The meaning of German 'wie' in equative comparison

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Carla Umbach
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: from 2012 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 212344338

The topic of this proposal is the meaning of German 'wie' in equative comparison including scalar as well as non-scalar cases. While in scalar cases degrees are compared (e.g. 'Anna ist so groß wie Berta.' / 'Anna is as tall as Berta.'), in non-scalar cases nominal or verbal entities are compared (e.g. 'Anna hat so eine Tasse wie Berta.' / 'Anna has a mug like Berta's' and 'Anna hat so getanzt wie Berta.' / 'Anna danced like Berta.'). The semantics of equatives has up to now been studied nearly exclusively from the perspective of the comparative ('Anna is taller than Berta.') thereby excluding non-scalar equatives from the analysis. Moreover, it has been been studied nearly exclusively from the perspective of English, which does not suggest the idea of a uniform analysis of scalar and non-scalar cases due to their different grammatical form. In German, scalar and non-scalar equatives are both formed by means of 'wie'-clauses, calling for a uniform analysis. In this project, a generalized account of equatives will be developed (i) including scalar as well as non-scalar cases, (ii) promoting the idea that equatives express similarity, that is, indistinguishability with respect to a given set of features, and (iii) that this results from the meaning of the partical 'wie'. It will be hypothesized that the results prove valid in other languages exhibiting the same equative pattern as in German, e.g. in Polish and Italian (but not English).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants