The German-Spanish verb pair schreiben/escribir from a contrastive perspective: empirical study of argument structure patterns and their variation in different text types

Description

This contribution on the German-Spanish verb pair schreiben/escribir takes up some questions about representative communication verbs in language comparison (Harras et al. 2004,2007; Fernández Eduardo 1993). Departing from an ad hoc data base of a comparable multi-lingual corpus (Kupietz et al. 2020; Meliss/González Ribao 2022) and a corpus-based methodology for multilingual contexts, it describes the extensive combination potential of both verbs from a contrastive perspective.
The data base consists of 400 corpus examples per language from four different text types of the contemporary language, extracted from large reference corpora of both languages. The corresponding analyses for lexical issues at the interface between semantics and syntax required the development of a corpus-based methodology for multilingual contexts and the creation of an annotation system for the acquisition of different lexical data. The underlying methodology based on Engelberg et al. (eds.) (2012) was adapted to the main purposes of the research project COMBIDIGILEX and applied to the analysis of verbs of different verb classes (Meliss (coord.) et al. in preparation).
The high number of attested argument structure patterns combined with a wide morpho-syntactic realisation spectrum provides not only the basis for fine-grained sense disam-biguation, but also relevant phenomena in the contrastive field. Based on a tertiums comparationis, which is defined by the identified argument structures (Wotjak 2011), the following research questions will be considered:
i) What combination potential do the verbs schreiben/escribir possess?
ii) Can different readings be revealed based on the individual argument structure
patterns?
iii) Do the verbs behave similarly regarding their combination potential in both
languages?
iv) Can text type-specific differences be identified? (cf. Engelberg et al. 2012).
v) Can the verbs in both languages be assigned to the same frames? (cf. Boas 2009)
These research questions in part follow the tradition of valence grammar and connect tocurrent approaches to the analysis and description of argument structures and argument structure patterns, which explicitly address the syntax-semantics interface (Primus 2012; Herbst 2014; Engelberg 2018) and enable a connection to contrastive issues (Cosma/Engelberg 2014; Engelberg et al. (eds.) 2015; González Ribao 2021). However, the concept of ‘argument structure patterns’ underlying this study, allows for an analysis independent of the
chosen linguistic approach (cf. Proost/Winkler 2015).
The results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses also provide the basis for an application-oriented proposal within the framework of the development of a multilingual lexico-grammatical information system for foreign language acquisition, which among others offers explicit contrastive commentaries (Fernández Méndez/Mas Álvarez/Meliss 2022).
The main aim of this contribution is not only to present the results and point out application-oriented possibilities, but also to stimulate a discussion that particularly concerns the methodological-empirical foundations for contrastive studies.
References
Boas, Hans C. (2009): Semantic frames as interlingual representations for multilingual lexical databases. In: Boas, Hans C. (ed.): Multilingual FrameNets in computational lexicography: Methods and applications. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 59–100.
COMBIDIGILEX: https://combidigilex.wixsite.com/deutsch.
Cosma, Ruxandra/Engelberg, Stefan (2014): Subjektsätze als alternative Argumentrealisierungen im Deutschen und Rumänischen: Eine kontrastive quantitative Korpusstudie zu Psych-Verben. In: Cosma, Ruxandra et al. (eds.): Komplexe Argumentstrukturen: Kontrastive Untersuchungen zum Deutschen, Rumänischen und Englischen. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 339–420.
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Meliss, Meike (coord.)/Mas Álvarez, Inmaculada/Sánchez Hernández, Paloma/González Ribao, Vanessa (in preparation): Argumentstrukturmuster im Sprachvergleich. Korpusbasierte Studien zu Verben ausgewählter Paradigmen. (= Konvergenz und Divergenz). Berlin: De Gruyter.
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Period	21 Jul 2023
Held at	Leibniz Institute for the German Language, Germany, Baden-Württemberg