Pseudorelativsätze vs. Relativsätze im Frühneuhochdeutschen und im Neuhochdeutschen: Syntax, Semantik und kommunikative Funktion

Abstract

The present contribution is devoted to the study of German “pseudo-relative clauses”, i.e. clauses introduced by an anaphoric d-pronoun (der/die/das). Despite great analogies with subordinate relative clauses, they differ from the latter because of the second position of the finite verb (s. Es gibt Philosophen, die kommen aus Grönland). Pseudo-relative clauses are analysed and compared with subordinate relative clauses according to a wide corpus of written texts from ENHG and NHG. The two clause types are firstly examined on the ground of syntactic features (position of the clause, word class of their antecedent etc.) and then according to their semantic-pragmatic functions (descriptive, narrative, identifying function etc.). The diachronic study aims at checking analogies and differences in the use of the structures in the two historical periods. Secondly, the work points out possible factors which favour the presence of one clause type instead of the other.