypotheses about PV formation
      • 1.P-concept + concrete BV + concrete context → concrete PV
      • 2.P-concept + concrete BV + abstract context → abstract PV
      • 3.P-concept + abstract BV + abstract context → abstract PV
      • 4.P-concept + abstract BV + concrete context → abstract PV
  • 3.Discussing data from the experiment
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgment
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 June 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.65.10spr
References (24)
References
Costello, F. J., & Keane, M. T. 2000. Efficient creativity: Constraint-guided conceptual combination. Cognitive Science 24(2), 299–349. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davidson, D. 1967. The logical form of action sentences. In: Nicolas Rescher (ed.), The Logic of Decision and Action. The University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Evans, V. 2010. Figurative language understanding in LCCM theory. Cognitive Science 21(4), 601–662.Google Scholar
Franklin, N., & Tversky, B. 1990. Searching imagined environments. Journal of Experimental Psychology 119, 63–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frassinelli, D., Abrosimova, A., Springorum, S., & Schulte im Walde, S. 2017. Meaning (mis-) match in the directionality of German particle verbs. In Proceedings of the 30th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Cambridge, MA, USA.Google Scholar
Gagné, C. L. 2002. Lexical and relational influences on the processing of novel compounds. Brain and Language 81, 723–735. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gentner, D. 1983. Structure-mapping: A theoretical framework for analogy. Cognitive Science 7, 155–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kliche, F. 2011. Semantic variants of German particle verbs with “ab”. Leuvense Bijdragen 97, 3–27.Google Scholar
Köper, M., & Schulte im Walde, S. 2018. Analogies in complex verb meaning shifts: The effect of affect in semantic similarity models. In Proceedings of the 16th Annual Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies, New Orleans, LA, USA, 150–156.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., Espenson, J., & Schwartz, A. 1991. Master metaphor list. Secondary Draft Copy, Cognitive Linguistics Group, University of California at Berkeley.
Lechler, A., & Roßdeutscher, A. 2009. German particle verbs with “auf”. Reconstructing their composition in a DRT-based framework. Linguistische Berichte 220, 439–478.Google Scholar
McIntyre, A. 2007. Particle verbs and argument structure. Language and Linguistics Compass 1/4, 350–367. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Potts, C. 2005. The Logic of Conventional Implicatures. Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Roßdeutscher, A. 2000. Lexikalisch gestützte formale Textinterpretation. Habilitation, University of Stuttgart.Google Scholar
2012. Hidden quantification in prefix- and particle verbs. In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 16, 513–526, Cambridge, MA, USA.Google Scholar
Schulte im Walde, S., Köper, M., & Springorum, S. 2018. Assessing meaning components in German complex verbs: A collection of source-target domains and directionality. In Proceedings of the 7th Joint Conference on Lexical and Computational Semantics, New Orleans, LA, USA, 22–32. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Springorum, S. 2011. DRT-based analysis of the German verb particle “an”. Leuvense Bijdragen 97, 80–105.Google Scholar
Springorum, S., & Schulte im Walde, S. Under revision. Aiming with arrows at particles. Towards a conceptual analysis of directional meaning components in German particle verbs.
Springorum, S., Schulte im Walde, S., & Roßdeutscher, A. 2013a. Sentence generation and compositionality of systematic neologisms of German particle verbs. In Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Quantitative Investigations in Theoretical Linguistics, Leuven, Belgium, 81–84.Google Scholar
Springorum, S., Utt, J., & Schulte im Walde, S. 2013b. Regular meaning shifts in German particle verbs: A case study. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computational Semantics, 228–239, Potsdam, Germany.Google Scholar
Stiebels, B. 1996. Lexikalische Argumente und Adjunkte. Zum semantischen Beitrag von verbalen Präfixen und Partikeln. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin.Google Scholar
Stiebels, B., & Wunderlich, D. 1994. Morphology feeds syntax: The case of particle verbs. Linguistics 32, 913–968. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tversky, B. 2011. Visualizing thoughts. Topics in Cognitive Science 3, 499–535. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wisniewski, E. J. 1996. Construal and similarity in conceptual combination. Journal of Memory and Language 35, 434–453. DOI logoGoogle Scholar