Re: German participles

You are right, that both iii a iv are grammatical. And they have the
same meaning. As for the accusative, I would say that this is the same
case as in Polish reflexive patterns or Russian pseudo-ergative
sentences. I do not know whether it is called "misanalysis", I think it
is called contamination (at least in German - Kontamination). In
Polish, one has for example:

i. Ta ksiazka sie czytala.
ii. Te ksiazke sie czytalo.

There is an agreement if the patient is in nominative (passive voice).
And the contaminated pattern is: Ta ksiazka sie czytalo, which is
ungrammatical in the literary language, but can be met in some
dialects. In Russian, it's the same.

Gorol wrote:
Hi, you are right, it is an absolute participial phrase, just as in
Latin. It occurs in other languages too, e.g. in the Slavonic ones. It
is by no means elliptical (as you cannot add anything to preserve the
meaning). Even adding an active particip (habend) would change the
meaning significantly. If you still have questions about this pattern,
I would consult a grammar, just let me know.


But there is one apparent piece of evidence for the ellipsis-oriented
analysis; please look at the following:

i. *Den Sonnenhut tief ins Gesicht gezogen*, das schweißgetränkte
Hemd weit
aufgeknöpft, lehnt Andrew Andersen im Schatten eines Felsvorsprungs.
(Emphasis surrounded by the asterisks.)


Without resorting to ellipsis, one would be hard pressed to explain why
the accusative case "den Sonnenhut" is used. Sentence (i) contrasts
with sentence (ii), where the nominative case "ihr Weg" is used. I feel
(ii) is a true absolute participial construction.

ii. Acht Gestalten, ihr Weg in der Sommersonne getrocknet, schlendern
langsam zum Haus Nummer 128.


On the other hand, however, if "Den Sonnenhut ins Gesicht gezogen" is
derived by omitting "habend", it is difficult to explain why "zwei Tage
getanzt" would be incorrect in place of "ihr Weg in der Sommersonne
getrocknet" in (ii), even though the former could be said to derive
from "zwei Tage getanzt habend" under the ellipsis-oriented analysis.
Of course, adherents of this analysis could stipulate that only active
*transitive* verbs, in contrast to active intransitive verbs that take
"haben" as the perfective auxiliary, can undergo such ellipsis. But to
claim so would undermine the (well-established) generalization that
only the past participles of transitive verbs (as indicating
passiveness) and of certain intransitive verbs (as indicating change of
state or location) can occur in the past participial construction.
"gezogen" in (i) has neither status, so theoretically it should not be
able to occur there.

There seems to be a dilemma here; we want to explain the accusative
case, but we also want to maintain the generalization that is widely
taught on grammar books.

One solution, I suspect, is to treat the accusative marking in (i) as
the result of misanalysis; case confusion among native speakers is by
no means rare, as attested by the well-known English example: "between
you and I". German also provide some examples:

iii. Dieser Kerl, dem werde ich es noch zeigen!
iv. Diesem Kerl, dem werde ich es noch zeigen!

Both are acceptable, if I interpret one of my grammar guides correctly.


Ray

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: SCWC 32: Discussion: IMPLEMENT
    ... they have the same referent. ... Is that the same as "the same meaning"? ... have their usual meanings, and a devious 'cryptic' reading, in which things ... grammar are violated in the cryptic reading to make the surface work. ...
    (rec.puzzles.crosswords)
  • Re: Jiu Jitsu Strategies: Sports vs Reality
    ... meaning in certain situations. ... individual cannot both reinterpret the rules of grammar as he ... The basic rule is "Adjectives modify nouns; adverbs ...
    (rec.martial-arts)
  • Re: Jiu Jitsu Strategies: Sports vs Reality
    ... meaning in certain situations. ... I haven't reinterpreted the rules of grammar. ... The basic rule is "Adjectives modify nouns; ... - you used an adjective and you should have used an Adverb. ...
    (rec.martial-arts)
  • Re: a new very fast hash algorithm (160 bits), with a technique of "overlapping sums"
    ... > You rag people on their spelling, their grammar and particularly seem ... > to particularly enjoy stretching possible meaning to the nth most ... Where have I stretched meaning to the nth most degree? ...
    (sci.crypt)
  • Re: 2 Spaces Required Between Sentences
    ... Which is why I allow Word to replace an ellipsis with the Unicode ellipsis, ... of books to write :-) Any publisher worth dealing with has a Proofing ... John, I absolutely do remember now when you helped me with this ".%%". ... My grammar settings are for 2 spaces required between sentences. ...
    (microsoft.public.mac.office.word)