Scopus (linguistics)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scopus (from Greek  σκοπός - as much as "view"; "sight", "goal") describes in linguistics the area of ​​action that certain expressions can have with regard to the overall sentence. The grammatical scope is based on the concept of the scope in logic , but is an independent topic in linguistics .

For example, a negation is an expression that has scope, i.e. that is, their interpretation requires the determination of a part of the sentence to be negated. In German, the negation refers in simple cases to the part of the sentence that follows it and which is often stressed for this purpose, here marked with capital letters:

Otto hat die Schere glücklicherweise nicht [in den MÜLL geworfen]

This sentence mainly denies that the scissors ended up in the trash, but does not deny that Otto did something with the scissors. The syntactic scope of negation is only the part thrown in the trash here . The sentence also suggests that there is something more to be said about what Otto did; this effect is not due to the negation itself, but to the interpretation of the emphasis on contrast, i.e. H. the focus .

Fortunately , in the sentence above, the adverb also has a scope. Its meaning can be paraphrased as follows:

Es ist ein Glück [dass Otto die Schere nicht in den Müll geworfen hat].

The Satzadverb fortunately deals with an evaluation of an entire facts, be Scopus is, in terms of content, the entire sentence in which it occurs. This illustrates the problem that the logical scope cannot always be taken directly from the grammatical surface of the sentence, for example in the form of a rule that everything that follows is the scope of a word. (Strictly speaking, a similar problem arises with the logical analysis of the negation in the first example).

An important phenomenon that becomes visible at this point is also the interaction of two expressions with the scope . It is said that the adverb fortunately has a scope over the negation, because the negation appears within the scope of fortunately , but also has a scope in turn. It would be logically conceivable that one would like to state the opposite case, in which the negation has the larger scope. One then finds, however, that this is grammatically excluded:

? Otto hat die Schere nicht glücklicherweise in den Müll geworfen

This sentence can hardly be interpreted in such a way that only the evaluation should be denied, i.e. as: "It is not the case that it was lucky that ...". In other words: The grammar forbids that the negation can have Scopus over this sentence adverb.

This example illustrates that rules are needed as to how the logical scope of expressions can be read out of the grammatical form when understanding a sentence or how the intended scope can be coded in the grammar when forming a sentence.

Scopus Strategies in the Languages ​​of the World

In the languages ​​of the world there are three different strategies for expressing the scope relationships. The first two are chaining strategies. So a language can express Scopus from left to right. For example, this is the case in English, as the following example shows (the example is from Bross & Hole 2017).

... because Paula must(epistemic) have(tense) been able(ability) to repair her bike(event).

If one leaves out the subordinate clause introducer because , the epistemic modal verb must has the highest scope in the sentence. Epistemic means that the speaker expresses that the content of the sentence is true according to their world knowledge. Must takes Skopus through the linguistic material to the right of him. The auxiliary verb have expresses tense and is in the scope of must , but has a higher scope than been able , which expresses a skill, and a higher scope than the description of the event ( to repair her bike ). Been able finally takes Skopus over to repair her bike .

If you translate the sentence into German, the scope ratios do not change, but since German (at least in some parts of the sentence) does not express the scope ratios from left to right, but from right to left, we get the reverse order:

... weil Paula ihr Fahrrad reparieren(event) gekonnt(ability) haben(tense) muss(epistemic).

Languages ​​express scope either through left-to-right concatenation or through right-to-left concatenation. The third and final strategy is a suprasegmental overlay. For example, a question operator has scope over the whole sentence. This can be illustrated by the following two sentences:

a. Paul isst gern Schokoladeneis.
b. Paul isst gern Schokoladeneis?

With the sentence in a. it is a declarative clause that is used to make a statement. At the sentence in b. it is a phrase that is used to ask a question. The question operator is not expressed as an extra word in this sentence, but by means of intonation that superimposes the sentence.

literature

  • Bross, F. & Hole, D. (2017): Scope-taking strategies and the order of clausal categories in German Sign Language. In: Glossa. A Journal of General Linguistics , 76.
  • Duden. The grammar. 8th edition 2009. pp. 907ff. ("Scope and focus area of ​​negation").
  • Zimmermann, TE & Sternefeld, W .: Introduction to Semantics. An Essential Guide to the Composition of Meaning. De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin 2013. (Chapter 3)