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Micro- and Macro-variation of Causal Clauses: Synchronic and Diachronic Insights
Edited by Łukasz Jędrzejowski and Constanze Fleczoreck
[Studies in Language Companion Series 231] 2023
► pp. 311–345

Chapter 11
Factors for the integration of causal clauses in the history of German

| Saarland University
| Saarland University
The variation between integrated (verb-final) and independent (verb-second) causal clauses in German could depend on the amount of information conveyed in that clause. A lower amount might lead to integration, a higher amount to independence, as processing constraints might forbid integration of highly informative clauses. We use two ways to measure information amount: 1. the average ratio of given referents within the clause, 2. the cumulative surprisal of all words in the clause. Focusing on historical stages of German, a significant correlation between amount of information and integration was visible, regardless which method was used.
Keywords: information density, information structure, German, clausal integration
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Approaches to explaining variation
    • 2.1Variation in integration
    • 2.2Type of causality
    • 2.3Informational status
  • 3.Study on Middle and Early New High German texts based on givenness status
    • 3.1Method
    • 3.2Clause encoding density
    • 3.3Information structural parameters
  • 4.Study on scientific texts (17th cent.) based on surprisal
    • 4.1Information density
    • 4.2Setup of the study
    • 4.3Results
    • 4.4Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • Primary sources
  • References
Published online: 1 March 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.231.11spe
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