Content, form and realizations of Upper German case marking
Issues in modelling corpus-based data
This article discusses the application of the Paradigm Function Morphology (PFM) approach when modelling data from Upper German case marking. Building on a corpus-based study, it highlights the relevant aspects – the word forms, case marking types and patterns – which shape the Upper German case marking system. In a second step, it discusses pressing issues in modelling these aspects in PFM, focusing on the issue of modelling the case marking types. In the Upper German data, these types show gradual behavior in non-concatenative structures, which cannot be adequately accounted for using the PFM approach. In addition, the article highlights the issues in modelling case marking patterns based on the phonological surface structure – a level which involves a great amount of variation.
Article outline
- 1.Case marking in German dialects: A challenge for formal theories
- 2.Corpus-based study on Upper German dialects
- 2.1A corpus of spoken dialectal language
- 2.2A quantitative analysis of case marking
- 2.3Types and patterns in Upper German case marking: Basic findings
- 3.Empirical data meets formal theory
- 3.1PFM and the features of Upper German case marking
- 3.2Modelling case marking types
- 3.3Modelling case marking patterns
- 4.Discussion and conclusion
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Acknowledgements
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Notes
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References