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Umbach, C. (2012) Strategies of additivity: German additive noch compared to auch. To appear in Lingua, special issue edited by Antje Roßdeutscher and Henk Zeevat. (draft version) |
| The German particle noch ('still') has an additive reading which differs significantly in meaning and use from the standard German additive particle auch ('also'/'too'). In the paper, an analysis is presented focusing on three core characteristics: (i) alignment with discourse time, (ii) association with deaccented focus, and (iii) continuation of the question-under-discussion. |
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Umbach, C. (2011) Intensifiers and measure phrases combined with verbs. Extended abstract. Workshop Scalarity in Verb-Based Constructions, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf April 2011(revised version) |
| This paper starts from the observation that the German intensifiers sehr ('very') and so ('so') are licensed with verbs marked for intensity but not with their unmarked counterparts (sehr rasen 'race' vs. *sehr fahren 'drive'). The analysis is based on a measure function semantics for gradability (Kennedy 1999) and makes use of a split positive morpheme (Saebo 2010). |
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Umbach, C. (2009) Another additive particle under stress: German additive 'noch'. Proceedings of the Tenth Symposium on Logic and Language - LoLa10, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 149 -156. |
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Umbach, C. (2009) Comparatives combined with additive particles: The case of German 'noch'. Proceedings of Sinn & Bedeutung 13, Stuttgart. (download) |
| This paper investigates comparative constructions combined with the German particle noch ('still'), e.g. in Berta ist noch größer als Adam. ('Berta is still taller than Adam.'). Such comparatives trigger - in some but not all contexts - the entailment that the comparison base exceeds the standard of the comparison class, which is surprising since comparatives are assumed to be insensitive to the comparison class. An interpretation is proposed accounting for the fact that comparative noch is both scalar and additive. |
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Umbach, Carla, Ebert, Cornelia (2009) German demonstrative 'so' - intensifying and hedging effects. Sprache und Datenverabeitung (International Journal for Language Data Processing) 1-2/2009 (draft version) |
| German 'so' is a demonstrative expression modifying gradable as well as non-gradable expressions. If combined with a gradable expression while occuring out of the blue, without a demonstration gesture or antecedent, it yields an intensifying effect, e.g., 'Anna ist so groß' ('Anna is so/very tall.'). If combined with a non-gradable expression while occurring out of the blue, it appears like a hedging operator, the speaker being uncertain whether the term she chose is appropriate, e.g., when pointing to a scaffold: 'Da steht jetzt so'n Gestell.' (There is like a rack now.'). The analysis focuses on the question of why a demonstrative expression functions as an intensifying device and a hedging device in these contexts. |
| Bosch, P., Umbach, C. (2007) Reference Determination for Demonstrative Pronouns. In D. Bittner (ed.): Proceedings of Conference on Intersentential Pronominal Reference in Child and Adult Language, Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft Berlin. (draft version) |
| This paper the discussion in Bosch, Katz, Umbach (2007) is continued reviewing the exceptions to the generalization that personal pronouns prefer subject antecedents and demonstratives prefer non-subject antecedents. In the current paper we argue that the generalization should be formulated in terms of information-structural properties of referents rather than in terms of the grammatical role of antecedent expressions. |
| Bosch, P., Katz, G., Umbach, C. (2007) The Non-subject Bias of German Demonstrative Pronouns. In M. Schwarz-Friesel, M. Consten, M. Knees (eds.), Anaphors in Text: Cognitive, formal and applied approaches to anaphoric reference. Benjamins, 145–164. (draft version) |
| This paper presents evidence from both corpus studies and psycholinguistic experiments regarding the referential preferences of German personal pronouns (er sie, es) and demonstrative pronouns (der, die, das). While personal pronouns show a slight preference for antecedents which are grammatical subjects, demonstrative pronouns show a strong bias for non-subject antecedents. |
| Umbach, C. (2006) Non-restrictive Modification and Backgrounding Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium on Logic and Language, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 152 -159. (pdf) |
| Non-restrictive modifier are commonly said to be backgrounded in some sense expressing information which is evident in the context. This intuition goes together with the data for non-restrictive attributive adjectives described in the paper showing that they cannot carry a narrow focus. However, non-restrictive attributive adjectives cannot even serve as background for a narrow focus on the modified noun, which is evidence that non-restrictive modifiers do not take part in the focus/background partition of the sentence. |
| Umbach, C. (2005) Why Do Modified Numerals Resist a Referential Interpretation? SALT XV Proceedings, Cornell University, 258 - 275.(pdf) |
| While bare numerals like three boys license a specific, or referential reading, modified numerals like at least three boys do not. This paper follows Krifka (1999) in interpreting at least and at most as focus-sensitive adverbs modifying the noun phrase. It is shown that this interpretation, although intended to solve an unrelated problem, provides a natural explanation for the fact that the referential reading is blocked for modified numerals. |
| Umbach, C., von Heusinger, K. (2005) (eds.) Proceedings of the ESSLLI workshop Discourse Domains and Information Structure.Edinburgh, Herriot Watt University.(pdf) |
| Umbach, C. (2005) Kontextbezug und Typisierung . In: Bab, S. , Noll, T. (Hrg.) Models and Human Reasoning - Eine Festschrift für Bernd Mahr, Wissenschaft & Technik Verlag, Berlin, 257 - 282.( pdf) |
| Umbach, C. (2005) Contrast and Information Structure: A focus-based analysis of but. Linguistics. Vol 43-1, 207 - 232. ( draft) |
| This paper presents a novel analysis of the contrastive connector but based on the observation that (i) the contrast induced by but relates to the information structure of the conjuncts and (ii) the use of but requires a denial with respect to an implicit question. It is shown that but combines additivity, as in and/also, and exclusion, as in only. |
| Umbach, C. (2004) Cataphoric Indefinites. Proceedings of "Sinn und Bedeutung" VIII, Konstanz Linguistics Working Papers, 301 – 316.(pdf) |
| In this paper a subclass of specific indefinites called cataphoric indefinites is investigated. These indefinites carry an accent on the determiner, are partitives, and occur in topic position. They induce a particular set of alternatives, which represents an implicit, cataphoric, identifying property, and are closely similar to attributive (non-pronominal) definite descriptions. |
| Umbach, C. (2004) On the Notion of Contrast in Information
Structure and Discourse Structure. Journal of Semantics, Volume 21, Issue 2, 1 - 21. (draft) |
| The idea of contrast plays an important role in the analysis of information structure and discourse structure. There is the concept of contrastive focus and of contrastive topic, and there is the discourse relation of contrast indicated by, e.g., English but. These notions of contrast differ considerably from each other. Nevertheless, a closer investigating yields a surprisingly simple picture of how the different notions of contrast relate to each other. |
| Umbach, C., Mleinek, I., Lehmann, Ch., Weskott, T., Alter, K., Steube, A. (2004) Intonational patterns in Contrast and Concession. In: A. Steube (ed.) Information Structure: Theoretical and empirical aspects. DeGruyter, 277 – 306. (draft version) |
| This paper details an experimental study investigating the interaction between the use of the German aber and specific intonational sentence patterns. |
| Umbach, C. (2003) Anaphoric Restriction of Alternative Sets: On the Role of Bridging Antecedents. Proceedings of "Sinn und Bedeutung" VII, Konstanz Linguistics Working Papers, 310 -323. (pdf) |
| There is the notorious problem in focus semantics how to restrict the set of alternatives evoked by focus to obtain a subset relevant for quantification by focus-sensitive adverbs. It is argued for definite NPs that, if they include a focus, they usually require a bridging antecedent to achieve uniqueness and that the bridging antecedent provides the relevant set of alternatives. Moreover, NPs of the form "the OTHER [p]" are shown to relate to the (proper) alternatives induced by a preceding focus. |
| Umbach, C. (2002) (De)accenting Definite Descriptions. Theoretical Linguistics 27.2/3, 251-80. (draft) |
| It is shown in this paper that a definite description refers to a given discourse referent if and only if the descriptive content is deaccented. If there is an accent on (part of) the descriptive content, a novel referent is introduced. A distinction between two uses of definite descriptions is proposed: 'Given definites' represent identity anaphors while 'non-given definites' make use of their descriptive content to determine a unique referent. |
| Lang, E. & Umbach, C. (2002) Kontrast in der Grammatik: spezifische Realisierungen und übergreifender Konnex. Linguistische Arbeitsberichte 79, Institut f. Lingustik, Universität Leipzig.(pdf ) |
| Umbach, C. (2001) Contrast and Contrastive Topic. Proceedings of the ESSLLI 2001 Workshop on Information Structure, Discourse Structure and Discourse Semantics, Helsinki.(pdf). |
| Umbach, C. (2001) Restriktion der Alternativen. In Steube, Umbach (2001). (pdf) |
| Alter,K., Mleinek, I., Rohe, T., Steube,A., Umbach, C. (2001) Kontrastprosodie in Sprachproduktion und -perzeption. In Steube, Umbach (2001). (pdf) |
| In this paper an experimental study is presented investigating the interaction of meaning and prosody. The study focuses on the question of how the speaker prosodically realizes contrast in correction statements and how the hearer makes use of prosodic cues in interpretation. (In German) |
| Steube, A., Umbach, C. (eds.) Kontrast: lexikalisch, semantisch, phonologisch. Linguistische Arbeitsberichte Nr.77, Institut f. Lingustik, Universität Leipzig, 2001. |
| Umbach, C., Stede, M. (1999) Kohärenzrelationen: Ein Vergleich von Kontrast und Konzession. KIT-Report 148, TU Berlin. Erscheint in Christopher Habel (Hrg): Beiträge aus dem DFG-Schwerpunktprogramm Sprachproduktion (in Vorbereitung). (pdf) |
| Stede, M., Umbach, C. (1998) DiMLex: A lexicon of discourse markers for text generation and understanding. Proceedings of the COLING-ACL‘98, Montreal. (pdf) |
| Umbach, C. (1997) Drei komplementäre Faktoren von Kontextabhängigkeit. In: Mahr, Eyferth, Posner, Wysotzki (eds.) Prinzipien derKontextualisierung KIT-Report Nr. 141, TU Berlin. (pdf) |
| Umbach, C., Grabski, M., Hörnig, R. (eds.) Perspektive in Sprache und Raum - Aspekte von Repräsentation und Perspektivität. Deutscher Universitätsverlag, Wiesbaden, 1996. |
| Umbach, C. (1996b) Interpretationssteuerung - Apposition und Typisierung. In Umbach, Grabski, Hörnig (1996).(download) |
| Umbach, C. (1996a) Termpräzisierung - Kontextuelle Steuerung der Interpretation durch Apposition und Typisierung. Dissertation, KIT-Report Nr.140, TU Berlin. |
| Umbach, C. (1994) Apposition, Ambiguität und Autonymie. In: Robering, K. (ed.) Sorten, Typen und Typenfreiheit - Probleme der Klassifikation semantischer Einheiten. Arbeitspapiere für Linguistik, Band 30, TU Berlin, 173-196. |
| Preuss, S., Schmitz, B., Hauenschild, Ch., Umbach, C. (1994) Anaphora Resolution in Machine Translation. In: Ramm, W. (eds.) Text and Context in Machine Translation. Studies in Machine Translation and Natural Language Processing, Vol.6, Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 29-52. |
| Hauenschild, Chr., Mahr, B., Preuss, S., Schmitz, B., Umbach, C., Weisweber, W. (1993) Anapherninterpretation in der Maschinellen Übersetzung. Schlußbericht des Berliner Projekts in der EUROTRA-D Begleitforschung. KIT-Report Nr. 108, TU Berlin. |
| Dunker, G., Umbach, C. (1993) Verfahren zur Anaphernresolution in KIT-FAST. KIT-Interner Arbeitsbericht Nr. 28, TU Berlin. |
| Mahr, B., Umbach, C. (1990) Functor-Argument Structures for the Meaning of Natural Language Sentences and Their Formal Interpretations. In: Bläsius, Hedtstück, Rollinger (eds.) Sorts and Types in Artificial Intelligence. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, Springer Berlin, 286-304. |
| Mahr, B., Sträter, W., Umbach, C. (1990) Fundamentals of a Theory of Types and Declarations. KIT Report Nr. 82, TU Berlin. |
| Hauenschild, Chr., Umbach, C. (1988) Funktor-Argument-Struktur. Die satzsemantische Repräsentations- und Transferebene im Projekt KIT-FAST. In: Joerg Schütz (ed.) Workshop Semantik und Transfer. EUROTRA-D Working Papers Nr.6; Saarbrücken, 16-35. |
| Busemann, S., Hauenschild, Chr., Umbach, C. (Hrg.): Views of the Syntax/Semantics Interface. Proceedings des Workshops GPSG and Semantics. KIT-Report Nr. 74, TU Berlin, 1989. |
| Umbach, C. (1987) Zur semantischen Interpretation in der Theorie der GPSG. KIT-Interner Arbeitsbericht Nr. 19, TU Berlin. |
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