German Prepositions Research Articles

The interface of real world, lexicalization and conceptualization on the example of the Contact Sense of the German preposition an (on, at) and its Polish Spanish and English counterparts

The paper takes up the issue of creating meanings, focusing the dynamic relation between lexicalization and conceptualization on the example of prepositions. By providing a systematic view of the specific meanings of the Contact Sense of the German preposition an (on, at) and its Polish, Spanish and English counterparts, the interface between the given real spatial relation of two objects, its lexicalization and the emerging conceptualization is highlighted. Special attention is paid to the role of the particular pieces of knowledge and experience being activated in creating these meanings in order to look closely at the concept of context as this context is usually interpreted differently by different researchers. The attempt to show what happens step by step when conceptualizing a real spatial relation and its linguistic expression fixed in the lexicalization pattern is motivated by the finding that the difficulty with clear determination and separation of the context information from the information actually creating the meaning is one of the reasons why studies on the cognitive aspects of the semantics of prepositions have been abandoned over time. The paper aims to contribute to the elaboration of an authoritative method of establishing and identifying meanings of prepositions, and to contribute to the discussion about the language-thought relation providing arguments supporting the view of language as a trigger for conceptualizations provided by the embodied cognition rather than as a tool shaping thoughts.

독일어권 학습자를 위한 한국어 부사격 조사 ‘에’, ‘에서’, ‘(으)로’의 독일어 대응 표현 고찰

Objectives This study aims to present the educational direction of the Korean adverbial case markers ‘에’, ‘에서’ and ‘(으)로’ for German speaking Korean learners by examining their corresponding expressions in German.
 Methods In order to examine the various semantic functions of the Korean adverbial case markers ‘에’, ‘에서’ and ‘(으)로’, several dictionaries were consulted. They are based on the classification criteria and explored their corre-sponding expressions in German. While the Korean adverbial case markers ‘에’, ‘에서’ and ‘(으)로’ often have multi-ple corresponding German prepositions, the grammatical functions of the Korean adverbial case markers and German prepositions are different.
 Results The Korean adverbial case markers ‘에’, ‘에서’ and ‘(으)로’ are mostly matched with German prepositions, but due to differences in grammatical functions between Korean adverbial case markers and German preposi-tions, the actual structures and forms realized in sentences are different. It has also identified cases where they are realized not only as German prepositions but also as conjunctions and adverbs. A single preposition corre-sponds to one specific meaning function of the adverbial case markers, while it can correspond to two or more adverbial case markers, showing various patterns. In particular, the preposition ‘zu’ corresponds to multiple meaning functions of Korean adverbial case markers. Some of the German prepositions that correspond to the adverbial case marker ‘에’ combine with Korean nouns indicating place (direction) and time expressions. German adverbs corresponding to ‘에’ and ‘(으)로’ combine with Korean nouns and adjectives indicating place (direction).
 Conclusions In this study, considering the characteristics revealed through the correspondence between the Korean adverbial case markers ‘에’, ‘에서’ and ‘(으)로’ and their German corresponding expressions, it is important to teach and learn efficiently. In this regard, Korean instructors should guide German learners to understand the various meaning functions of adverbial case markers in different situations and contexts. Especially since adver-bial case markers can be realized not only as German prepositions but also as conjunctions, adverbs, and so on, education should be provided to prevent errors of corresponding expressions.

SEMANTIC FUNCTIONS OF LOCAL AND TEMPORAL PREPOSITIONS IN THE GERMAN LANGUAGE

The article is devoted to the functions of local and temporal prepositions in German. Space and time are fundamental concepts that exist in the human mind, which explains the importance of studying them. Understanding and describing spatial and temporal relations in different languages is of particular interest both in cognitive and linguistic terms. The study of prepositions that convey spatial and temporal relations makes it possible to identify the patterns of spatial and temporal perception of the world, refracted in the meanings of these language units, and helps to reveal the system of concepts with which a person comprehends the world around him, which is important for professional translators. The relevance of the study is that it is devoted to little-studied problematic semantics – the problematic meanings of spatial and temporary prepositions. The object of the research is the system of spatial and temporal prepositions of the German language. The subject of the research is the semantic functions of prepositions, expressive spatial and temporal relations. The purpose of this study is to identify the features of the spatial and temporal perception of the world by native speakers of the German language by describing and comparing the semantic functions of the spatial and temporal prepositions of the German language. The article considers the main aspects of the study of prepositions within the framework of modern linguistics in order to determine the basic theoretical postulates of the study, and also determines the specificity of the grammatical and lexical meanings of prepositions. The authors of the article analyzed research approaches to the study of the semantic structure and functionality of prepositions. In addition, the categories of space and time are considered in order to determine the place and role of prepositions in the expression of spatial and temporal relations. The article reveals the features of the spatial and temporal perception of the world by German speakers, which are reflected in the semantics of local and temporal prepositions.

The semantic mapping of the German spatial preposition JENSEITS

Abstract The present study aims to investigate the semantic value of the German spatial preposition jenseits (‘beyond’). It is argued that our conceptualization of the spatial-physical world and how we interact with objects in our environment transforms a prepositions’ primary meaning into domains of meaning that are tied to time or social interactions. While the study of the semantic structure of English prepositions has received attention, German prepositions, particularly less frequently used ones such as hinter (‘behind’) or jenseits, present a gap in research. It is attempted to show that the different senses of jenseits form a semantic network in which meaning extensions of the spatial, primary sense of jenseits are motivated by varying construal patterns imposed upon an observed scene. The description of the semantic structure of jenseits also draws on previous studies on its English counterpart, beyond (Boers, 1996; Lindstromberg, 2010). Based on the sample collected for the purpose of this study, this paper analyzes 1000 occurrences of the preposition jenseits in the DWDS-subcorpus Die Zeit. The analysis shows that a high frequency of the occurrences found in the sample constitute non-spatial meanings of jenseits and thus encode a configuration between objects in more abstract domains. Furthermore, the notion of metaphorical mapping is used to explain the conceptualization and metaphorical transfer of spatial jenseits to abstract domains of human experience.

LEXICO-SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITIONAL GROUPS IN THE MODERN GERMAN LANGUAGE

Objective. The objective of the article is to familiarize yourself with the general characteristics of German prepositions and prepositional groups; consider the structural features of German prepositions and their positions within the prepositional group; analyze the governing features and syntactic functions of German prepositions and prepositional groups and their positions in the sentence; identify the main sources of difficulty for German learners. Methods. The main scientific results are obtained applying a complex of general scientific and special research methods, namely: analysis, generalization and systematization of scientific and educational and methodological literature on pedagogy, linguistics, methods of teaching foreign languages; theoretical generalization, analysis and synthesis, as well as comparative, descriptive and analytical methods. Results. In the modern German language, there is a fairly large number of prepositions, which differ significantly from each other in structural features, government, number of meanings and stylistic characteristics. German prepositional groups can have a different internal structure, perform different syntactic functions in a sentence and occupy different positions in it. Many prepositional groups are collocations or components of larger collocations. Based on the fact that German prepositions and prepositional groups have quite a lot of lexical-semantic and syntactic features, we came to the conclusion that this significantly complicates their study and correct use, since similar prepositions in different languages can differ from each other in terms of their government , as well as the spectrum of meanings. Knowledge and correct use of derived prepositions typical for written speech is important both for understanding and for writing relevant texts in the language being studied. Therefore, we can say that the confident mastering connotations of various types, which are expedient to memorize as integral lexical-semantic units, significantly facilitates both the process of understanding foreign speech and the process of independent use of a foreign language in various situations. Thereby it is advisable to study German prepositions and prepositional forms in more detail, and for this it is necessary to include them in relevant practical manuals and working programs.

METHODS OF TRANSFERRING SYNTACTIC CONSTRUCTIONS IN THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE (BASED ON THE MATERIAL OF THE GERMAN NEWS DISCOURSE)

News discourse is one of the most important components of human social existence, a means of spiritual and intellectual influence, a powerful channel for the dissemination of ideas. It is characterized by logicality, figurativeness, emotionality, appraisal, appeal and the corresponding language means. In news texts, various types of syntactic constructions are widely used, which give speech power and persuasiveness, colorfulness and imagery. The object of research is syntactic constructions in news texts. The purpose of the work is to identify the specifics of the functioning of syntactic constructions in German-language texts and to identify ways to translate them. The main methods are descriptive and comparative, elements of contextual analysis were also used. The material of the study was the news texts of the popular German news site tagesschau.de, from which about 120 cases of using various syntactic constructions were identified and analyzed using the continuous sampling method. The theoretical significance lies in the fact that syntactic units were studied in terms of their meaning, structure, composition, functional and semantic features. Particular attention is paid to the translation of German constructions with a extended attribute and German prepositions, which are most often used in German news texts. It is proved that the German extended attribute has significant structural differences from the Ukrainian one, and the translation of German constructions with prepositional phrases requires not only knowledge of all the meanings of prepositions, but also the peculiarities of their positional arrangement in the news text. In addition, a description of the news discourse is given, its specific features, tasks, and main functions are identified. The practical significance lies in the fact that the material of this study can be used to conduct special courses on general syntax and in teaching journalists the German language.

Distinction between prepositions zbog and radi in translation from German

This article discusses the use of prepositions zbog and radi in the Bosnian language as translation equivalents of the German preposition wegen based on a selected literary corpus. It is often the case in everyday speech that the difference in the meaning between these two prepositions is not noticed and often not understood by the native speakers of the Bosnian language. However, this sometimes also happens in the literary language, i.e., in the translation of literature, to which this paper pays attention. The starting point for the contrastive analysis between the two languages is the use of the preposition wegen in the prepositional phrase functioning as an adverb phrase in German, when it shows several nuances of meaning. Namely, the primary meaning of the preposition wegen is causal, but it is also used with the meaning of goal or intention. Consequently, in the translation to the Bosnian language we follow the difference in the use of the preposition zbog with the meaning of cause and radi with the meaning of goal or intention. Keywords: prepositions, meaning of prepositions, genitive case, prepositional-case phrase, position of the preposition, contrastive analysis.

Some issiues of prepositional problems (on modern German language material

The class of modern German prepositions is not a closed system. In it the old linguistic units are constantly disappearing and new ones are emerging. The preposition in the row of speech parts is presented next to orher, auxiliary and unchangable word classes. Unlike them, the preposition has the abilikty to manage. The pokisemy of prepositions determaines the siversity of their meaning and functioning. This issue es especially interesting at the syntax level. The proposal is not an independent member, but is always part of any member of the proposal. It can appear with object, attribute and adverbial modifier. But in thid case the decisive role is playes by the factor belongigng to the pre-existing old, new named unit. The management of the prepositions is conditioned not onle by the turnover but by the preposition itself, which id directly related to the distribution. In this case it is related to both autosemnatic and synesemantic words, but the actualization of the preposition is mainly influenced by the full-meaning word – verb.

Affordances of a New Language: Abbas Khider’s Claim to Community inGerman for Everyone

Affordances of a New Language: Abbas Khider’s Claim to Community in<i>German for Everyone</i>

Semantic network of the German preposition hinter

Abstract The present study sets out to construct a semantic network for the German preposition hinter (‘behind’) based on the theoretical framework of “principled polysemy”. The analysis regarding the cognitive and pragmatic aspects motivating the meaning extensions of hinter attempts to highlight the importance of varying construal patterns and vantage points as well as the role of real-world knowledge. By means of corpus data, I intend to present six senses of the preposition hinter, hinting at the polysemous nature of prepositions more generally. Furthermore, the theory of conceptual metaphor is applied to account for metaphorical extensions of hinter to more abstract domains of embodied experience.

Prepositional phrases in German in Austria – identifying patterns of variation

AbstractGerman in Austria is claimed to be shaped by wide-spread dialect use and historical language contact. In this context, variation in prepositional phrases (PPs) is frequently cited, but still underresearched. Three linguistic variables are particularly interesting: (1) preposition choice (p-choice), (2) case marking in PPs and (3) preposition–determiner contractions. The present study aims at identifying linguistic and sociolinguistic – including regional – patterns of variation in the realization of PPs with two-way prepositions in German in Austria on the basis of natural production data including formal and informal registers from urban and rural adults of different age groups and different socioeconomic backgrounds living in Bavarian regions of Austria. The data were compared against the German standard variety from Germany to identify all constructions (possibly) specific for German in Austria. Results indicate that p-choice (particularly in directed motion constructions) shows mostly regional effects: South Bavarian varieties are characterized by preposition drop, whereas in the other regions, the prepositionauf‘on(to)’ seems overrepresented. However, case marking is more dependent on sociodemographic variables and accusative–dative syncretism appears more frequently in plural than in singular contexts. Finally, specific preposition–determiner contractions are widespread across all regions and groups investigated, even in (close-to-)standard registers.

Опыт построения типологии предлогов (на материале русского, английского и немецкого языков)

The research objective includes developing a multi-level typology of the Russian, English and German prepositions with a view to identify motives for their non-standard use in the languages under study. The author summarizes results of studying the prepositions, proposes a universal typology of the prepositions (conventionally stressed, conversional, derivative, copulative, complementary), which constitutes scientific originality of the paper. The conducted analysis allows identifying isomorphic, allomorphic and endomorphic features of prepositions in the analyzed languages. Following the open taxonomy principle, the researcher distinguishes nine groups of prepositions which are then subdivided into levels and classified into forty two subgroups.

Revisiting German two-way prepositions

AbstractGerman two-way prepositions have long troubled grammar writing. Unlike most other German prepositions, they occur with both accusative and dative case. Their case is difficult to predict and has been attributed to different underlying meaning construals. Recent exploratory corpus studies propose that, in addition, their case depends on multiple co-occurring contextual variables. Following this approach, this study uses multivariate regression and collostructional analysis to investigate what determines the case of two-way prepositions in a large sample of authentic language use. Based on the results, this study then attempts to provide a usage-based description of the case of two-way prepositions. Contrary to expectations, none of the proposed variables had much influence on case, suggesting that the effects observed in the literature only hold for specific contexts. Instead, the results indicated associations of accusative and dative with individual prepositions and specific lexical items in the context. Framed in terms of usage-based construction grammar, this is interpreted as item-specific constructional prototypes that emerge from typical usage patterns and, once established, determine case based on form-meaning overlap with the current context of use. In line with recent usage-based research on grammar, a first attempt is made to describe case as part of a network of associative links between constructions and lexical items.

THE EFFECT OF ACROSTIC TECHNIQUES ON INCREASING THE MASTERY OF GERMAN PREPOSITIONS ON STUDENTS OF GERMAN LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

This study aimed to examine the effect of acrostic techniques on increasing student mastery of Präpositionen, which was conducted from September to November 2020. This research was an experimental study with research subjects being college students of the German language study program in the third semester of the academic year 2020/2021. The instruments used in data collection in this study were Pre-test, and Post-test questions before and after the acrostatic technique were applied in the learning process with German prepositions. The results showed that the acrostic technique significantly affected the increasing mastery of Präpositionen college students (thit= 7.67&gt;ttab=1.77. Therefore, Acrostic techniques are recommended for use in präpositionen learning

Perspektivierung im Deutschen durch lokal verwendete Präpositionen

This paper aims to clarify the role of German prepositions in changing the perspective of the reference word in the local context. This role is about how the receiver perceive the name that the preposition refers to. The reference name contains different elements of meanings or perceptions associated with it (for example, the word school means building, institution, workers, students, etc.). Each preposition that compatible with this name conveys one of those elements due to the basic meaning of the preposition. It’s then a mutual role between the preposition and the noun referred to, whereby the two together deliver the intended meaning to the receiver. This mutual role also means that each preposition does not have different meanings (local, temporal, causal, etc. meanings). Rather, the preposition has a general and basic meaning that includes all these uses consisting mainly of the original meaning of the preposition. The different contexts or uses (local, temporal, etc.) are determined by the word referred to in the sentence. This is what the article also covers as part of clarifying the preposition's task in perspective changing.

A Contrastive Analysis of the Use of Prepositions in German and Indonesian

This study aims to describe the implication of contrastive analysis in the mastery of prepositions in German and Indonesian by identifying the similarities and differences in terms of morphology, semantics and syntax. This study employed library research technique to collect data related to the use of prepositions in German and Indonesian. The results of analysis found that there are similarities and differences in using the prepositions in German and Indonesian. Based on the word structure or the morphological aspect, prepositions in German and Indonesian are divided into two: primary/pure/basic prepositions and secondary/derivative prepositions. In German and Indonesian, primary prepositions are single words, which are called prepositions with one case in German (Präpositionen mit festem Kasus). From the semantic point of view, German prepositions are divided into four types: 1) prepositions indicating locative relationship, 2) temporal relationship, 3) modal relationship, and 4) cause-effect relationship. In Indonesian, however, prepositions are divided into several types: 1) prepositions indicating location, 2) movement, 3) agents, 4) tools, 5) comparison, 6) a thing or problem, 8) effects, and 9) prepositions indicating purpose. In general, those prepositions have similar meanings with prepositions in German, but the formations are different because prepositions in German use one of the cases: accusative, dative or genitive

Deutsche Präpositionen als Träger lexikalischer Informationen. Eine Segmentierung nach Kriterien lexikalischer Autonomie

This article is related to the study of the semantic load of the lexical category of prepositions. German prepositions, as in most Anglo-Germanic languages, are especially productive in the framework of two very specific syntactic functions: circumstantial complement and prepositional complement. Traditionally, in the context of the first one some type of semantic load is conferred on them, especially in cases where opposition pairs are available, while in the context of the second function they usually talk about uses of a purely conventional type with little lexical motivation. Through this article the possibility of relativizing this approach will be considered, and, thus, highlighting cases of prepositions with hardly any lexical load within the framework of a function as circumstantial complement, and, in the same way cases of prepositions with some kind of semantic value in the framework of the function as a repositional complement.

ПОЛОЖЕНИЯ НА ВОДЕ И НА СУШЕ В ЗЕРКАЛЕ НЕМЕЦКИХ ПРЕДЛОГОВ

The article considers the possibility of using the onomasiological approach to studying the semantics of prepositions, which is considered as a type of relation established by a preposition in conjunction with the features of the relation participants. The author analyses the conditions for choosing the German prepositions to represent the extra-linguistic situation “Position on the Water and on the Land”. The acquired data are compared with the data obtained when studying prepositions representing the situation “The Image on the Surface”. Variation mechanisms within prepositional semantics and preposition variation mechanisms are described.

Zur Äquivalenz der minimalen lexikalisch geprägten Muster „Präposition + Substantiv“ im deutsch-slowakischen Kontrast

Abstract The paper focuses on the problems of the lexicon-grammar continuum using the example of the lexical-syntagmatic combinatorics of minimal phrases. The focus is on binary preposition + noun phrases with their recurrent collocation partners and syntagmatic context patterns. Together with other (con)textual elements, they form conventionalized and lexically stabilized patterns that have flowed together through recurrent use and repeated occurrence of related linguistic structures in various contexts. The phenomenon requires an inductive bottom-up analysis process. Statistically calculated syntagmatic profiles of selected German prepositions based on linguistic corpora serve as our analytic starting point. The German preposition–noun constructions are then subjected to a corpus-based examination in the contrast language Slovak with respect to their equivalence from the following aspects: – individual language specifics and cross-language regularities of the lexical stabilization of individual phrases – nature of lexical fillers in comparable patterns – equivalence of meanings and/or functions by different contextual factors.

Eine Art Wortart: Das Adverb im Deutschen

So-called adverbs are a notorious problem for the theory of lexical categories, in large part because they are so diverse. Different subclasses of adverbs often resemble some other word class more closely than they resemble each other (and certain German adverbs can even be better analysed as defective adjectives). The present article reexamines the criteria for the identification of a category of adverb that are traditionally used in the grammar of German. It is pointed out that adverbs mostly evade the application of the semantic, distributional, and morphological criteria that can be used for defining categories in general. Adverbs are therefore to be seen as the bottom of the barrel that is left over by the criteria singling out other word classes. Hence, there is no standard category feature in the sense of a feature that encodes for adverbs’ grammatical properties, and it is argued that this is possible because adverbs are confined to contexts without grammatical feature selection. A detailed case study looks at the distinction between adverbs and prepositions in German, arguing that the traditional criterion, which takes prepositions to be those noninflectable words that govern a complement while adverbs would not govern any complements, leads to very unnatural divisions. The distinction must rather be made in terms of lexical weight. As a result, the classification of the Duden grammar (Dudengrammatik 2016), and hence the two-level model of grammatical categories that underlies it, is rejected. Still, adverbs should not be identified with prepositions, since this would blur the distinction between lexical words and function words.