Das Doppelperfekt: Theorie und Empirie

Abstract

The article concentrates on the German double perfect forms and tries to find an answer to the following question: is it possible to show that – contrary to traditional assumptions – the German double perfect is a systematical and therefore acceptable verbal form of German? First, the question will be substantiated by four experiments and will get an empirical answer. Secondly, a syntactic and semantic analysis of the double forms will be proposed and the empirical data will be discussed in view of this proposal.

Keywords

• tense
• aspect
• perfect
• double forms
• empirical syntax/semantics
• intonation