Acoustic variability refers to variations in speech that do not alter linguistic content. Previous studies have demonstrated that acoustic variability improves second language (L2) word learning when varying talker, speaking style, or speaking rate but not amplitude or fundamental frequency (Barcroft & Sommers, 2005; Sommers & Barcroft, 2007). The current study examined the effects of region-based sociophonetic variability. In Experiment 1, English speakers attempted to learn German nouns while viewing pictures and listening to the words with low sociophonetic variability (six speakers of one regional variety, one repetition per speaker) and high sociophonetic variability (six speakers of each of six different regional varieties, one repetition per speaker). Participants completed picture-to-L2 and L2-to-first language (L1) posttests. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 while counterbalancing word groups and learning conditions. Results of both experiments revealed increased accuracy for high over low variability, suggesting that regionally varied exemplars of words lead to more robust developing lexical representations.

The study employs a corpus-based frame analysis, grounded in Barsalou’s frame notion, as a complementary methodological approach to metaphor analysis for studying emotion concepts. We examine the conceptualization of the German ‘Angst’, which is widely recognized as a uniquely German emotion concept, yet it remains insufficiently studied. Through a systematic analysis of linguistic patterns, this study reconstructs the frame structure of ‘Angst’ based on 200,319 instances extracted from newspaper and social media data. The findings show that ‘Angst’ arises from diverse factors, including threats to life and health, prosperity, status, identity, power, relationships and the need for certainty and stability. There is an awareness and acceptance of ‘Angst’, reflected in the openness to expressing personal fear and addressing the fear of others in media discourse. When contextualized within insights from other disciplines, it becomes evident that the ‘Angst’ is rooted in universal biological foundations while also shaped by Germany’s sociohistorical context. Furthermore, it exhibits both alignment with and divergence from its philosophical conceptualization. These insights expose ‘Angst’ as both a psychological and cultural construct and demonstrate the advantage of combining frame analysis with corpus linguistic methods in capturing the specific structures of emotion concepts from large-scale data.

This paper reports on a web-based experiment to investigate the perception of prominence in words with different focus structures in Italian. In the experiment, native listeners of the Bari variety of Italian, and German learners of Italian, rated the perceived prominence of object nouns in broad and narrow focus and post-focally using a visual analogue scale. Although both groups of listeners rated words in narrow focus as higher in prominence than words in broad focus, there were differences between the two groups in rating post-focal words. While German learners rated post-focal words as less prominent than those in broad focus, native Italian listeners perceived words in both of these conditions as equally prominent. The Italian ratings are particularly striking, as post-focal words had flat pitch and were weaker in terms of periodic energy mass than words in broad focus, leading to the conclusion that the native listeners were rating the words by taking their knowledge of the prosodic system of Italian into account. Our results confirm phonological accounts of Italian as having post-focal accents, even when the pitch is flat.

Both gesture and talk are basic building blocks of face-to-face conversation. In this study, we address the temporal dynamics of hand gesture phases relative to places and types of turn transition. We annotated gesture features and measured temporal aspects of gesture related to speech in two languages, German and Swedish. We found variation in the temporal relationships of gesture types and alignment of gesture phases that relate to the management of turn-taking in conversation. Specifically, the frequency of different gesture phases accompanying the offset of speech differed depending on whether the same speaker held the floor or whether a new speaker took up a turn. In addition, we found that differences in temporal alignment of gesture phases can distinguish between the type of turn transition that is upcoming up to a second before the place of transition is reached. Our results emphasize the importance of the interaction of the verbal and the gestural modality to maintain the smooth flow of conversation.

This paper explores the implementation and enduring significance of the German language program in Milwaukee Public Schools between 1867 and 1918. Despite the German language program facing challenges, notably the Bennett Law of 1889—which sought to restrict foreign language instruction statewide—the program persisted, highlighting the tension between local identity and state mandates. This study argues that the creation of the German course initiated a process of consolidation and standardization in Milwaukee Public Schools, shifting decision-making to school administrators who sought to accommodate the largest cultural group in Milwaukee. This case study of the Milwaukee Public Schools’ German Language Program reveals how school policies prioritized a multilingual approach to Americanization. The paper is structured in three sections, examining the evolution of language policy, the political implications of the Bennett Law, and the post-Bennett landscape of language education, ultimately demonstrating the interplay between consolidation and cultural inclusivity.

Aspectual verbs with infinitival complements are often considered ambiguous when it comes to the question of whether they should be classified as raising or control verbs. In present-day German, argument structure properties seem to favor a raising analysis, but arguments for a control analysis cannot be dismissed. Word order properties do not provide conclusive evidence either and seem to support the ambiguity of aspectual verbs in present-day German. However, new diachronic evidence on word order properties of infinitival complements in uncontested raising and control constructions shows that well-established word order differences between raising and control constructions are a fairly recent development in the history of infinitival constructions (De Cesare 2021): Until about the mid eighteenth century, infinitival complements of both raising and control verbs tend to precede the finite verb in final position, with the preference of control verbs for extraposition developing only later. In present-day German, the extraposition of infinitival complements is considered a strong criterion for the sentential nature of the postposed infinitive and thus of the biclausal structure of the infinitival pattern, at least since the influential work of Bech (1983). In the present article, we look into the word order properties of ingressive aspectualizers over time and evaluate them against the emergence of a systematic distinction of raising and control verbs in the recent history of German, aiming at a deeper understanding of the syntactic behavior of aspectual verbs in present-day German.

This study revisits the V3 linearization AdvP>Subject>finite verb in Kiezdeutsch, comparing it to resumptive verb-third Left Dislocation and Hanging Topic Left Dislocation. Using corpus data, preverbal object DPs are shown to almost never occur across verb-third distributions, yet preverbal nominative subjects and spatio-temporal elements are unproblematic. This behavior is argued to involve a low C-domain position encoding a Subject of Predication requirement (see Cardinaletti 2004) tied to aboutness and nominative Case-assigning features, but not a strict D-related subject EPP. Based on comparison with other corpora and analysis of metadata, speakers from non-German-speaking homes, namely successive bilinguals, are argued to have innovated this property. A novel account is suggested for the emergence of V3 based on claims that it results from a natural informational order (Wiese et al. 2020), which is formalized as a Minimal Default Grammar (Roeper 1999) available to children before they fully acquire CP and TP. Children acquiring a V2 language must either reject V3 or incorporate it into a V2 syntax. Lacking adequate counterevidence in their input, Kiezdeutsch speakers do the latter.*

This study explored cognitive effects on narrative macrostructure in both languages of 38 Russian-German bilinguals aged 4;6 to 5;1‚ while controlling for demographic factors (sex, socioeconomic status) and language proficiency. Macrostructure was operationalised as story structure (SS) and story complexity (SC) using the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives. Nonverbal cognitive subtasks assessing shifting (Figure Ground), visual memory (Form Completion), and inhibition (Attention Divided) were administered. None of the cognitive skills influenced SS; however, they differentially impacted SC: Figure Ground affected Russian SC, while Form Completion affected German SC. Findings advance our understanding of how cognition affects oral narratives in bilingual preschoolers.

This article presents a description of German schon and noch as nontemporal scalar focus operators. Both items operate in a scalar model of sufficiency and signal that the focus value yields a more informative proposition than all alternatives under consideration; that is, they are special cases of scalar additives. Where the two expressions differ is in the complementary perspectives they evoke. Schon relates to higher alternatives. Noch relates to lower alternatives, but brings about an inverse (i.e., antonymically ordered) scalar model. The use of schon and noch as scalar sufficiency operators is traced back to an amalgamation of two other uses of the same items. The descriptive findings contribute to the advancement of our cross-linguistic understanding of scalar focus operators and raise fundamental questions pertaining to the typological and theoretical status of scale reversal phenomena.*

In German, it has been shown that the semantic entailments associated with telicity markers are acquired early and that speakers will turn to semantic–pragmatic principles to determine whether an overt culmination is cancellable (e.g., van Hout, 1998, 2008; Richter & van Hout, 2013; Schulz & Penner, 2002; Schulz & Ose, 2008). Here, we test the interpretation of three types of telicity markers by Portuguese L2 speakers of German, as well as Portuguese–German bilinguals and German monolinguals. A Bayesian analysis shows that Portuguese L2 speakers of German have difficulty processing telicity with resultative particles but show target-like performances with bounded DPs and adjectival markers. Our analysis also shows that bilingual and monolingual speakers display no substantial differences in their understanding of telicity entailments, albeit with some variability regarding particle markers. I argue that the existing variation may be due to effects of lexical knowledge and transparency.

We investigated syntactic priming in German children to explore crosslinguistic evidence for implicit learning accounts of language production and acquisition. Adult descriptions confirmed that German speakers (N=27) preferred to spontaneously produce active versus passive transitive and DO versus PO dative forms. We tested whether German-speaking children (N=29, Mage=5.3, 15 girls/14 boys) could be primed to produce these dispreferred forms and whether such priming effects would persist across a target phase. Children first heard a block of priming sentences and then described a block of target pictures. They demonstrated significant priming effects for passive and PO dative structures, and these priming effects did not differ between the first and second halves of the block of target trials. These patterns of German child language production are consistent with implicit learning accounts of syntactic priming.

This article presents the results of a corpus study of clausal postpositioning, that is, the occurrence of a sentential constituent in the postfield of the matrix clause to which it is syntactically linked, in German regional language. Analysis of 11,027 clauses from 60 spoken regiolect and dialect texts reveals that clausal postpositionings occur most frequently as non-relative finite clauses, followed by relative clauses, and lastly, infinitival constructions. Notably, while non-relative finite clauses comprise a smaller proportion of postpositionings in regiolect compared to dialect, relative clauses and infinitival constructions show the opposite trend. Adjunct clauses occur most frequently, followed by complement clauses, in both regiolect and dialect. Furthermore, in both varieties, postpositioning is more prevalent in verb-first and verb-second clauses than in verb-final clauses. This finding is attributed to restrictions on syntactic subordination. Finally, non-relative finite clause and relative clause types that may be embedded in both the postfield and inner field are center-embedded at mean relative frequencies of 13.42% and 28.17%, respectively. These findings shed light on contradictory claims in the literature regarding the possibility and frequency of clausal embedding in the inner field.