Eine Typologie der IAW-Phrasen in Ergänzungsfragen

Abstract

The notion ‘IAW phrases’ refers to fixed expressions such as in aller Welt ‘in all world’, um Gottes willen ‘for God’s sake’, and zum Teufel ‘the devil’ that are used in wh-questions as a kind of illocutionary intensification. This contribution presents an attempt to come up with a typology of IAW phrases in wh-questions in German. This typology consists of ten groups of IAW phrases (partly with subgroups) that are defined primarily on the basis of formal patterns. The patterns under discussion are [zu X] (with the variant [X]), [bei X], [beim Barte Xs], [in Xs Namen], [um Xs willen], and a group of patterns such as [in all- X], that refer to the world as a whole. The four remaining groups are not based on such a structural pattern; these are swearing words used as IAW phrases, IAW loans, blends, and a small rest group. In a second step, it is shown by means of spot checks that this typology can also serve as a star- ting point for the description of IAW phrases in German imperative sentences and in other languages.

Keywords

• iaw phrases
• german
• dutch
• french
• english