Klaus Welke

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Photo by Prof. Klaus Welke
Klaus Welke in July 2020

Klaus Moritz Welke (born July 5, 1937 in Königsberg , East Prussia ) is a German linguist. From 1979 to 2000 he was a professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin . Since 2004 he has been a visiting professor at the University of Vienna . His research focuses on functional syntax , semantics , valence theory and the construction grammar of German. In addition to numerous essays, handbook articles and reviews, Klaus Welke has also written several monographs and study books and edited several academic anthologies. A festschrift dedicated to him was published on his 70th birthday.

biography

Welke was born as the son of the owner of an agricultural machinery business and a teacher in Königsberg in East Prussia . At the end of the Second World War, the family moved to Barby (Saxony-Anhalt), where Klaus Welke passed his Abitur in 1955. From 1955 to 1960 he studied Latin and German at the Humboldt University in Berlin and passed the state examination for teaching in 1960. He then received an aspirantur in German studies, which led to his doctorate under Georg Friedrich Meier in 1963. The internationally acclaimed dissertation on the system of modal verbs in German was published in 1965 by Akademie-Verlag Berlin. After completing his doctorate, Klaus Welke worked for a year as an assistant at the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg , before returning to the Humboldt University in Berlin as a research assistant. From here he was first delegated as a lecturer to the University of Baghdad (Iraq), and in the early 1970s as an associate professor at the University of Tampere (Finland).

In 1971, Klaus Welke became a university lecturer and in 1979, four years after his habilitation, was appointed to the professorship for language theory at the then German Studies section of the Humboldt University in Berlin.

In the mid-1980s, the Fulbright Foundation gave Klaus Welke the opportunity to study at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis / St. Paul) for several months . From 1986 to 1989, Klaus Welke was a professor at Cairo University. Here he learned u. a. Renate Faistauer (Vienna) as well as Helmut Glück and Wolfgang W. Sauer know. With the latter two he published the anthology The German Language after the Wende in 1992 in the Georg-Olms-Verlag .

From 2000 Klaus Welke taught as a visiting professor in the German department of the Kodolányi Janos Comprehensive University in Székesfehérvár / Hungary (2004–2007) and at the University of Vienna (until today).

Relatively early - not least under the influence of Wilhelm Bondzio and in theoretical and conceptual discussions with him, but above all with Gerhard Helbig - Klaus Welke became interested in the valence theory. From the beginning he advocated the concept of a semantic valence theory, which at the same time productively absorbed suggestions from other directions in international linguistic research such as case theory , the lexicalistic direction of generative grammar and prototype theory and later led him to deal with fundamental questions of construction grammar.

In the 1990s, Klaus Welke turned, in addition to continuing studies of the theory of valence, increasingly to functionally oriented syntax. As a result of this research, the volumes “Functional sentence perspective” (1992) and “Deutsche Syntax functional” (2002) were created. The terms 'perspectivisation' as part of linguistic-operational activity and 'prototype semantics' occupy just as central a place as in the monograph “Tempus in German. Reconstruction of a semantic system ”. His considerations led him to construction grammar after the turn of the millennium .

Fonts (selection)

As an author

  • Studies on the system of modal verbs in the German language of the present. A contribution to the exploration of functional and syntactic relationships. (Writings on phonetics, linguistics and communication research. 10). Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1965. (also dissertation Humboldt University Berlin 1963).
  • Aspects of an operational concept of meaning and grammar. Dissertation B [= habilitation thesis]. Humboldt University of Berlin 1975. 2 volumes. Unpublished typescript.
  • Introduction to valence and case theory. Leipzig: Bibliographical Institute 1988.
  • Functional sentence perspective. Approaches and problems in functional grammar. Münster: Nodus-Publications 1992. 2nd, revised and revised edition 1993. ISBN 3-89323-230-3 .
  • German syntax functional. Perspectiveness of syntactic structures. (Stauffenburg Linguistics; 22). Tübingen: Stauffenburg 2002. 2nd, edited edition 2005. ISBN 3-86057-723-9 .
  • Tempus in German. Reconstruction of a semantic system. (Linguistics, Impulses & Trends; 13). Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter 2005. ISBN 978-3-11-018394-8 .
  • Introduction to sentence analysis. The determination of the parts of the sentence in German. (de Gruyter study book). Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter 2007. ISBN 978-3-11-018937-7 .
  • German valence grammar. An introduction. (de Gruyter study book). Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter 2011. ISBN 978-3-11-025419-8 .
  • Construction grammar of German. A linguistic approach. (Linguistics, Impulses & Tendencies; 77). Berlin, Boston: Walter de Gruyter 2019. ISBN 978-3-11-061146-5 .

As editor

  • Language - awareness - activity. On Wilhelm von Humboldt's conception of language. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1986.
  • [with Renate Neurath] Lexicology and Lexicography: Lectures at the IV. Linguistic Conference GDR - Finland, Humboldt University Berlin, 3rd – 5th September 1986. (Linguistic Studies. Series A. 160). Berlin: Academy of Sciences of the GDR. Central Institute for Linguistics 1988.
  • [with Wolfgang W. Sauer and Helmut Glück] The German language after the fall of the Wall. (German Linguistics. 110–111). Hildesheim / Zurich / New York: Georg Olms 1992. ISBN 3-487-09627-7 .
  • [with Werner Thielemann] Valence Theory - Becoming and Effect. Wilhelm Bondzio on his 65th birthday. Münster: Nodus publications 1994. ISBN 3-89323-252-4 .
  • [with Werner Thielemann] Valence Theory - Insights and Outlook. Münster: Nodus publications 2001. ISBN 3-89323-284-2 .

Festschrift for Klaus Welke

  • Hartmut EH Lenk & Maik Walter: Elective affinities. Valences - verbs - varieties. Festschrift for Klaus Welke on his 70th birthday. (German linguistics; 188-189). Hildesheim, Zurich, New York: Georg Olms 2007. ISBN 978-3-487-13411-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. on this and for the following information the information provided by Klaus Welke on his own homepage at https://www.linguistik.hu-berlin.de/de/staff/h1457b23/persoenlich ; see also Kürschner, Wilfried (Hrsg.): Linguisten-Handbuch. Biographical and bibliographical data of German-speaking linguists of the present. Tübingen: Gunter Narr 1994. Vol. 2, p. 1006.
  2. ↑ Cf. Klaus Welke: Investigations into the system of modal verbs in the German language of the present. A contribution to the exploration of functional and syntactic relationships. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1965, p. 7.
personal data
SURNAME Wilt, Klaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Welke, Klaus Moritz (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German linguist
DATE OF BIRTH July 5, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg , East Prussia