This collection of articles derives from a conference organized in Szeged (Hungary) in 2003. It represents a contribution to the ongoing discussion on approaches to the grammar of spoken language. Proceeding on the conviction that existing theoretical deficits can only be offset by broad discussion of all potential sources of theoretical insight, the volume discusses various approaches to a more precise grammatical definition of spoken language, including construction grammar, interactional linguistics, the theory of proximate and distanced speech, and ideas on the constitution of meaning in spoken language.

Vocabulary and the word represent one of the central areas of study in linguistics in general and German studies in particular. The festschrift in honour of Oskar Reichmann, who has devoted most of his scholarly energies to the theoretical and empirical study of German vocabulary, assembles close on 20 articles devoted to German lexicology from a systematic, present-day, and historical vantage.

The terms a ~proximitya (TM) and a ~distancea (TM) signify conceptual characteristics of orality and literacy. In that branch of linguistic research dealing with linguistic variation, a ~proximity vs. distancea (TM) is a central area of enquiry along with fields such as dialectology, languages for specialist purposes or text typology. The present volume examines commonalities and differences along the topic areas of a ~proximity and diatopic variation,a (TM) a ~proximity and diachronic variation,a (TM) a ~proximity and diaphasic variationa (TM) and a ~proximity and grammaticalisation.a (TM)

This collection represents a preliminary theoretical, methodological, and empirical stage to a planned stratificational grammar of New High German. The conviction uniting these articles is that the diamedial dimension plays a special role in the grammatical development of New High German and that this fact can only be taken due account of by a theoretically sound and methodologically practicable model of the proximal/distal dimension. The articles present theoretical and methodological approaches to the phenomenon of proximal/distal speech and apply them to 15 source texts.

This collection assembles the papers given at the Budapest Grammar Conference, 22-24 September 1993. The contributors are authors of German grammars and/or Hungarian Germanists and the subjects they cover range from general problems of grammar theory through individual aspects of German grammar to concepts, methods and problems of grammatography.