The complement of reduced parentheticals

Christian Fortmann | Universität Stuttgart

This contribution is concerned with a quite frequent type of parenthetical construction in German like Theo kam – sagt Paul – mit seinem Hund (Theo brought – says Paul – his dog). The propositional argument of the parenthetical verb is not saturated within the boundaries of the parenthetical string. However, its interpretative content is provided by the host clause. I argue that the missing argument is nevertheless present in the syntactic representation. Two possible modes of representation, namely by an implicit argument or by a trace/copy of the host, are rejected in favour of a representation by an empty pronominal which is anaphorically linked to the host. Based on this account, I further discuss apparent restrictions on the lexical choice of the parenthetical verb and its co-constituents.

Published online: 26 July 2007
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.106.07for

Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Dehé, Nicole

2018. The prosodic phrasing of parenthetical comment clauses in spontaneous spoken language: evidence from icelandicheld ég. Studia Linguistica 72:1 ► pp. 128 ff.

Fortmann, Christian

2011. Die Suggestion der Theorie – Satzmodus-(In)Kongruenz bei Parenthesen. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 30:1 ► pp. 1 ff.

Griffiths, James

2015. Parenthetical verb constructions, fragment answers, and constituent modification. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 33:1 ► pp. 191 ff.

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