"Thetics and Categoricals do not belong to the categories of German grammar. Thetics were introduced in logic as impersonal and broad focus constructions. They left profound and extensive traces in the logic of the late 19th century. For the class of thetic propositions, the criterion of textual exclusion plays the major role, i.e. the absence of any common grounds and of any anaphorism and background. In the foreground are sentences with subject inversion, subject suppression and detopicalization. These and only these are suitable for text beginnings, jokes, stage advertisements and solipsistic exclamatives, thus speech acts without communicative goals - free expressives in the true sense of the word. The contributions in this volume not only guide the reader through the history of philosophical logic and distributions of impersonals in contrast to Kantian categorical sentences, but also the correspondences in Japanese and Chinese which, in contrast to German and English, sport specific morphological markers for thetics as opposed to categoricals"--.

• Thetics and Categoricals
• Editorial page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Table of contents
• Preface
• Introduction. What this volume is about
  • Leading ideas and main concepts
  • Part 1. Logic and philosophical background
  • Part 2. Impersonal constructions and types of copula
  • Part 3. From logic content to linguistic form
  • Part 4. The logic-linguistics relation across languages
  • Part 5. Lexical links to attitudinality
  • References
• Part 1. Logic and philosophical background
• Categorical versus thetic sentences in the Universal Grammar of Realism
  • 1. Universal Grammar (Philosophical Grammar) in the paradigm of Realism
  • 2. The function of the copula in analytic categorical sentences
  • 3. The function of the copula in synthetic categorical sentences
  • 4. The function of the copula in thetic sentences
  • 5. Outlook
  • References
• Part 2. Impersonal constructions
• Are theticity and sentence-focus encoded grammatical categories of Dutch?
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Theoretical background: Theticity, sentence-focus and encoded grammatical categories
    • 2.1 Theticity and sentence-focus
    • 2.2 Encoded grammatical categories
    • 2.3 Are theticity and sentence-focus encoded grammatical categories?
  • 3. Theticity and sentence-focus in Dutch
    • 3.1 The Dutch thetic and sentence-focus constructions
    • 3.2 The grammatically encoded status of theticity and sentence-focus in Dutch
  • 4. Assessing the status of theticity and sentence-focus in Dutch
    • 4.1 Methodology
    • 4.2 The Syntactic Inversion with Filler Insertion Construction
    • 4.3 The Prosodic Inversion Construction
    • 4.4 The existential construction
    • 4.5 The non-prototypical cleft
    • 4.6 The perception verb construction
    • 4.7 Intermediate conclusion and possible objections
  • 5. Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• Presentational and related constructions in Norwegian with reference to German
  • 1. Introduction
    • 1.1 Extraposition and impersonals
    • 1.2 Presentationals
    • 1.3 Issues
  • 2. Norwegian NPpres not having status as object
    • 2.1 Presentationals with light reflexives
    • 2.2 Double full NPs in presentationals
    • 2.3 Semantic role of NPpres
  • 3. Status of NPpres in Norwegian as subject
  • 4. Expletive pronouns as object
    • 4.1 Constructions with expletive pronouns as object
    • 4.2 Some formal consequences: Secondary predicate constructions (SCPR), and notions of ‘licensing’
  • 5. Theoretical considerations: Transitivity and theticity
  • 6. Concluding remarks
  • References
  • Appendix
• Copulas and information structure in Tanti Dargwa
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Tanti Dargwa: Necessary information
    • 2.1 General
    • 2.2 Types of clauses
  • 3. Copulas and focus marking
  • 4. Clauses headed by existential copulas
    • 4.1 Nominal predicate clauses with existential copulas
    • 4.2 Verbal predicate clauses with existential copulas
  • 5. Non-finite independent clauses without a copula
    • 5.1 Independent converbal clauses: Mirative and thetic
    • 5.2 Other types of unmarked sentences
  • 6. Conclusions
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• Part 3. From logic content to linguistic form
• Infinitive constructions and theticity in German
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Coherence vs. incoherence
  • 3. Research target
  • 4. Research methodology
  • 5. Results
  • 6. Conclusion
  • References
• Strong and weak nominal reference in thetic and categorical sentences: Sampling German and Chinese
  • 1. Definition: Strong and weak nominal reference
  • 2. Thetic and categorical in German and Chinese
  • 3. Nominal reference with the stage-level and individual-level predicates in thetic and categorical sentences
    • 3.1 Nominal reference with the stage-level predicates
    • 3.2 Nominal reference with the individual-level predicates
  • 4. Conclusion
  • 5. Final outlook
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• Adjectives and mode of expression: Psych-adjectives in attributive and predicative usage and implications for the thetic/categorical discussion
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Data
    • 2.1 Attributive usage
    • 2.2 Predicative usage
  • 3. Mode of expression and semantics
    • 3.1 Contradiction with polysemy theory
    • 3.2 Attribution and predication
    • 3.3 Types of predication
    • 3.4 Reorganization of the semantic structure
    • 3.5 Implications for the thetic-categorical discussion
  • 4. Summary and prospects
  • Acknowledgements
  • Funding
  • References
• Unaccusativity and theticity
  • 1. Introduction
    • 1.1 Background
    • 1.2 Proposal: Two requirements for intransitive thetic sentences
  • 2. Two unaccusative structures
    • 2.1 Change-of-state unaccusatives
    • 2.2 Existential unaccusatives
    • 2.3 Summary
  • 3. Intransitive sentences, presentation, and PP extraposition
    • 3.1 PP extraposition: Existential unaccusatives vs. unergatives
    • 3.2 PP extraposition: Change-of-state intransitives pattern like unergatives
    • 3.3 Summary: PP extraposition
  • 4. Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• Part 4. The logic-linguistics across languages
• From philosophical logic to linguistics: The architecture of information autonomy: Categoricals vs. Thetics revisited
  • 1. What is thetic, what is categorical?: What is this difference?
    • 1.1 Thetics according to text genre?: Modal particle/MP selection as a speech act criterion?
    • 1.2 Thetics according to sentential form?
    • 1.3 Thetics and subject position?
  • 2. Main working hypothesis: From thetic judgment to thetic sentence
    • 2.1 The distinction of thetic and categorical in German (V2-OV, subject as well as topic prominent)
    • 2.2 The thetic and the categorical judgment in Japanese (OV and topic prominent)
  • 3. Hypothesis 1: The thetic sentence in German
  • 4. Hypothetic definition 2: Thetik – Categorical
  • 5. Thetics are presentational, not locative and not existential
  • 6. Accent and information structure
  • 7. Common ‘Ground contents (speech act felicity conditions)
  • 8. Integrational focus: Broad and narrow focus
  • 9. VP-inegrated subject and unaccusative subject
  • 10. Speaker deixis implied by subject inversion
    • 10.1 Our main hypothesis confirmed
    • 10.2 How do you leave a sentence without any context?
  • 11. Special ga-subjects after Onoe 1973: The deeper key to thetics?
  • 12. Linking thetic syntax with Onoe’s special ga-verb class in Japanese?
  • 13. The origo decision for episodicity and genericity
    • 13.1 Thetic valence and origo deixis
    • 13.2 Episodic in contrast to generic: Tense in DP? Referential biographies
  • 14. Typological commonalities
  • 15. Hypothesis: Passives are near-thetic
  • 16. Conclusion without a real end: The interface mix
    • 16.1 Is it easy in Japanese to recognize and to encode thetics?
    • 16.2 Deep grammatical interfaces for the thetic-categorical distinction
  • 17. Outgoing: Leading ideas and main concepts
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• Pseudocategorical or purely thetic?: A contrastive case study of how thetic statements are expressed in Japanese, English, and German
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. “Categorical,” “thetic,” and “pseudocategorical” after Marty (1918)
    • 2.1 Categorical statements
    • 2.2 Thetic statements
    • 2.3 Pseudocategorical sentences
  • 3. Ga-sentences and SA-sentences as expressions of thetic statements
    • 3.1 Ga- as opposed to wa-sentences in Japanese
    • 3.2 SA- vs. non-SA-sentences in English and German
  • 4. Where does pure theticity come from?
  • 5. Optative – A purely thetic expression in German
  • 6. Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Funding
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• The thetic/categorical distinction as difference in common ground update: With application to Biblical Hebrew
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Background to thetic/categorical distinction
  • 3. Problems with the thetic/categorical distinction
  • 4. Situating theticity and categoricality
  • 5. Update in Biblical Hebrew
  • 6. Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• Part 5. Lexical links to attitudinality
• B-grade subjects and theticity
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Thetic and categorical judgments
  • 3. “B-grade subjects” in Onoe (2017)
  • 4. B-grade-subjects in German?
  • 5. Restriction on the specific indefinite subject
  • 6. Two types of Theticity: Entity-central and event-central
  • 7. Discussion: Crosslinguistic realization forms of the B-grade subjects with examples from weather verbs
  • References
• Perception description, report and thetic statements: Roles of sentence-final particles in Japanese and modal particles in German
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Three problems of ga
    • 2.1 Two functions of ga
    • 2.2 Ga and property of predicates
    • 2.3 Ga … teiru construction for description
  • 3. Commonalities and differences of sfps and mps
    • 3.1 General view
    • 3.2 Commonalities of sfps and mps
    • 3.3 Three different features of sfps
    • 3.4 A common framework for mps and SEPs: Pragmatic Function Representation
  • 4. Private vs. public expressions
  • 5. Thetic statements and roles of sfps and mps reconsidered
    • 5.1 Thetic statements and roles of sfps
    • 5.2 Thetic statements and roles of mps
  • 6. Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• Index