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In contemporary German, nominal structures are often prefered to verbal sentences. Since it is rather common to convert main verbs into nouns by the means of derivation, verbal propositions can easily be integrated into new sentences. As the main verb‘s valency is maintained, verbal complements can be transfered into noun phrases as well – now functioning as modifiers. Thus, contemporary German offers a wide range of possibilities of transferring propositions from sentences into noun phrases. On the other hand, it seems to be easier to transfer certain types of sentence structures into nominal structures than others. The article explores the possibilities and limitations of this process on the basis of an empirical study, in which native speakers of German were asked to „translate“ sentences into noun phrases. According to the results of the study, the possibilities and limitations of the transformation of verbal sentences into nominal structures depend on the following factors: amount of complements, form of complements and modifiers, formal similarities and differences of verbal complements and nominal modifiers.

Zusammenfassung Der vorliegende zweite Teil eines zweiteiligen Aufsatzes beschäftigt sich mit wissenschaftlicher Schreibkompetenz vor dem Hintergrund eines interkulturellen Vergleichs. Aus theoretischer Sicht wird versucht, die Konsequenzen der Domänenspezifik sowie des sozialen Charakters des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens für den Erwerb von Kompetenzen im Umgang mit der eigenen Person aufzuzeigen. Hierfür werden aus praktischer Sicht, anknüpfend an die Überlegungen aus dem ersten Teil, Ergebnisse einer kleinen Untersuchung zu Unterschieden zwischen Experten und Novizen sowie zwischen L1- und L2-Studenten im Gebrauch von einschlägigen Deagentivierungsmitteln vorgestellt und diskutiert.

Elliptical structures can be seen as a challenge for grammar theory, grammatical research of individual languages and psycholinguistics. Whereas research on elliptical structures in grammar theory and psycholinguistics is mainly restricted to coordination ellipsis, grammatical research on ellipsis in German covers a much wider range of elliptical structures both in written texts and spoken language. The article argues for a broadening of the psycholinguistic understanding of ellipsis by taking into account different types of text ellipsis revealed by research in German linguistics and by correlating different types of elliptical structures with sub-processes of the understanding of texts (coherence, inference). It shows that the shift of attention to a wider range of types of elliptical structures also leads to new hypotheses of understanding elliptical structures. As the article only offers a first approach to the integration of text understanding and grammatical classification of elliptical structures, it cannot provide an elaborate set of methods for proving the hypotheses. It therefore closes with an appeal to a more extensive collaboration of different linguistic disciplines.

Projektleitung: Prof. Dr. Vilmos Agel, Dr. Mathilde Hennig Ort: Universitat Kassel Laufzeit: April 2007 bis Marz 2009 Mitarbeiterinnen: Anna Volodina, Dr. Anja Voeste Studentische Hilfskrafte: Yana Andryewa, Hiltrud Lauer, Florian Rietz Kooperationen: – Kompetenzzentrum fur elektronische Publikationsund Erschliesungsverfahren in den Geisteswissenschaften der Universitat Trier – Universitat Augsburg: Prof. Dr. Stephan Elspas – Forschungsinstitut fur Deutsche Sprache, Deutscher Sprachatlas: Prof. Dr. Jurgen Erich Schmidt und Dr. Roland Kehrein – externe Projektgruppe an der Universitat Szeged: Daniel Czicza, Peter Kappel, Orsolya Rauzs, Eszter Zoka Status: Pilotprojekt zum Projekt „Sprachstufengrammatik des Neuhochdeutschen”

The article addresses the empirical problem of part-of-speech classification. In order to illustrate this problem, the study presents an analysis of 100 instances of the use of