This book combines studies on referential as well as relational coherence and includes approaches to written and to spoken language, to production and to comprehension, to language specific and to cross-linguistic issues, to monolingual, bilingual and L2-acquisition. The theoretical issues and empirical findings discussed are of importance not only for theoretical linguistics, but also have a broad potential of practical implication.

This book addresses recent developments in the study of tense from a cross-paradigm and cross-linguistic point of view. Leading international scholars explore challenging ideas about tense at the interfaces between semantics and syntax as well as syntax and morphology. The book is divided into three main subsections: 1) Tense in tenseless languages; 2) Tense, mood, and modality, and 3) Descriptive approaches to some tense phenonema. Although time is a universal dimension of the human experience, some languages encode reference to time without any grammatical tense morphology of the verb. Some of these exceptional "tenseless" languages are investigated in this volume: Kalaallisut, Paraguayan Guarani and Movima. Modal verbs are polyfunctional in the sense that they express both tense and modality. In this volume, an untypical modal is analyzed, a modal analysis of imperatives is argued for, and sentential mood, which is closely related to modality, is analyzed. It is always interesting to look at the expression of tense in understudied languages, which is done here for Scottish Gaelic, Austronesian Rukai and German dialects. The volume can be used for graduate and undergraduate level teaching

Information structure deals with the linguistic forms and techniques that support the integration of what is said into the current informational and attentional state of the addressee. This shows in categories like topic-comment structuring, focus to highlight expressions, marking of givenness and of presupposed information, and ways to indicate that the information provided is restricted. The book relates infor-mation structure to theoretical models of grammar, to computation and modelling and brings together what is known about the expression of information structure in human language with regard to its empirical investigation, its psycholinguistic aspects and the acquisition of information structure. Since the need to integrate what is said into the informational and attentional state of the addressee is central to all human communication, it is not surprising that all natural languages have developed devices to express information structural cate-gories. To illustrate this, the book also provides concrete and theory independent descriptions of the information structural encoding strategies of individual languages of different types . The book can be used as a textbook appropriate for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses; it also provides information for linguists that are not specialists in the field.

This book combines studies on referential as well as relational coherence and includes approaches to written and to spoken language, to production and to comprehension, to language specific and to cross-linguistic issues, to monolingual, bilingual and L2-acquisition. The theoretical issues and empirical findings discussed are of importance not only for theoretical linguistics, but also have a broad potential of practical implication.

English summary: Subject, indirect object, genitive attribute - the terms of classical analysis of the parts of sentences are standard material in the teaching of German. Every German teacher is therefore required to be familiar with them. However, being able to analyze sentences in terms of their structure is not an end in itself but serves an important basis for understanding the German language. Not least the ability to analyze the structure of parts of sentences prepares one for the stylistic subtleties of literary texts. It is therefore also of use for students of German who are interested in literature. This easily understandable introduction enables the reader to analyze clause constituents step by step and to identify parts of speech. The content provided in the individual chapters can be practically applied in exercises. This volume serves as a basic text for introductory classes on German grammar, and is also suitable for use in self-study. German description: Subjekt, Dativobjekt, Genitivattribut - die Begriffe der klassischen Satzgliedanalyse gehoren zum Standardstoff des Deutschunterrichts. Deshalb muss jeder Deutschlehrer sie beherrschen. Satze nach ihrem Aufbau analysieren zu konnen, ist aber nicht Selbstzweck; es ist eine wichtige Grundlage fur das Verstandnis der deutschen Sprache. Die Satzgliedanalyse sensibilisiert nicht zuletzt fur stilistische Feinheiten literarischer Texte. Sie ist daher auch einem literaturinteressierten Germanistikstudenten von Nutzen. Diese allgemein verstandliche Einfuhrung setzt den Leser schrittweise in die Lage, Satzgliedanalysen vorzunehmen und Wortarten zu identifizieren. Der in den einzelnen Kapiteln vermittelte Stoff kann dabei jeweils anhand von Ubungen erprobt werden. Das Buch kann als Grundlage fur einfuhrende Lehrveranstaltungen zur Grammatik des Deutschen verwendet werden, eignet sich aber auch fur das Selbststudium.