Agent-Oriented Manner Adverbials in German

Download or read book Agent-Oriented Manner Adverbials in German written by Ekaterina Gabrovska and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-08-19 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The work offers a new perspective on the semantics of agent-oriented manner adverbials, actions and intentionality. It proposes a treatment of these adverbials which accounts for their impact on the manner of the event as well as for their agent-orientation. The analysis is developed in a case study of German sorgfältig (‘carefully’) and vorsichtig (‘cautiously’) and makes use of the philosophical concept of action-plans. It is proposed that the modifier sorgfältig has impact on the given goal of the agent while vorsichtig introduces an additional goal of minimizing risk. The modification of the goal restricts the possible methods of realization of the action, i.e. the manner of action. The analysis makes use of Goldman’s Theory of Human Action and is spelled out in Düsseldorf Frame Theory, including extensions in the form of Cascade Theory and the semantic adaptation of models of intention from the philosophical literature. Altogether, the formalization involves a detailed representation of actions and plans, i.e. of intentionality, necessary to capture the complexity of a number of modification phenomena.