Modality is the way a speaker modifies her declaratives and other speech acts to optimally assess the common ground of knowledge and belief of the addressee with the aim to optimally achieve understanding and an assessment of relevant information exchange. In languages such as German (and other Germanic languages outside of English), this may happen in covert terms. Main categories used for this purpose are modal adverbials ("modal particles") and modal verbs. Epistemic uses of modal verbs (like German sollen) cover evidential (reportative) information simultaneously providing the source of the information. Methodologically, description and explanation rest on Karl Buhler's concept of Origo as well as Roman Jakobson's concept of shifter. Typologically, East Asian languages such as Japanese pursue these semasiological fundaments far more closely than the European languages. In particular, Japanese has to mark the source of a statement in the declarative mode such that the reliability may be assessed by the hearer. The contributions in this collection provide insight into these modal techniques.

The term modality encompasses a number of categories: modal verbs, modal particles, and confirmatory questions. This volume examines, on the one hand, the common features of basic modal and epistemic versions of modal verbs, and, on the other, modal particles. What level of certainty do words of this kind communicate to the listener? This is the key question posed by the work."

Das Buch stellt einen Ab- und Umriss des bisherigen wissenschaftlichen Lebenswerks Werner Abrahams dar. Werner Abraham, bis 2001 fast 30 Jahre lang Lehrstuhlinhaber fur germanistische Linguistik und Mediavistik an der Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, bekleidete nicht nur akademische Lehrstellen auf der ganzen Welt, sondern hat auch mit uber 700 wissenschaftlichen Publikationen auf den Gebieten der modernen Grammatikforschung, der Dialektologie, der ubereinzelsprachlichen Typologie, des Deutschen als Fremdsprache und der semantisch-pragmatischen Analyse literarischer Werke nachhaltigen Einfluss ausgeubt. Die ausgewahlten, ausschliesslich deutschsprachigen Artikel dokumentieren relevante und bis heute produktive Anstoesse fur die Facher Germanistische Linguistik und Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft.

Im Mittelpunkt steht die Frage, warum es Sprachen mit Artikel und solche ohne Artikel gibt. Am Fallbeispiel der Artikelentstehung in den germanischen Sprachen (Altislandisch, Gotisch und Althochdeutsch) wird herausgearbeitet, dass Artikelsysteme immer dann fehlen, wenn Sprachen intakte Aspektpaare aufweisen, und umgekehrt. Ein weiteres Ergebnis ist die Unterscheidung zwischen hypo- und hyperdeterminierenden Artikelsprachen, die als sprachtypologisch relevant erachtet wird. Hyperdeterminierende Artikelsprachen tendieren zum Neuaufbau von Aspektsystemen mit parallelem Verlust des Artikels. Auf der Basis kommentierter Transkriptionen von Textsequenzen werden die komplexen Muster der kategorialen Interaktion von Artikel und Aspekt aufgezeigt. Die Arbeit mundet in einer unifizierenden Beschreibung von Artikel und Aspekt als jeweils spezifische Anpassungen der Definitheitskategorie an ihre nominale oder verbale Umgebung."

Every philosophical involvement with language centres on the notion of representation. There is controversy over what language represents. The answers can be classified and used as a basis for a systematic survey: 1. Language represents the world.2. Language does not represent the world but our ideas of the world.3. Language represents our ideas (of the world) badly.4. Language not only represents badly; it does not represent anything.5. Without language there would be no representation of a higher order and thus no thought. The main intention behind this introduction to linguistic philosophy lies in revealing the underlying ordering principle for the many simultaneous and non-simultaneous attempts at a philosophy of language.

This typological overview compares the degree to which different languages have means to give expression to modality (possibility, necessity) without lexical and direct inflectional means. The criterial patterns derive from a variety of languages such as German, English, Chinese, French, Scandinavian, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Polish, and Gothic as well as Old High German. They encompass mainly the auxiliaries HAVE and BE, together with either an infinitival embedding of a full verb linked by the infinitival preposition TO, or other aspectual means. It is demonstrated that what appears as typical covert modal expressions in the Germanic languages, and the Indo-European ones in a wider sense, cannot be seen as a recurrent pattern in non-Indo-European languages. Yet, there are recurrent and plausible forms that allow for generalizations.

This introductory work is designed to help readers understand and categorize the basic axiomatic positions adopted by texts in the fields of language philosophy and theory. As a method of orientation, it proposes that we approach individual texts in terms of their understanding of the relationships between language, thought, and reality.