Grammaticalization Paths of English and High German Existential Constructions

The Author: Simone E. Pfenninger was born in Zurich in 1980. She studied English Literature and Linguistics, Geography and History at the University of Zurich and the Free University of Berlin. In 2007 she received her Ph.D. degree from the University of Zurich, where she has been working as a lecturer of English Linguistics besides teaching English at various highschools. She is currently working on her professorial dissertation in the field of second language acquisition.

• Contents: The Beginnings. Towards a Historical Explanation of the Difference between English and High German Existential Constructions: Word Order in the History of English - The Derivation of the English ETC - Word Order in the History of High German - The Derivation of the High German Existential da-Construction - The Derivation of High German ‘es’-Constructions – ETCs in Modern English: Syntactic Classification - Semantic Classification - Pragmatic Approach – The Modern High German Counterparts: The Status of es in ModHG - Syntactic Approach to the High German Counterparts - Semantic and Pragmatic Approaches to the ModHG Counterparts.