Clusterkonstituierende Faktoren bei verbalen Argumentstrukturmustern

The following article shows how several verbal argument structure patterns can build clusters or families. Argument structure patterns are conceptualised as form-meaning pairings related by family relationships. These are based on formal and / or semantic characteristics of the individual patterns making up the family. The small family of German argument structure patterns containing vor sich her and vor sich hin is selected to illustrate the process whereby pattern meaning combines with the syntactic and semantic properties of the patterns’ individual components to constitute a higher-level family or cluster of argument structure patterns. The study shows that the patterns making up the family are similar with regard to some of their formal characteristics, but differ quite clearly with respect to their meaning. The article also discusses the conditions of usage of the individual patterns of the family, the contribution of verb meaning and prepositional meaning to the overall meaning of the patterns, coercion effects, and productivity issues