Bøker i Europaische Hochschulschriften/European University Studies/Publications Universitaires Europeennes Reihe 21: Linguistik/Series 21: Linguistics/Serie 21: Linguistique-serien

This book explores the gap that has developed between two sides in linguistics: the formal tradition and the functional tradition. It discusses fundamental issues such as tense, aspect and action by examining and comparing insights from the two traditions with a view to determining whether there are any possibilities of future bridge-building between the two approaches. This study focuses on comparing the actual output of different linguistic approaches and examines their ¿usefulness¿. A major aim is, therefore, to evaluate and identify the most useful approach.

This book explores the semantic properties of verbs expressing human locomotion and investigates their sense relations in German and English diachronically. For this purpose a model was developed which is related to revised versions of Lutzeier (1981) by linking it with a context-dependent analysis, hence combining a paradigmatic with a syntagmatic approach. Within this approach the influence of contexts on verbs is investigated, and it is illustrated to what extent syntagmatic constraints play a part in establishing features in verbs. Semantic changes holding between members of this lexical field are shown in tables and diagrams. A comparison of morphologically related verbs is conducted, and qualitative and quantitative differences in the lexical representation of meaning concepts are analysed. In addition, it is demonstrated what notions are lexicalised in each linguistic period.