Contracted Preposition-Determiner Forms in GermanSemantics and Pragmatics

Abstract

The topic of this work is the distribution and interpretative differences between contracted and non-contracted forms found in German. Non- contracted forms, which are prepositions followed by a definite article, are restricted to anaphoric and endophoric uses, as well as for inferable referents if the associated expressions are discourse-old. In contrast, contracted forms are prepositions with strong inflectional endings and obligatory in contexts in which the descriptive content of the noun fits one individual. These individuals need not be necessarily uniquely identifiable to the speaker and hearer. It will be proposed that contracted forms are semantically incorporating prepositions, inflected for singular number, gender, and case, which combine with property-denoting noun phrases. This has the advantage that the non-specifics readings that arise with contracted forms can directly be accounted for. Uniqueness effects can be derived from the singular number meaning and from contextual entailments.