Re: German participles

Ray wrote:

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.

You are hung up on labels (hasn't this been pointed out to you before?),
and you are using some sort of obsolete quasi-Chomskyan syntactic
approach.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: German participles
    ... Without resorting to ellipsis, one would be hard pressed to explain why ... where the nominative case "ihr Weg" is used. ... in contrast to active intransitive verbs that take ... state or location) can occur in the past participial construction. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: German participles
    ... Without resorting to ellipsis, one would be hard pressed to explain why ... in contrast to active intransitive verbs that take ... state or location) can occur in the past participial construction. ... Labels are labels. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: German participles
    ... Without resorting to ellipsis, one would be hard pressed to explain why ... in contrast to active intransitive verbs that take ... state or location) can occur in the past participial construction. ... Labels are labels. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: German participles
    ... Peter T. Daniels wrote: ... Without resorting to ellipsis, one would be hard pressed to explain why ... in contrast to active intransitive verbs that take ... state or location) can occur in the past participial construction. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: German participles
    ... Without resorting to ellipsis, one would be hard pressed to explain why ... in contrast to active intransitive verbs that take ... state or location) can occur in the past participial construction. ... Labels are labels. ...
    (sci.lang)
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