zero-marked true partitives
Hartmut Haberland
hartmut at RUC.DK
Wed Aug 1 08:12:52 UTC 2007
Isn't it simply the case that German Salat is systematically ambiguous
betwen 'lettuce' and 'salad' (probably because the prototypical salad in
German-speaking culture is prepared from lettuce) but that the word has
a different syntax (including classi- and quantifiers, (pseudo-)partitve
constructions etc.) depending on the meaning? I have the notion that the
robustness of language is due to the interplay of different
disambiguating systems: context, syntax, inflection, etc. By robustness
I mean the fact that Wolfgang's wife didn't come home with a package of
coleslaw or a dish of pasta salad (if he had said Wir brauchen noch
einen Salat zum Essen heute abend, kannst Du beim Italiener vorbeigehen?
the situation would have been different, assuming that the Italian
restaurant at the corner sells food to take home. In the latter case the
plural Salate would have been possible, too.)
You could even construct a context where eine Handvoll Salze (never
Sälze) is possible, like talking about a chemistry lecturer: Er redete
über vier, fünf Säuren und dann über eine Handvoll Salze. (Eine Handvoll
Säuren would be less likely, though, try to figture out why.) But again,
Salz is both 'salt' and 'sodium chloride'.
By the way (just back from Dublin), a glass of Guinness means something
different in Ireland and England: a precise measurement (half a pint,
hence appropriate for ordering) vs. a description of a container
(useless for ordering, since you wouldn't drink stout from e.g. a mug).
Hartmut
Paolo Ramat wrote:
> Dear Wolfgang,
> thanks for your remarks!
> I have inserted some further observations directly in your letter.
> Best,
> Paolo
>
> prof.Paolo Ramat
> Università di Pavia
> Dipartimento di Linguistica Teorica e Applicata
> tel. ##39 0382 984 484
> fax ##39 0382 984 487
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Wolfgang Schulze <mailto:W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
> To: Paolo Ramat <mailto:paoram at UNIPV.IT>
> Cc: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> <mailto:LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
> Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 7:10 PM
> Subject: Re: zero-marked true partitives
>
> Dear Paolo,
> maybe that in German we have a larger number of such classifiers.
> No doubt, especially with mass nouns! See e.g. 'drei Handvoll
> [not *Handvolle !] Salz' (vs. *drei Salz/ ??Saelze). Cp. Fr.
> Serzisko in H. Seiler/Chr.Lehmann (eds.), Apprehension.Das
> Sprachliche Erfassen von Gegenstaende.I, 1982; G. Narr:147-159.
> Ibid., p. 176,U.Koelver writes as follows:"hier [i.e. in
> Thai,Vietnam. and Chin.] erfuellt ein Klassifikator verbunden mit
> einem Demonstrativ keinerlei referentielle Funktion, sondern die
> Definitheit der NP haftet allein am Demonstrativ, das die
> Identifizierung des Redegegenstandes in relativer Distanz zur
> Sprechsituation bewirkt". This has to do with the initial query by
> M.Noonan: PSEUDO-PARTITIVE 'a kilo of tea', versus TRUE PARTITIVE
> 'a kilo of that tea'. Pseudo-partitives are units of measure.
> Moreover, ' Ein Glas Wein' is different from 'Ein Glas von diesem
> Wein'
>
> However, in my German, these are rarely used. This morning, I
> asked my wife who was on her way driving into town in order to do
> some shopping: "Bringst du einen Salat mit?" It was clear to her
> that I had in mind "einen Kopf Salat", but I guess she would have
> been rather irritated if I had used this construction. Something
> the like seems to happen when you ask the bar keeper: "Ich hätte
> gerne ein Bier". The overt variant "Ich hätte gern ein Glas Bier"
> would be rather marked (and, maybe affected). Neverless, some
> 'classifyer-like' constructions seem to be partitive in nature,
> compare: Gib mir mal ein Stück Zeitung (said in order clean up
> some dirt) [alternatively, we have: Gib mir mal n Stück vonner
> Zeitung / here, I use Colloquial German]. By the way:
> Kartoffelsalat, Fischsalat etc. are - according to my opinion -
> not examples of classification, but simply compounds (I guess this
> is what you wanted to say).
> Yes, indeed.
>
> A 'Kopfsalat' falls into the same domain.
> I am not quite sure: A Kopfsalat differs from other kinds of
> 'Salat' because of its shape ('Salat wie ein Kopf' : but a
> Kartoffelsalat isn't a 'Salat wie ein Fleisch'... ).
>
> Hence, 'drei Kopf Kopfsalat' would theoretically (!) be possible...
> Best wishes,
> Wolfgang
>
> Paolo Ramat wrote:
>
>> Just a marginal note:
>> I agree with Frans: The 'pseudo-partitive construction' is in
>> fact a classifier construction.
>> you can't buy in the greengrocer shop "Einen Salat", but just
>> "Einen Kopf Salat", oder "Einen Kopfsalat", while in a restaurant
>> you have to specify what kind of salad you want:
>> "Kartoffelsalat, Oelsalat...." , and even "Fleisch-" or
>> "Fischsalat".
>> The 'true partitive' would be "Bitte geben Sie mir zwei Koepfe
>> von diesem Salat".
>>
>> Ciao!
>> Paolo
>>
>
>
> --
>
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> Schulze
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