Preview

Key Issues of Contemporary Linguistics

Advanced search

The category of mirativity and the means of its expression in German

https://doi.org/10.18384/2949-5075-2026-1-77-89

Abstract

Aim. Identification of ways of expressing mirativity meanings in German with further definition of the status of this category.

Methodology. General scientific methods of observation, analysis, and synthesis were used, as well as specific linguistic methods of contextual analysis and a descriptive method. The examples were selected from the German DECOW 16A and DWDS сorps.

Results. The category of mirativity can be considered as one of the manifestations of epistemicity and correlates with contrast and emphasis: the speaker must recognize the new state of affairs as true, while their previously held ideas about it are presented as false. Mirative semantics as a peripheral meaning manifests itself in a specific contextual environment.

Research implications. The obtained results make a contribution to the description of the category of mirativity in the German language. The practical significance lies in the fact that the results obtained can be used in seminars on theoretical grammar of the German language with students of language universities or faculties.

About the Author

A. V. Averina
Moscow State Linguistic University
Russian Federation

Anna V. Averina – Dr. Sci. (Philology), Prof., Department of German Grammar and History

Moscow



References

1. Aikhenvald, A. Y. (2012). The essence of mirativity. In: Linguistic Typology, 16 (3), 435–485. DOI: 10.1515/lity-2012-0017.

2. Chafe, W. (1986). Evidentiality in English Conversation and Academic Writing. In: Chafe, W. & Nichols, J. (eds.). Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, pp. 261–272 (Series: Advances in discourse processes. Vol. 20).

3. Melchuk, I. A. (1988). Course in General Morphology. Vol. 2. Moscow, Vienna: Yazyki russkoy kultury publ. (in Russ.).

4. Abraham, W. (2017). Modalpartikel und Mirativeffekte. In: Tanaka, S., Leiss, E., Abraham, W. & Fujinawa, Y. (Hgs.). Grammatische Funktionen aus Sicht der japanischen und deutschen Germanistik. Hamburg: H. Buske, S. 75–108 (Series: Linguistische Berichte Sonderheft. Vol. 24).

5. Kozintseva, N. A. (2007). Typology of the Category of Attestation. In: Evidentiality in the Languages of Europe and Asia: a Collection of Articles in Memory of N. A. Kozintseva. St. Petersburg: Nauka publ., pp. 13–36 (in Russ.).

6. Plungyan, V. A. (2011). Introduction to Grammatical Semantics: Grammatical Meanings and Grammatical Systems of the World’s Languages. Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities publ. (in Russ.).

7. Khrakovsky, V. S. (2007). Evidentiality, epistemic modality, (ad)mirativity. In: Evidentiality in the Languages of Europe and Asia: a Collection of Articles in Memory of N. A. Kozintseva. St. Petersburg: Nauka publ., pp. 600–632 (in Russ.).

8. Skribnik, E. K. & Seesing, O. A. (2012). Towards the description of evidentiality and mirativity in Kalmyk. In: Topics in the Study of Language, 4, 39–72 (in Russ.).

9. Skribnik, E. K. & Ozonova, A. (2007). Means of expressing evidentiality and mirativity in the Altai language. In: Evidentiality in the Languages of Europe and Asia: a Collection of Articles in Memory of N. A. Kozintseva. St. Petersburg: Nauka pu Darzhaeva N.B.bl., pp. 519–551 (in Russ.).

10. Kaksin, A. D. (2021). Evidential connotations in the language of monuments of the Orkhon-Yenisei writing. In: Proceedings of the International Symposium of Khakass Epic, the 8 th International Scientific Conference „Peoples and cultures of the Sayan-Altai and bordering territories“, dedicated to the 300 th anniversary of the discovery of sites of the Yenisei script and to the Year of Khakass epic in the Republic of Khakassia (Abakan, September 23–25, 2021). Abakan: Khakassian Book Publishing House named after V. M. Torosov, pp. 141–143 (in Russ.).

11. Darzhaeva, N. B. (2014). Means of expressing mirativity in the Buryat complex sentence. In:  Siberian Journal of Philology, 2, 210–217 (in Russ.).

12. Kaksin, A. D. (2024). About types of languages on ways of expression of an “evidence” and “admiration” (on material of the Khanty and Khakass languages). In: Siberica: Siberian Research. Ankara: Grafiker publ., pp. 191–203 (in Russ.).

13. Khafizova, I. I. & Khabibullina, E. K. (2022). Relation between Epistemic Modality and Evidentiality in Turkish and Japanese. In: Philology. Theory & Practice, 15 (3), 971–975. DOI: 10.30853/phil20220106 (in Russ.).

14. Socka, A. (2021). Satzadverbien und Modalverben als Marker der Reportativität im Deutschen und im Polnischen. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang (Reihe: Danziger Beiträge zur Germanistik. Bd. 60).

15. Ivanova, S. V. & Khakimova, G. Sh. (2024). Evidentiality and epistemic modality: Overlap view within word semantics. In: Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Language and Literature, 21 (4), 802–824. DOI: 10.21638/spbu09.2024.403 (in Russ.).

16. Kosta, P. & Iskakova, G. Zh. (2022). New Tendencies in the Study of Modality: Epistemic Modality and Evidentiality. In: Bulletin of the Moscow Region State University. Series: Linguistics, 6, 25–40. DOI: 10.18384/2310-712x-2022-6-25-40.

17. Yanko, T. E. (2022). Prosodically oriented model of communicative structure. In: Lifetime linguistic inspirations: To Igor Mel'čuk from colleagues and friends for his 90 th birthday. Berlin: Peter Lang, S. 493–503 (in Russ.).

18. Yanko, T. E. (2008). Intonation strategies of Russian speech in a comparative aspect. Moscow: Yazyki slavyanskikh kultur publ. (in Russ.).

19. Yanko, T. E. (2025). Pragmatics and prosody: the analysis of oral speech as a principle of linguistic pragmatics. In: SLOVO.RU: Baltic Accent, 16 (2), 71–92. DOI: 10.5922/2225-5346-2025-2-4 (in Russ.).

20. Yanko, T. E. (2001). Communicative strategies of Russian speech. Moscow: Yazyki slavyanskikh kultur publ. (in Russ.).

21. Höhle, T. N. (1988). Vorwort und Nachwort zu ‘VERUM-Fokus’. [und] VERUM-Fokus. In: Sprache und Pragmatik. Arbeitsberichte 5. Lund: Germanistisches Institut der Universität Lund, S. 1–7.

22. Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In: Syntax and Semantics. Vol. 3: Speech Acts. NewYork: Elsevier, pp. 41–58.

23. Averina, A. V. (2025). Modal semantics of the subjunctive mood in German. In: Rhema, 2, 9–41. DOI: 10.31862/2500-2953-2025-2-9-41 (in Russ.).

24. Buscha, A., Szita, S. & Raven, S. (2013). C-Grammatik. Übungsgrammatik Deutsch als Fremdsprache. Leipzig: Schubert Verlag.

25. Jędrzejowski, Ł. (2022). Zur Entstehungsumständen von mirativen um-zu-Sätzen im Deutschen. In: Paths through meaning and form: Festschrift offered to Klaus von Heusinger on the occasion of his 60 th birthday. Köln: USB Monographs, pp. 134–137.


Review

Views: 78

JATS XML


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.


ISSN 2949-5059 (Print)
ISSN 2949-5075 (Online)