Unbestimmte Subjekte: zur problematischen Äquivalenz von deutschem man und italienischem si

Abstract

German sentences with man and Italian sentences with si impersonale or si passivante are often presented as equivalent in contrastive grammars. However, this functional equation proves to be problematic when Italian students refer with man to their own role as authors, such as in: “Darauf wird man aber im folgenden Kapitel eingehen”. Evidently, man cannot refer to the speaker role, while in the same context the Italian si is well suitable. Starting from this interference error, the paper examines the possible range of reference of the two pronouns. It turns out that the most common reading of man and si in both languages is the generic one, which can be paraphrased as “everyone”. Systematic divergences, on the other hand, occur in the particular reading, i. e. when referring to single unspecified subjects. While the German man characterizes the subject as anonymous and does never include listeners or speakers (e. g: Gestern hat man bei uns eingebrochen; man ≈ ‘jemand’, ‘somebody’), the Italian si, according to the verb class (transitive, unergative, unaccusative, etc.), can or must be read as speaker-exclusive (Mi si è raccontato che ...; si ≈ ‘qualcuno’, ‘someone’) or as speaker-inclusive (Ieri si è andati al ristorante; si ≈ ‘noi’, ‘we’). The speaker-inclusive reading also occurs when si is used in academic texts as a substitute for the established form of speaker (author) reference by means of the 1st person plural (noi, ‘we’). In addition to man and si, other forms of indeterminate subjects are examined, namely the non-anaphoric uses of German “sie (pl.)” (Sie haben schon wieder die Preise erhöht.) and of the Italian 3rd person plural null subject (Ti hanno cercato.) as well as the so-called impersonal passive form in German (Es wird gemurmelt.).