6. One of the debates within theoretical linguistics concerns whether German should be viewed as a verb-second language or a verb-final language. Leaving aside the theoretical grounds for the debate, one answer to the question is to consider which types of structure are more frequent: those with a verb in second position, or those with the verb in last position. For instance, Klaus Fischer (“Semantische Transparenz deutscher und englischer Satzstrukturen” in Germanistentreffen Deutschland Grossbritannien Irland 2004 (Bonn: DAAD), 219-250) found in a corpus of literary text (two chapters of a novel Der Herr der Diebe by Cornelia Funke (Hamburg: Dressler, 2000) that:

1. More clauses are verb second than are verb last (45.8% vs. 26.3%)
2. The number of clauses that have the whole main verb in verb second (45.8%) is greater than the number of clauses that have the whole main verb in verb-last (41.9%).
3. Only if you consider the number of clauses that use verb-last at all [i.e regardless of whether it is a separable prefix, an infinitive/past participle, or a full verb] do you get a majority (51.7%). But the number is still smaller than the number of clauses which have all or part of the main verb in verb-second 54.9%).

See the table below (which gives both raw figures and , slightly amended:

 

					Vfinal of any sort
V1 of any sort			V2 of any sort
V1	V1 …Vpart	v1 …. V	V2	V2 … Vpart	v2 …. V	…..V
Spielt er?	Kommt er mit?	Hast du ihn gesehen?	Er spielt für uns.	Er macht das Fenster auf	Er ist heute gekommen	dass ich es mag
15 (2.4%)	4 (0.7%)	10 (1.6%)	281 (45.8%)	56 (9.1%)	86 (14.0%)	161 (26.3%)

Begin by reviewing a number of German grammars to see how German word order is described there, and also consult some of the arguments in the literature for whether German is best viewed as verb-second or verb-final (consult introductions to German linguistics such as those by Beedham, Boase-Beier & Lodge). Then, perform a similar analysis to that of Fischer on a corpus or corpora of your choice, and compare your findings with those of Fischer. Could any of the descriptions of German you have encountered be amended in the light of what you and/or Fischer find?

7. Recent research by Natalie Braber (at Nottingham Trent University) suggests that particle use tends to cluster around particularly emotional points in discourse, at least in spoken language for the particles halt, eben and to a lesser extent eigentlich. She has also found that halt, considered to be more characteristic of southern German usage, occurred in conversations recorded in West Berlin in the 1990s, but was much rarer in West Berlin, where eben was more characteristic. They could, however, oc cur together (as in ich muss eben halt losfahren). Carry out your own study of spoken language to see to investigate the use of halt and eben. Do they occur in clusters at emotional points in conversation (be careful: you will need to think how to determine emotion); is there regional variation in their usage in the corpora you investigate?

You may also want to look at some of the other reading on particles discussed in class and come up with a slightly different research question.

8. It is well known that weil + V2nd (e.g. weil ich habe noch gearbeitet) is frequent in German, but is generally considered incorrect. Investigate what authorities on German grammar have to say about this structure, and compare it with the usage patterns that you find in informal language (either spoken on online). Does Ziegler’s explanation of weil + V2 with the function of a “discourse marker” make sense to you? (See Ziegler’s article in addition to the standard reference works.

9. Carry out a corpus investigation to explore the use of sollen (and/or another modal verb of your choice) to evaluate the accounts available in the secondary literature. You might like to take Salkie’s article of 2002 as a starting point for a comparison of German and English modal verbs, but you should in any case also look at other accounts of the modals for comparison.

10. Examine the use of –in as an agreement suffix in German (and in Dutch, if you feel able!) in a corpus investigation of your choice, taking Scott (2009) as your starting-point.