Werner Abraham

List of John Benjamins publications in which Werner Abraham is involved.

Book series

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Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today

General Editor: Elly van Gelderen

ISSN 0166-0829
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Studies in Language Companion Series

Edited by Elly van Gelderen

ISSN 0165-7763
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Thetics and Categoricals

Edited by Werner Abraham, Elisabeth Leiss and Yasuhiro Fujinawa

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… read more
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 262] 2020. vii, 390 pp.
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Certainty-uncertainty – and the Attitudinal Space in Between

Edited by Sibilla Cantarini, Werner Abraham and Elisabeth Leiss

The selected papers of this volume cover five main topics, namely ‘Certainty: The conceptual differential’; ‘(Un)Certainty as attitudinality’; ‘Dialogical exchange and speech acts’; ‘Onomasiology’; and ‘Applications in exegesis and religious discourse’. By examining the general theme of the… read more
[Studies in Language Companion Series, 165] 2014. x, 365 pp.
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Modes of Modality: Modality, typology, and universal grammar

Edited by Elisabeth Leiss and Werner Abraham

The volume aims at a universal definition of modality or “illocutionary/speaker’s perspective force” that is strong enough to capture the entire range of different subtypes and varieties of modalities in different languages. The central idea is that modality is all-pervasive in language. This… read more
[Studies in Language Companion Series, 149] 2014. vi, 511 pp.
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Modality–Aspect Interfaces: Implications and typological solutions

Edited by Werner Abraham and Elisabeth Leiss

The main topics pursued in this volume are based on empirical insights derived from Germanic: logical and typological dispositions about aspect-modality links. These are probed in a variety of non-related languages. The logically establishable links are the following: Modal verbs are aspect… read more
[Typological Studies in Language, 79] 2008. xxiv, 422 pp.
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Nominal Determination: Typology, context constraints, and historical emergence

Edited by Elisabeth Stark, Elisabeth Leiss and Werner Abraham

The following theoretical-empirical points on the DP are discussed: Article and its referential-anaphoric properties by Abraham (Determiners in Centering Theory); Bartra (On bare NPs in Old Spanish and Catalan); identification of all functional nominal categories by Stvan (Bare singular count… read more
[Studies in Language Companion Series, 89] 2007. viii, 370 pp.
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Passivization and Typology: Form and function

Edited by Werner Abraham and Larisa Leisiö

Is the passive a unified universal phenomenon? The claim derived from this volume is that the passive, if not universal, has become unified according to function. Language as a means of communication needs the passive, or passive-like constructions, and sooner or later develops them based on other… read more
[Typological Studies in Language, 68] 2006. x, 553 pp.
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Datives and Other Cases: Between argument structure and event structure

Edited by Daniel Hole, André Meinunger and Werner Abraham

This volume provides a state-of-the-art account of research into datives and other morphological cases. The contributors, among them leading scholars in the field, present fresh insights into traditional issues such as the dichotomy between lexical and structural case, and open up fascinating new… read more
[Studies in Language Companion Series, 75] 2006. viii, 385 pp.
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The Composition of Meaning: From lexeme to discourse

Edited by Alice G.B. ter Meulen and Werner Abraham

In the modular design of generative theory the syntax–semantics interface has accounted all along for meanings at the level of Logical Form. The syntax–pragmatics interface, on the other hand, is the result of what one may call the ‘pragmatic turn’ in the linguistic theory, where content is… read more
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 255] 2004. vi, 230 pp.
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Issues in Formal German(ic) Typology

Edited by Werner Abraham and Jan-Wouter Zwart

This book takes up a variety of general syntactic topics, which either yield different solutions in German, in particular, or which lead to different conclusions for theory formation. One of the main topics is the fact that languages that allow for extensive scrambling between the two verbal poles,… read more
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 45] 2002. xviii, 336 pp.
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Studies in Comparative Germanic Syntax: Proceedings from the 15th Workshop on Comparative Germanic Syntax (Groningen, May 26–27, 2000)

Edited by Jan-Wouter Zwart and Werner Abraham

This volume presents a collection of articles reporting on new research carried out within the theoretical framework of generative grammar on the comparative syntax of the Germanic languages.Divided in four main sections, the book focuses on issues of subordination and complementation (with… read more
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 53] 2002. xiv, 404 pp.
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Präteritumschwund und Diskursgrammatik: Präteritumschwund in gesamteuropäischen Bezügen: areale Ausbreitung, heterogene Entstehung, Parsing sowie diskursgrammatische Grundlagen und Zusammenhänge

Werner Abraham und C. Jac Conradie

This work demonstrates that what is commonly called ‘preterite decay in Upper German’ (PS; cf. German Präteritumschwund) is in fact a phenomenon common to a great number of European languages, all of which are in areal con-tact. However, the conclusion that this is a phenomenon arising under areal… read more
[Not in series, 103] 2001. xiv, 148 pp.
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Tense-Aspect, Transitivity and Causativity: Essays in honour of Vladimir Nedjalkov

Edited by Werner Abraham and Leonid Kulikov

This collection presents typological work on tense, aspect, and epistemic modality in a variety of languages and against the background of different schools of thinking, among which the St. Petersburg Typological School developed and so masterfully implemented by the Petersburg linguist, Vladimir… read more
[Studies in Language Companion Series, 50] 1999. xxxiv, 359 pp.
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Minimal Ideas: Syntactic studies in the minimalist framework

Edited by Werner Abraham, Samuel David Epstein, Höskuldur Thráinsson and Jan-Wouter Zwart

The articles in this volume are inspired by the Minimalist Program first outlined in Chomsky’s MIT Fall term class lectures of 1991 and in his seminal paper “A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory”. The articles seek to develop further some key idea in the Minimalist Program, sometimes in ways… read more
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 12] 1996. xii, 364 pp.
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Discourse, Grammar and Typology: Papers in honor of John W.M. Verhaar

Edited by Werner Abraham, T. Givón and Sandra A. Thompson

This volume combines papers selected for their affinity with work on discourse analysis and language typology. The methodological platform is the authors' conviction that all linguistic work needs to be empirical in the sense that (1) generalizations are to be made on the basis of spoken texts in… read more
[Studies in Language Companion Series, 27] 1995. xx, 352 pp.
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Discourse Particles: Descriptive and theoretical investigations on the logical, syntactic and pragmatic properties of discourse particles in German

Edited by Werner Abraham

This book is about particles in the narrower sense of the word as opposed to the broader meaning covering all uninflected words of a language. In the narrower meaning of the linguistic term particles can be distinguished between logical, or scalar particles and modal, or pragmatic particles. The… read more
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 12] 1991. viii, 338 pp.
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Topic, Focus and Configurationality: Papers from the 6th Groningen Grammar Talks, Groningen, 1984

Edited by Werner Abraham and Sjaak de Meij

Some fundamental questions regarding sentence structure in linguistics concern whether all languages, at some level of abstraction, have the same structure, and what are the basic categories with which to describe sentence structure. The contributors of this volume are specialized in two quite… read more
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 4] 1986. v, 349 pp.
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On the Formal Syntax of the Westgermania: Papers from the 3rd Groningen Grammar Talks (3e Groninger Grammatikgespräche), Groningen, January 1981

Edited by Werner Abraham

It has often been noted that Dutch (and Frisian) reflects a particular stage of development between German and English. Phonologically, syntactically and morphologically, Dutch and German are closely related languages. Yet, there remain sufficient morphosyntactic differences in terms of language… read more
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 3] 1983. vi, 242 pp.
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Studien zur Modernen Deutschen Lexikographie: Auswahl aus den Lexikographischen Arbeiten. Erweitert um drei Beiträge von Helene Malige-Klappenbach

Ruth Klappenbach (1911–1977)

The book sketches the history and technical apparatus of dictionary writing, in detail Ruth Klappen­bach’s Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache. Berlin: Akademieverlag 1956, a loner at its time and setting the pattern for the many other German dictionaries to come. The book’s main chapters… read more
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 1] 1980. xxiii, 313 pp.
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Valence, Semantic Case, and Grammatical Relations: Workshop studies prepared for the 12th International Congress of Linguists, Vienna, August 29th to September 3rd, 1977

Edited by Werner Abraham

The papers in this volume have been grouped in three thematic parts: Valence which plays a key concept in the syntactic classification of verbs and adjectives, provides a necessary link for decoding and encoding grammatical relations, and is an important requisite for the evaluation of formal… read more
[Studies in Language Companion Series, 1] 1978. xiv, 729 pp.
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Non-veridicality is at the heart of more than just the verbal subjunctive. The main distinction we drew is the free application of the subjunctive and the non-veridical mood in dependent sentences. Greek and the Romance languages are among the representatives of this syntactic-semantic design of… read more
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Abraham, Werner 2020 From philosophical logic to linguistics: The architecture of information autonomy: Categoricals vs. Thetics revisitedThetics and Categoricals, Abraham, Werner, Elisabeth Leiss and Yasuhiro Fujinawa (eds.), pp. 225–282 | Chapter
How are the logical terms of thetic and categorical judgments to be distinguished linguistically? The key questions are how judgments can be thought of in terms of linguistics and what the deeper lying reason is for distinguishing the two notions. In our search for an answer, we can be guided by… read more
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Abraham, Werner 2020 Introduction : What this volume is aboutThetics and Categoricals, Abraham, Werner, Elisabeth Leiss and Yasuhiro Fujinawa (eds.), pp. 1–10 | Chapter
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I survey the discourse effects and conditions of selection of the German modal (discourse) particles on the basis of different questions that have always been in the focus of analytical descriptions (cf. Whitt 2015), which, however, can be formulated more clearly today. Special attention will be… read more
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The main designs of modern theories of syntax assume a process of syntagmatic organization. However, research on first language acquisition leaves no doubt that the structured combination of single lexical items cannot begin until a critical mass of lexical items has been acquired such that the… read more
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Abraham, Werner 2017 Chapter 6. Modal particles and Verum focus: New corollariesPragmatic Markers, Discourse Markers and Modal Particles: New perspectives, Fedriani, Chiara and Andrea Sansó (eds.), pp. 171–202 | Chapter
The paper pursues two goals: first, comparing the behavior of speech act adverbials with modal particles, and second, the kinship of verum focus and modal particles with respect to their function in discourse. I explore the main difference between German(ic) grammatical modal particles and… read more
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Abraham, Werner and Elisabeth Leiss 2017 Multiple case binding – The principled underspecification of case exponencyContrastive Studies in Verbal Valency, Hellan, Lars, Andrej L. Malchukov and Michela Cennamo (eds.), pp. 27–82 | Chapter
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Abraham, Werner 2014 The Upper German differential: main Austrian-Bavarian vs. (High) Alemannic differencesBavarian Syntax: Contributions to the theory of syntax, Grewendorf, Günther and Helmut Weiß (eds.), pp. 305–336 | Article
This essay is essentially a list of phenomena taken from the two large dialect areas of what is called Upper German (for German Oberdeutsch, South German (SG henceforth), comprising Austrian and Bavarian dialects as well as High Alemannic). The author himself speaks natively (base and high school)… read more
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Abraham, Werner 2014 Certainty: its conceptual differential in Accessible World SemanticsCertainty-uncertainty – and the Attitudinal Space in Between, Cantarini, Sibilla, Werner Abraham and Elisabeth Leiss (eds.), pp. 29–45 | Article
This paper marks an attempt at coming to grips with the notion of certainty and degrees thereof. Where certainty has to do with propositional truth, we have become aware of hefty criticism by philosophers critical of analytic philosophy, most prominently Richard Rorty (1967 in “The Linguistic… read more
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Abraham, Werner and Jadwiga Piskorz 2014 A rare case of covert modality: Spoken Polish and the novel periphrastic past with mieć ‘have’Modes of Modality: Modality, typology, and universal grammar, Leiss, Elisabeth and Werner Abraham (eds.), pp. 409–456 | Article
Our point of departure is a twofold observation. There is, first, a new periphrastic past in spoken Polish using a Slavic newcomer in this temporal construction, namely mieć “have”+P(ast) P(articiple) of a lexical verb. The Polish temporal paradigm is thus enriched by an analytic past form similar… read more
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Leiss, Elisabeth and Werner Abraham 2014 IntroductionModes of Modality: Modality, typology, and universal grammar, Leiss, Elisabeth and Werner Abraham (eds.), pp. 1–16 | Article
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Other than Russian, but to all appearances like Czech, Polish is developing a new auxiliary from mieć “have, possess” that it can use for the hitherto unknown analytic past. We aim to observe what the status of this innovation in Polish is: whether or not it is to be tracked back to a contact… read more
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This article is on Cimbrian German, an old enclave dialect in Upper Italy surrounded by Italo-Romance dialects. Next to clear traces of German clausal syntax, it shows Romance characteristics, which could be due to borrowing from the surrounding Italo-Romance majority dialects. Pertinent literature… read more
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Abraham, Werner 2011 Verbs of motion: Impersonal passivization between unaccusativity and unergativityImpersonal Constructions: A cross-linguistic perspective, Malchukov, Andrej L. and Anna Siewierska (eds.), pp. 91–126 | Article
Motion verbs (VoM) are discussed as examples of exceptions to the definition of unaccusativity. The problem arises under impersonal passivization (IPass): VoM may, on the one hand, be subjected to impersonal passivization, but, on the other hand, they turn out as ergative verbs/unaccusatives in… read more
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Abraham, Werner 2011 PrefaceTheory of Language: The representational function of language, Bühler, Karl, pp. xiii–xlvii | Preface
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This discussion is on diathetic derivative relations between verbs and their distribution between the syntactic component and the lexicon. We investigate whether or not the lexicon of verbs can be based on derivative relations such that there is only one basic type of verb – let us assume,… read more
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Abraham, Werner 2010 Unaccusative verbs in Chinese: Derivation in the lexicon or in syntax?Structure Preserved: Studies in syntax for Jan Koster, Zwart, Jan-Wouter and Mark de Vries (eds.), pp. 1–12 | Article
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In what follows the attempt is made, in all due brevity and succinctness, to gain more solid insight into links between aspect and modality as observed to hold in German and other West and North Germanic languages in Abraham (1990a, b, 2001, 2002, 2005). The basic idea (developed in more detail in… read more
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Abraham, Werner and Elisabeth Leiss 2008 Introduction: Aspect-modality interfaces and interchanges across languagesModality–Aspect Interfaces: Implications and typological solutions, Abraham, Werner and Elisabeth Leiss (eds.), pp. xi–xxiv | Miscellaneous
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Abraham, Werner 2007 Discourse binding: DP and pronouns in German, Dutch, and EnglishNominal Determination: Typology, context constraints, and historical emergence, Stark, Elisabeth, Elisabeth Leiss and Werner Abraham (eds.), pp. 21–47 | Article
Grammatical determiners of various sorts are differently distributed in individual languages. We will list and investigate briefl y a few related and non-related languages to survey the lexical lexemes relating to Determiner (DemPro) status vs. Article status and pronominal anaphor (PersPro). A… read more
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Abraham, Werner 2007 The discourse-functional crystallization of DP from the original demonstrativeNominal Determination: Typology, context constraints, and historical emergence, Stark, Elisabeth, Elisabeth Leiss and Werner Abraham (eds.), pp. 241–256 | Article
In Abraham (this volume), grammatical determiners of various sorts were discussed in regard of the extent to which such determiners co-define anaphors in contexts reaching beyond the single clause. Making use of its findings, the present discussion shows how the defi nite article emerged in the… read more
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Abraham, Werner, Elisabeth Stark and Elisabeth Leiss 2007 IntroductionNominal Determination: Typology, context constraints, and historical emergence, Stark, Elisabeth, Elisabeth Leiss and Werner Abraham (eds.), pp. 1–20 | Miscellaneous
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It is claimed that in languages without a synthetic passive verbal morphology, the passive diathesis is compositional derived by implication or radical underspecification rather than generated in a direct way. As finitizing auxiliaries, equivalents of BE/ESSERE or HAVE/HAB¯ERE are employed together… read more
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Abraham, Werner 2006 Dialect and typology: Where they meet — and where they don’tTypes of Variation: Diachronic, dialectal and typological interfaces, Nevalainen, Terttu, Juhani Klemola and Mikko Laitinen (eds.), pp. 243–267 | Article
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Abraham, Werner 2006 Bare and prepositional differential case marking: The exotic case of German (and Icelandic) among all of GermanicCase, Valency and Transitivity, Kulikov, Leonid, Andrej L. Malchukov and Peter de Swart (eds.), pp. 115–145 | Article
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Abraham, Werner and Elisabeth Leiss 2006 The impersonal passive: voice suspended under aspectual conditionsPassivization and Typology: Form and function, Abraham, Werner and Larisa Leisiö (eds.), pp. 502–517 | Article
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Meulen, Alice G.B. ter and Werner Abraham 2004 The composition of meaningThe Composition of Meaning: From lexeme to discourse, Meulen, Alice G.B. ter and Werner Abraham (eds.), pp. 1–16 | Article
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Abraham, Werner 2003 The myth of doubly governing prepositions in GermanMotion, Direction and Location in Languages: In honor of Zygmunt Frajzyngier, Shay, Erin and Uwe Seibert (eds.), pp. 19–38 | Article
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Abraham, Werner 2002 Modal verbs: Epistemics in German and EnglishModality and its Interaction with the Verbal System, Barbiers, Sjef, Frits Beukema and Wim van der Wurff (eds.), pp. 19–50 | Article
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Abraham, Werner 2002 IntroductionIssues in Formal German(ic) Typology, Abraham, Werner and Jan-Wouter Zwart (eds.), pp. ix–xviii | Miscellaneous
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Abraham, Werner and László Molnárfi 2002 German clause structure under discourse functional weight: Focus and antifocusIssues in Formal German(ic) Typology, Abraham, Werner and Jan-Wouter Zwart (eds.), pp. 1–43 | Article
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According to influential work on grammaticalization, the route grammaticalizing changes take is from lexical to functional categories (Lehmann 1985, van Gelderen 1993). It will be demonstrated on two grammatical relations that this is a too specific assumption. First, modal particles in German and… read more
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Abraham, Werner 1999 Discussant Paper Referring to the Syntax Position Papers by Howard Lasnik and Mickey NoonanFunctionalism and Formalism in Linguistics: Volume I: General papers, Darnell, Michael, Edith A. Moravcsik, Michael Noonan, Frederick J. Newmeyer and Kathleen Wheatley (eds.), pp. 55–86 | Article
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Abraham, Werner 1998 R.L. Trask. Historical LinguisticsStudies in Language 22:2, pp. 522–523 | Miscellaneous
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Abraham, Werner 1997 Dixon, R.M.W. ErgativityStudies in Language 21:1, pp. 237–240 | Squib
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Abraham, Werner 1996 German standard pronouns and non-standard pronominal clitics Typological corollariesGermanic Linguistics: Syntactic and diachronic, Lippi-Green, Rosina L. and Joseph C. Salmons (eds.), pp. 1–14 | Article
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Abraham, Werner 1996 "Ersatzinfinitiv" und Verbanhebung in der WestgermaniaNOWELE Volume 28/29 (August 1996): A Frisian and Germanic Miscellany, Petersen, Adeline and Hans Frede Nielsen † (eds.), pp. 273–295 | Article
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Abraham, Werner 1995 Diathesis: The Middle, Particularly in West-GermanicDiscourse, Grammar and Typology: Papers in honor of John W.M. Verhaar, Abraham, Werner, T. Givón and Sandra A. Thompson (eds.), pp. 3–48 | Article
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Abraham, Werner 1995 Structural Properties of Information Packaging in German and in Universal GrammarPrague Linguistic Circle Papers: Travaux du cercle linguistique de Prague nouvelle série, Hajičová, Eva, Miroslav Červenka, Oldřich Leška † and Petr Sgall (eds.), pp. 125–156 | Article
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Abraham, Werner 1993 Hermann Paul. Deutsches WörterbuchStudies in Language 17:2, p.  | Squib
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Abraham, Werner 1992 Event structure accounting for the emerging periphrastic tenses and the passive voice in GermanExplanation in Historical Linguistics, Davis, Garry W. and Gregory Iverson (eds.), pp. 1–16 | Article
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Abraham, Werner 1991 How Much of the German Tense System is "Aspect" and "Aktionsart"?Perspectives on Aspect and Aktionsart, Vetters, Carl and Willy Vandeweghe (eds.), pp. 133–150 | Article
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Abraham, Werner 1991 The grammaticization of the German modal particlesApproaches to Grammaticalization: Volume II. Types of grammatical markers, Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Bernd Heine (eds.), pp. 331–380 | Article
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Abraham, Werner 1990 Review of Weydt (1989): Sprechen mit PartikelnStudies in Language 14:1, pp. 225–234 | Review
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Abraham, Werner 1989 Verbal Substantives in GermanSyntactic Phrase Structure Phenomena in Noun Phrases and Sentences, Bhatt, Christa, Elisabeth Löbel and Claudia Maria Schmidt (eds.), pp. 79–98 | Article
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Abraham, Werner 1989 Language Universals: The Chomskyan Approach vs. Greenberg's Typological ApproachUniversals of Language, Kefer, Michel and Johan van der Auwera (eds.), pp. 9–25 | Article
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Abraham, Werner, Laci Marácz, Sjaak de Mey and Wim Scherpenisse 1986 IntroductionTopic, Focus and Configurationality: Papers from the 6th Groningen Grammar Talks, Groningen, 1984, Abraham, Werner and Sjaak de Meij (eds.), pp. 1–14 | Miscellaneous
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Abraham, Werner 1979 Methodische Übungen zu Kafka-InterpretationenIntegrale Linguistik: Festschrift für Helmut Gipper, Bülow, Edeltraud und Peter Schmitter (Hrsg.), pp. 379–404 | Article
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