From contrastive linguistics to linguistic typology*

Johan van der Auwera University of Antwerp (Belgium)

Abstract The paper looks back at Hawkins (1986), A comparative typology of English and German, and shows on the basis of raising and human impersonal pronouns in English, Dutch, and German that contrastive linguistics can be taken as a pilot study in typology. It also pleads for doing the contrastive linguistics of three languages rather than of two, not least because the third language can teach us something about the other two. Keywords: contrastive linguistics, typology, raising, human impersonal pronoun, semantic map

1.

Introduction

In the wake of Hawkins (1986), A comparative typology of English and German: Unifying the contrasts, this paper makes a case for allowing contrastive linguistics the role of pilot typology. It also sketches how contrastive linguistics as typology has to meet the standards of both contrastive linguistics and typology and it pleads for doing more contrastive linguistics with three languages rather than two. 2. Contrastive linguistics as pilot typology

One way of comparing the current state of two fields is to compare what practitioners of these fields did at recent, important, and representative international conferences specifically devoted to these fields. I believe that the Sixth International Contrastive Linguistics Conference held in Berlin in September 2010 and the 8th International Conference of Linguistic Typology held in Berkeley in 2009 are such conferences. At the Berlin Contrastive linguistics conference, there was a pronounced preference in studying issues particular to two languages, rather than issues particular to more than two languages or general issues. This is shown in Table 1.1
Table 1. Number of languages covered at presentations at the Sixth International Contrastive Linguistics Conference (2010). 2 languages 3 languages 4 languages 5 languages more than 5 languages other 62 % 8% 4% <1% <2% < 25 %

2 Pairwise contrastive studies had titles such as those listed in (1). (1) a.. Les marqueurs discursifs en franais et en allemand: Les raisons dune asymmetrie b. Using a bidirectional parallel corpus for contrastive studies of Thai and German c. Verbal complements of motion verbs: a diachronic perspective from German and English I assume that the focus on two languages is not really surprising given a classical definition such as that of James (1980: 3) C[ontrastive] A[nalysis] is always concerned with a pair of languages and not just a property of the work presented at this conference, though if one wants more certainty, one should of course look at other conferences and publications. Let us now look at the 2009 typology conference, and similarly assume that the program gives us a good idea about what typology amounts this in this day and age. It turns out that this conference did not have any presentation on just two languages nor was there any on three, four or a few more. Of the categories used in Table 1 all the presentations would go under other. Some representative titles are listed in (2). (2) a. b. c. Phonotactic restrictions on ejectives: a typological survey Epistemic complementizers - a cross-linguistic survey Intonational focus marking in tone languages: The case of Beaver (Northern Athabaskan)

To some extent this is a coincidence, for (2c) shows that one can be deemed typological and focus on just one language. If that is justified, then one could surely engage in typology and focus on a language pair as well. Nevertheless, the contrast is quite strong and I think that current contrastive linguistics and typology are essentially different disciplines, with a possible overlap, but a modest one. From the above point of view the title and the purpose of Hawkins celebrated 1986 book, A Comparative Typology of English and German: Unifying the contrasts, is a little surprising. The book clearly deals with two languages, viz. English and German, but it also purports to be typology. Does Hawkins (1986) therefore count both as contrastive linguistics and as typology? If we look at the reception of the book in the last quarter century, the answer is clear. It is primarily the contrastive linguists and not the typologists that have reacted to the book, partially supported it, and refined and falsified some of its hypotheses. The verdict of Knig and Gast (2007), another English German study, is clear: Hawkins (1986) is claimed as contrastive linguistics, and important contrastive linguistics, for that matter: it would have put the field on solid descriptive foundations (Knig & Gast 2007: 2). Yet, interestingly, Hawkins did not really see his book as a contribution to the field of contrastive linguistics. He rather considered his work as a kind of linguistics which was to go in between generative and typological linguistics. The latter two were contrasted along a few parameters. First,

3 generative grammar could be seen as starting from Chomsky (1965) and typology from Greenberg (1966). Second, generative grammar, at least the version that was around then, theorized starting from a language-specific perspective, whereas typology was inherently cross-linguistic. Third, the language-specific nature tended to amount to studying just one language (English in the case of Chomsky 1965), and the crosslinguistic perspective even in the sixties meant more than just a handful (thirty in Greenberg 1966). Fourth, generative studies focused on many properties of languages (e.g. syntactic functions, subcategorization, derivation, degrees of grammaticalness in Chomsky 1965), typology on just one (word order in the case of Greenberg 1966). These contrasts are summarized in Table 2.
Table 2. Hawkins (1986) contrast between generative and typological linguistics. Generative linguistics Starts from Chomsky 1965 Language-specific One language Many properties Typological linguistics Starts from Greenberg 1966 Cross-linguistic Many languages One property

What Hawkins intended to do was different, but it was to profit from both; (i) languagespecific, but within a cross-linguistic frame of reference, (i) neither one language, nor many, but two, and (iii) many properties, but deriving from just one. He called this enterprise, probably not really meaning to contribute a new technical term, yet important enough to make it in the title of the book, Comparative Typology. See Table 3.
Table 3. Hawkins (1986) Comparative typology as in between generative and typological linguistics. Generative linguistics Starts from Chomsky 1965 Language-specific One language Many properties Comparative typology Starts from Hawkins 1986 Language-specific against a crosslinguistic background Two languages Many properties deriving from one property Typological linguistics Starts from Greenberg 1966 Cross-linguistic Many languages One property

We thus see that Hawkins did not describe his enterprise as contrastive linguistics, despite the way the book was to be received, and that he was not primarily interested in a detailed description of English and German per se. Rather, [w]hat motivates it [Hawkins comparative typology] was still the search for principles that underlie crosslinguistic variation (Hawkins 1986: 3) and his German English study that was to illustrate this search could be taken as an elaborate argument for at least one such principle, viz. that of the Conservation of Logical Structure, taken from the work of Keenan (1972, 1978). Meaning, this principle states, can be preserved more or less directly. With respect to English and German, Hawkins (1986) claimed, it is German

4 that illustrates direct mapping and English indirect mapping. This direct mapping entails a more complex grammar, observable in various subsystems, but, in return, it allows an easier access to the meaning. See Figure 1.
Further, more difficult to access meaning, simpler grammar

Semantic structure

English surface structure

Closer, easier to access meaning, more complex grammar

German surface structure

Figure 1. The overall German English contrast.

Hawkins (1986) aimed to show the value of this kind of perspective with just two languages, but The English/German contrasts [] suggest that there may be a continuum of variation with different language types getting their relative simplicity and complexity in different parts of the grammar [] Whether these kinds of implications can legitimately be drawn from our case study will have to await similar research on many more languages. [] in the mean time our case study can define a paradigm for the similar comparison of many other languages. (Hawkins 1986: 7-8) The German English comparative typology case can thus count as a pilot study in linguistic typology. Or, more generally, since Hawkins (1986) was after all integrated into contrastive linguistics (even though the author did not intend this), contrastive linguistics as such can be seen as pilot typology.

3.

The double standard for contrastive linguistics

As pilot typology, contrastive linguistics has to meet the standards of typology as well as those of contrastive linguistics, and, as I will show now, these standards are different. Consider Hawkins analysis of raising, more specifically subject to object raising. (3) is an example. The idea is that some third person is the subject of ill and, more importantly, as can be witnessed by the object form him rather than a subject form he, it is also (or perhaps even exclusively) the object of believe. (3) I believe him to be ill. Literally or metaphorically, him has been raised from the subject position of a subordinate clause to an object position of the main clause. (4) illustrates a non-raised construal.

5 (4) I believe that he is ill. Note that the object him is in no sense a Theme, Goal or Semantic Object of believe. (3) does not imply that the speaker believes him. This is a criterial property and implies I use the term raising in a restricted sense, like Hawkins (1986) for that matter. The pair in (5) and (6) does not, therefore, illustrate raising, for John does entertain a semantic relation to saw. (5) I saw John smile. (6) I saw that John smiled. The term raising is furthermore only used for contrasts involving both a finite clause non-raising construction and an infinitival raising construction. German (7) and (8) do not therefore illustrate raising either.2 (7) Ich glaubte mich I believed myself I belied myself to be deceived. (8) Ich glaubte, dass ich I believed that I I believed that I was deceived. betrogen deceived

betrogen deceived

war. was.

In English subject to object construction is a healthy construction and there are currently anywhere between 40 and 60 predicates that allow it (Hawkins 1986: 77; Nol 2001: 257259). German, however, lacks it altogether. (9) *Ich glaube ihn krank zu I believe him ill to I believe him to be ill. sein. be

Hawkins explains this in terms of the morphological simplicity of English vs. the complexity of German when it comes to nominal case and also, from a diachronic perspective, in terms of the fact that English lost most case morphology. If taken as a true typological claim, it prompts one to turn to other languages with the expectation that languages with rich case morphology will not allow subject to object raising and the ones with poor or no case morphology will allow it. But, as Mair (1992: 171) has shown, neither expectation is met. Latin has rich case morphology, but it allows raising. French, which has lost case morphology, has no raising and the same goes for other Romance languages.

6 (10) Dico eos venisse. say them have.come I say that they have come. (Bolkestein 1979: 15) (11) *Je crois Jean tre I believe Jean be I believe Jean to be intelligent. intelligent. intelligent

Mair (1992: 171) correctly concludes that raising is not intrinsically connected to the absence of inflection. However, bringing in Latin and Romance languages such as French does not prove that the absence or loss of inflection is not important in the particular case of English as compared to German. Mairs critique thus only applies to Hawkins hypothesis as a claim within typology, not as a claim within German English contrastive linguistics.

4.

A case for contrastive linguistics with three languages

If one restricts oneself to just German and English, Hawkins claim about the connection between the absence/disappearance of inflection and the presence/appearance of raising remains plausible, and it gets further support from the fact that the asymmetry between German and English extends to two other kinds of phenomena which have been called raising. (12) illustrates so-called subject to subject raising. John is the subject of both ill and seems. (13) is a non-raised construal. (12) John seems to be ill. (13) It seems that John is ill. It is not clear whether German allows it scheinen could be a predicate that allows it, but the fact that the raised constituent need not be a subject has been used against this claim, in which case scheinen would really a topic raiser (Hawkins 1986: 76). (14) John scheint krank zu John seems ill to John seems to be ill. sein. be

(15) An dem Wagen scheint noch gearbeitet on the car seems still worked It seems that they are still working on the car.

zu to

werden. be

So in German subject to subject raising is at best marginal.4 In English there are many predicates that allow this construction, esp. the ones that can be taken as the passive

7 construals of subject to object raising Nol (2008) calls these nominative and infinitive or NCI patterns and Knig and Gast (2007: 207-211) reportive. Again, German completely lacks this pattern. (16) John is expected/meant/said/supposed to be ill. Yet a third kind of movement is object to subject raising (also known as tough movement). (17) This book is easy to read. (18) It is easy to read this book. The book is the object of read but the subject of easy. This phenomenon is arguably found in German, as is illustrated in (19). (19) Dieses Buch ist leicht zu this book is easy to This book is easy to read. lesen. read

It has been doubted, however, that there is more than a superficial similarity between (17) and (19), for (19) could be analyzed as a modal infinitive, such as illustrated in (20), the latter can be modified by an adverbial (see (21)), and since leicht corresponds to both easy and easily, one can take the leicht of (19) to be an adverb rather than an adjective (under the raising analysis) (see Comrie and Matthews 1990: 4750; Knig and Gast 2007: 67, 210). (20) Dieses Buch ist this book is to This book can be read. zu read lesen.

(21) Dieses Buch ist in der Bibliothek zu lesen. this book is in the library . This book can be read in the library. But even if the case for object to subject raising holds for German, there are few predicates that allow it, maybe more than the five listed in Hawkins (1986: 78), but not many more (van der Auwera & Nol 2011: 11-12). English, on the other hand, has at least 50 predicates (van der Auwera & Nol 2011: 15).5 To conclude, there are arguably three types of raising and for each type there is a strong asymmetry.

8
Table 4. Raising in English and German. English 40 - 60 predicates 60 to 100 predicates at least 50 predicates German does not exist at best 1 predicate at best not much more than 5 predicates

subject to object raising subject to subject raising object to subject raising

Hawkins hypothesis is about English and German, which are West Germanic languages, and the hypothesis should therefore be relevant for other West Germanic languages too, and perhaps even for Germanic as a whole. Of the other West Germanic languages, the one that is easiest to bring in is Dutch. For Dutch, it has long been claimed that its grammar is in many ways intermediate between those of English and German. This claim goes back to at least Van Haeringen (1956), and thanks to Hning et al (2006), the fiftieth anniversary of the appearance of this book has led to a renewed interest in this hypothesis, support and clarification (see also Vismans et al 2010).6 One important point of clarification is that if Dutch is indeed intermediate between English and German, it can be intermediate in more than one way. First, a phenomenon that is very strong in English and very weak in German, is stronger in Dutch than in German, but not quite as strong as in English. Second, for one phenomenon, Dutch is like German and for another one Dutch is like English and if there is a reason to generalize over just these two phenomena, one could say that the mixed allegiance results in an overall intermediacy. In van der Auwera & Nol (2011), the raising facts of Dutch were contrasted with those of English and German. If Hawkins claim about the relation between raising and inflection is correct, then we expect Dutch to be intermediate for both phenomena, too. For raising, this expectation seems to be borne out. At least, for each of the three types of raising, the number of Dutch predicates allowing it is indeed in between the number accepted for English and Dutch. Table 5 summarizes the findings in van der Auwera & Nol (2011) and (22) to (27) illustrate the Dutch raising constructions, each time with a non-raising counterpart.
Table 5. Raising in English, Dutch, and German. English 40 - 60 predicates 60 to 100 predicates at least 50 predicates Dutch at best a handful 10 predicates at least 30 predicates German does not exist at best 1 predicate at best not much more than 5 predicates

subject to object raising subject to subject raising object to subject raising

(22) Ik vind dat dit niet I find that this not I find that this is impossible.

kan. can

9 (23) Ik vind dit niet kunnen. I find this not can I find this to be impossible. (24) Het blijkt dat de pil helpt bij dat it seems that the pill helps at that It seems that the pill helps with these sorts of pains. (25) De pil blijkt te helpen bij dat the pill seems to help at that The pill seems to help with these sorts of pains. (26) Dit boek is moeilijk this book is difficult This book is difficult to get. (27) Het is moeilijk dit it is difficult this It is difficult to get this book. te to soort pijnen. sort pains

soort pijnen. sort pains

verkrijgen. get

boek te book to

verkrijgen. get

Thus Dutch is an intermediate raiser. Since Hawkins sees the loss of inflection as related and even causally related the expectation is that with respect to this property Dutch is again in between English and German or that it is like English: what is excluded is that the Dutch would inflect like German. The facts are clear: with respect to nominal inflection, Dutch is like English, which means that the Dutch combination of lack and loss of inflection and intermediate raising support the Hawkins claims on German and English. The above argumentation certainly does not purport to show that the loss of inflection would be the only factor that we need in order to explain the presence and prominence or lack thereof of raising in West Germanic. For one thing, it does not explain the differences between the three types of raising. Note, for example that subject to object raising is more marked than either subject to subject raising or object to subject raising in both German and Dutch see e.g. the contrast between, on the one hand, at best a handful and, on the other hand, 10 predicates and at least 30 predicates for Dutch). Why should that be the case? The (causal) link to lack and loss of inflection does not explain this. For another thing, Tables 4 and 5 only focus on the number of raising predicates, but a full characterization has to deal with other properties, too. Let us illustrate this with object to subject predicates.7 So far the examples of English, German and Dutch ((17), (19) and (26)) contained the same complementizer, viz. English to, Geman zu and Dutch te. However, for some of the thirty odd predicates of Dutch allowing object to subject raising, te will not do. The construction will need om te, glossable as in order to.

10 (28) a. b. *Dit boek is nuttig Dit boek is nuttig om this book is useful in.order This book is useful to read. te te to lezen. lezen. read

English does not have anything comparable and neither has German (German does have the counterpart um zu, but it does not use it in this construction). So the exceptional nature of Dutch is probably unrelated to its lack and loss of inflection. The above argumentation also does not purport to show that contrastive linguistics should restrict itself to three languages. On the contrary, adding Frisian, Yiddish etc. would definitely increase the understanding. The point is simple yet not simplistic: (i) simple: for the study of raising, three-way contrastive linguistics proves to be better than two-way contrastive linguistics, (ii) but not simplistic: we learn about English and German through the study of Dutch.

5.

Pilot typology with three languages

In the preceding section we saw how the study of a third language sheds light on the contrastive linguistics of two other languages. Seen as pilot typology, however, an English-Dutch-German study of raising is still much too simple and does not shed any light on the facts of Latin of French. This does not mean that a contrastive linguistics with three languages is doomed to be bad typology. There may indeed be areas of grammar where even a pilot study of just three languages and even related ones provides a decent initial typology. But three-way contrastive linguistics must remain pilot typology, for true typology is about all of the worlds languages through the prism of a well argued and ideally large sample. I will illustrate this point with a study of generic indefinite pronouns with human reference, once again using English, Dutch and German (see also Johansson 2007: 175-196). In English you is a pronoun that can be used generically. It will then also refer to man and woman in general, as in the title of a James Bond book and film. (29) You only live twice. The German film title had a different pronoun, viz. man. This is a little difficult to gloss. one is an acceptable choice, but German also has the direct counterpart einer. One could also suggest the English noun man, but the English word man does not have this use or, better, not anymore. I will instead opt for the more abstract gloss GEN (for generic). (30) Man lebt nur zweimal. GEN lives only twice You only live twice.

11 Van der Auwera, Gast & Vanderbiesen (2011) is a contrastive linguistics account of generic human pronouns in English, Dutch, and German. It pays attention to various frequency differences between the three languages, such as the fact that Dutch has the etymological counterpart to German man, viz. Dutch men, but that this pronoun is becoming obsolete. Unsurprisingly therefore, the translator of (25) did not choose men, but followed the English you path. (31) Je leeft maar twee you live only two You only live twice. maal. times

The aim of the paper was to test Van Haeringens (1956) claim about the intermediate position of Dutch in the area of generic human reference (a project that had already been started by Weerman 2006). But the paper also had a typological aim. The three languages, we claimed, allow for a skeleton map with universal relevance. Of course, just good it is only the application to more languages will show.This map is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. A semantic map for generic human reference and related uses.

specific known singular

specific known plural specific unknown plural generic inclusive conditional specific hearer plural specific hearer singular

specific unknown singular

generic exclusive

generic inclusive

This map is a so-called semantic map (see Haspelmath 1997, 2003; van der Auwera 2008). It therefore embodies the typological prediction that each strategy that languages use in the domain of generic human reference covers a connected set of uses. The map in question, built on the basis of English, Dutch and German, already shows nine uses. Only three of them are generic, six are not the specific ones but we have included them, for the markers used for generic reference typically have specific uses too. Let us now survey the main pronouns used by the three languages. English uses one, you, and they. One covers three areas, illustrated in (32) to (34). (32) and (33) are generic and include the speech participants. (34) is also generic,

12 but it does not include the speaker and the hearer: it is a claim about the eating habits of the Spanish and it is compatible with the speaker not being Spanish. (32) One should always carry an umbrella. [generic, inclusive] (33) When one travels, one should carry an umbrella. [generic, inclusive, conditional] (34) In Spain one eats late. [generic, exclusive] Note that as far as English one goes, there is no reason to separate the conditional inclusive from the general inclusive use we will see that it is German that forces this distinction. English you is a little different: in its generic uses it always includes the speaker and the hearer. The people that live twice include the speaker and the hearer, and when one in (35) is substituted by you, the speaker and hearer are taken as Spanish, at least as far as eating goes. (35) In Spain you eat late. In the specific realm, you refers to the hearer, singular or plural. Whereas generic you is always inclusive, one is both inclusive and exclusive, generic they is exclusive only. (36) In Spain they eat late. They can be used in (32) and (33), too, but then it becomes specific, either referring to an unknown but yet specific set of people or to a known set of people. The specific, unknown use is exemplified in (37). They here refers to those specific people that are responsible for tax policies, maybe members of the government or members of the finance department or perhaps the political party that has put this item on the agenda. Of course, they can also refer to known people, a context illustrated in (38).8 (37) Did you hear the news already? They have raised the taxes again. (38) Did you hear what George Osborne and David Cameron have done? They have raised the taxes again. Figure 3 maps the relevant uses of one, you, and they.

13
Figure 3. A semantic map for uses of one, you and they.

specific known singular

specific known plural specific unknown plural generic inclusive conditional

they

one

you

specific unknown singular

generic exclusive

specific hearer plural

generic inclusive

specific hearer singular

For Dutch, ze they is similar to English they and je you is similar to English you, except that the specific use of Dutch je has to be singular. Dutch does not have anything corresponding to English one, but it has men. Dutch men has four uses: the two generic inclusive ones, the generic exclusive one, and the specific unknown plural one. (39) Men/je moet altijd een paraplu GEN/you must always an umbrella One/you must always take along an umbrella. meenemen. take.along

(40) Als men/je op reis gaat, moet men/je If GEN/you on trip goes must GEN/you een paraplu meenemen. an umbrella take.along If one travels, one should take along an umbrella. (41) In Spanje eet/eten in Spain eats/eat In Spain one/they eats/eat late. men/ze GEN/they laat. late

(42) Men/ze heeft/hebben de belastingen weer verhoogd. GEN/they has/have the taxes again raised They have raised the taxes again. Figure 4 is the map for Dutch.

14
Figure 4. A semantic map for uses of ze, men and je.

specific known singular

specific known plural specific unknown plural generic inclusive conditional

ze

men

je

specific unknown singular

generic exclusive

specific hearer plural

generic inclusive

specific hearer singular

German has man, which is like men (except that it is frequent and men is not), du you, which is like English you and Dutch je, it hardly has sie they9, and then it has the etymological counterpart to English one, viz. einer, but it is used in a different way. Nominative einer only has one generic use, viz. the inclusive one, and only in conditionals. In the conditional in (39), one can see that the anaphor in the apodosis is er he. (40) shows that man does not have that problem. (39) Wenn einer eine Reise macht, dann soll er when one a trip makes, then should he Regenschirm dabei haben. umbrella along have When one makes a trip, one should bring along an umbrella. (40) Wenn man eine Reise macht, dann soll man when IMP a trip makes, then should IMP Regenschirm dabei haben. umbrella along have When one makes a trip, one should bring along an umbrella. einen an

einen an

But man has another problem, it only occurs in the nominative, and when the sentence requires a dative or accusative man, generic, whether inclusive or exclusive, the dative and accusative forms of einer do the job.

15 (41) Es kommt einem zugute, It comes one to.good It is to ones benefit that. dass ... that

(42) In Spanien wird einem das Essen erst in Spain is one the food only Abend serviert. evening served In Spain one gets served food only late at night.

am spten at.the late

Einer, einem and einen can also serve specific uses, both known and unknown, and be equivalent to jemand. (43) Da steht einer/jemand auf der Strasse und ich there stands somebody on the street and I weiss (nicht) wer das ist. know not who that is Somebody is standing on the street and I (dont) know who it is. These German facts are mapped in Figure 5.
Figure 5. A semantic map for uses of einer, einem/einen, man and du.

specific known singular

specific known plural specific unknown plural generic inclusive conditional

einer

einem/einen

man

du

specific unknown singular

generic exclusive

specific hearer plural

generic inclusive

specific hearer singular

I claim and hope that the map is a reasonable pilot hypothesis for studying world wide variation. The map will prove to be too simple. French on, for example, is a man type pronoun that has extended its terrain to include the first person plural inclusive we. This use has to be added. But adding this use does not disturb the basic geometry

16 of the skeleton map that was arrived at so far. There may, of course, be other uses, which may prove to be less easy to accommodate, but only future work will tell.

6.

Conclusion

The conclusion of this paper can be summarized in five points. First, much in the spirit of Hawkins (1986) contrastive linguistics can be seen as pilot typology. Second, for doing contrastive linguistics there is nothing sacrosanct about restricting oneself to two languages. Third, if one intends ones contrastive linguistics as pilot typology, then studying three languages is obviously better than two. Fourth, even though contrastive linguistics can count as pilot typology, the demands and falsifiability of contrastive linguistics and typology are different. More specifically: an explanation may well be valid for a difference between two or three languages, without having universal validity. Fifth, one can use a third language to make a point about two other languages.

Notes
* Thanks are due to the Belgian Federal Government (Federal Science Program, IAP-grant P6/44). Further thanks go to two anonymous reviewers and to the editors of both this issue and the journal. 1 Not surprisingly, the language that is most involved in the pairs or n-tuplets is English. The winning pair is English-Spanish, a fact that bears witness to the Spanish origin of the International Contrastive Linguistics Conferences (the first four were held in Santiago de Compostela, under the impulse of Luis Iglesias Rbade and Mara de los ngeles Gmez Gonzlez). 2 I do not, of course, deny that the constructions illustrated in (5) to (8) are not related nor that there are yet other constructions resembling subject to object raising (see e.g. Mair 1992, 1993). The point of this section only concerns subject to object raising in a restricted sense of the term. 3 Once again, the notion of raising is a restricted one. For instance, John ceased to be ill or The river threatens to flood the city are not considered as raising constructions, for they lack non-raising counterparts (*It ceased that John is ill, *It threatens that the river floods the city). 4 This claim does not mean that (14) is marginal, only that the status of scheinen as a subject to subject raising is doubtful, and also, as we will elaborate a bit more, that there is no other German subject to subject construction. 5 Van der Auwera & Nol (2011: 16) also make the point, advanced earlier by Mair (1994:6), that if the facts illustrated by (17) to (21) should not be analyzed as raising, the English German asymmetry remains and it is at least a raising like asymmetry about the availability of both a personal and an impersonal construal. 6 This intermediacy perspective has also been found useful for Romance, see Lamiroy (2011). 7 For another illustration, note that the subject to object raising illustrated with Dutch (22) and (23) involves a bare infinitive rather than the to infinitive found in English. 8 Perhaps they should cover singular uses, on account of sentences such as They are knocking at the door: it is your mother (see Siewierska & Papastahi 2011: 583). 9 It does, however, have a specific use of the demonstrative die those, offering a very good translation of the tax raising example.

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18 Siewierska, A. and M. Papastathi. 2011. Third person plurals in the langauges of Europe: typological and methodological issues. Linguistics. 43:575-610. van der Auwera, J. 2008. In defense of classical semantic maps. Theoretical Linguistics 34: 39-46. van der Auwera, J. & D. Nol. 2011. Raising: Dutch between English and German. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 23:1-36. van der Auwera, J., V. Gast & J. Vanderbiesen. 2011. Impersonal pronouns in English, Dutch and German. Paper presented at the 2011 Germanic Sandwich conference, Oldenburg, 17 September 2010. Van Haeringen, C.B. 1956. Nederlands tussen Duits en Engels. Den Haag: Servire. Vismans, R., M. Hning & F. Weerman (eds.) 2010. Dutch between English and German. Special issue Journal of Germanic Linguistics 22(4). Weerman, F. 2006. Its the economy, stupid! Een vergelijkende blik op men en man, In Hning et al. (eds), 19-47. Authors address Johan van der Auwera Center for Grammar, Cognition, and Typology University of Antwerp Prinsstraat 13 B-2000 Antwerp Belgium johan.vanderauwera@ua.ac.be