Stefan Müller-Stach Books

This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistic theorizing (Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformational Grammar/Government & Binding, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Head-​Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar, Tree Adjoining Grammar). The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how the respective theory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the object language. The second part of the book compares these approaches with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The nativism hypothesis, which assumes that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge, is critically examined and alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. The second part then addresses controversial issues of current theory building such as the question of flat or binary branching structures being more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses suggested in the respective frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a chapter showing how properties common to all languages or to certain classes of languages can be captured.

'Even the biographical individual is a social category', wrote Adorno. 'It can only be defined in a living context together with others.' In this major new biography, Stefan Muller-Doohm turns this maxim back on Adorno himself and provides a rich and comprehensive account of the life and work of one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century. This authoritative biography ranges across the whole of Adorno's life and career, from his childhood and student years to his years in emigration in the United States and his return to postwar Germany. At the same time, Muller-Doohm examines the full range of Adorno's writings on philosophy, sociology, literary theory, music theory and cultural criticism. Drawing on an array of sources from Adorno's personal correspondence with Horkheimer, Benjamin, Berg, Marcuse, Kracauer and Mann to interviews, notes and both published and unpublished writings, Muller-Doohm situates Adorno's contributions in the context of his times and provides a rich and balanced appraisal of his significance in the 20th Century as a whole. Muller-Doohm's clear prose succeeds in making accessible some of the most complex areas of Adorno's thought. This outstanding biography will be the standard work on Adorno for years to come.

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This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistic theorizing (Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformational Grammar/Government & Binding, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Head-​Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar, Tree Adjoining Grammar). The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how the respective theory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the object language. The second part of the book compares these approaches with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The nativism hypothesis, which assumes that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge, is critically examined and alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. The second part then addresses controversial issues of current theory building such as the question of flat or binary branching structures being more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses suggested in the respective frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a chapter showing how properties common to all languages or to certain classes of languages can be captured.

Focusing on various formal grammar theories, the book explores their significance in contemporary linguistic theorizing, including Phrase Structure Grammar and Transformational Grammar, among others. It delves into key assumptions of each theory, illustrating how they address concepts such as arguments and adjuncts, active/passive alternation, verb placement, and long-distance constituent fronting. Using German as the primary example, the analyses provide a comprehensive understanding of these grammatical frameworks and their applications in linguistics.

Focusing on formal grammar theories, this book provides an in-depth exploration of various linguistic frameworks, including Phrase Structure and Transformational Grammar, using German as the primary example. It discusses how these theories handle syntactic elements like arguments, adjuncts, and verb placement. The second part critically examines the nativism hypothesis and various models of language acquisition, addressing contemporary theoretical debates. It concludes by highlighting universal language properties, offering a comprehensive resource for students and scholars in syntactic theory.

This book is an introduction to the syntactic structures that can be found in the Germanic languages. The analyses are couched in the framework of HPSG light, which is a simplified version of HPSG that uses trees to depict analyses rather than complicated attribute value matrices. The book is written for students with basic knowledge about case, constituent tests, and simple phrase structure grammars (advanced BA or MA level) and for researchers with an interest in the Germanic languages and/or an interest in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar/Sign-Based Construction Grammar without having the time to deal with all the details of these theories.

Currently, there are two prominent schools in linguistics: Minimalism (Chomsky) and Construction Grammar (Goldberg, Tomasello). Minimalism comes with the claim that our linguistic capabilities consist of an abstract, binary combinatorial operation (Merge) and a lexicon. Most versions of Construction Grammar assume that language consists of flat phrasal schemata that contribute their own meaning and may license additional arguments. This book examines a variant of Lexical Functional Grammar, which is lexical in principle but was augmented by tools that allow for the description of phrasal constructions in the Construction Grammar sense. These new tools include templates that can be used to model inheritance hierarchies and a resource driven semantics. The resource driven semantics makes it possible to reach the effects that lexical rules had, for example remapping of arguments, by semantic means. The semantic constraints can be evaluated in the syntactic component, which is basically similar to the delayed execution of lexical rules. So this is a new formalization that might be suitable to provide solutions to longstanding problems that are not available for other formalizations.

Das NS-Dokumentationszentrum auf dem Gelände der ehemaligen Parteizentrale der NSDAP knüpft fragmenthaft an die frühere städtebauliche Situation zwischen Königsplatz und Karolinenplatz an, ohne die einst symmetrische Bauweise beiderseits der Brienner Straße wiederherzustellen. Die Wiederbebauung des „Braunen Hauses“ setzt einen asymmetrischen Akzent in der Platzkonfiguration und zielt darauf ab, sich von der belasteten Topographie zu lösen, die noch von den Nationalsozialisten geprägt ist. Das Dokumentationszentrum wird somit zu einem neuen öffentlichen Standort für eine distanzierte Betrachtung des Umfeldes und präsentiert die Platzkomposition aus einer anderen Perspektive. Unser Entwurf unterstützt diese Zielsetzung, indem der komprimierte, ungerichtete Kubus den geschichtlich belasteten Ort der Täter markiert, jedoch als autonomes Objekt wahrgenommen wird. Typologische Elemente der historischen Villenbebauung, wie die längs gerichtete Straßenfassade und Frontalität, werden nicht wiederbelebt. Der Neubau steht frei im über die Nachkriegsjahre etablierten Grünraum, von dem aus er auch betreten wird. Über diesen Grünraum knüpft das Dokumentationszentrum an den weiteren Kontext der Umgebung an.