Studium:

• seit 10/2020: Promotion an der Universität Hamburg (Romanistische Linguistik)
• 09/2017: Master of Arts: Romanistische Linguistik (mit Schwerpunkt „Struktur der romanischen Sprachen“), Universität Hamburg. Titel der Masterarbeit: „Clitic Doubling als Schnittstellenphänomen: Eine Untersuchung zu spanisch-deutsch-bilingualen Sprechern“
• 07/2015, 07/2016: Stipendiatin der Summer School „Rumänische Sprache, Kultur und Tradition“, Universitatea din București, Bukarest
• 08/2013: Bachelor of Arts: Romanische Philologie (Französisch, Spanisch), Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. Titel der Bachelorarbeit: „Die Verwendung der Diminutivsuffixe im alicantinischen Jugendspanisch“

Akademische Tätigkeit

• seit 10/2020: Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin und Lehrende am Institut für Romanistik der Universität Hamburg (Ib-Seminare: „Grundzüge der Semantik” , „Grundzüge der Morphologie“)
• 01/2018 - 03/2020: Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Institut für Technische Bildung und Hochschuldidaktik der Technischen Universität Hamburg (BMBF-Projekt „BRIDGING“ und „JOIN“)
• 10/2014 - 12/2017: Studentische Hilfskraft am Institut für Romanistik der Universität Hamburg (DFG-Einzelprojekt „Clitic Doubling Across Romance“ von Prof. Susann Fischer, Prof. Esther Rinke)

Dative Experiencer Psych Verbs in (Old) French
Betreuerin: Prof. Dr. Susann Fischer (University of Hamburg)

Psychological verbs or psych verbs (PVs) are verbs that express mental or emotional concepts and have an argument bearing the theta role Experiencer. PVs represent a phenomenon that has been discussed for decades as they are a heterogeneous verb class with an unstable argument structure and different syntactic constructions. There are large differences within the (Romance) languages, synchronically as well as diachronically. According to Belletti & Rizzi (1988), dative Experiencer psych verbs (Dat.Exp.PVs) form one of three classes of PVs. This class is characterized by the fact that the dative Experiencer object (Dat.Exp) can occupy a preverbal position. This non-canonical use is possible in Latin and some Modern Romance languages, e.g. in Spanish, as in (1):

(1)     A Ana                   le                gusta                el   chocolate.    

to Anne.OBJ      CL.DAT     like-3SG            the chocolate

'Anna likes chocolate.'

In Old French (OF), the preverbal Dat.Exp can also be found, as shows in Mathieu’s (2006: 2) example in (2):

 (2)    Et           bien set                qu’             a sa mere                       plest               que […]

And       well know-3SG  that           to his mother.OBJ        please-3SG   that

'And she knows well that her mother likes that […]'

In Modern French, this structure is ungrammatical: the Dat.Exp can occupy the preverbal position only by topicalisation or dislocation with doubling (cf. Fischer 2019), as in (3):

(3)     A Marie,              la musique classique  lui                               plaît.

to Mary.OBJ       the music    classic        PRN.DAT                   please-3SG

'Marie likes classic music.'

In OF, however, the non-canonical preverbal position of Dat.Exp is common (Mathieu 2006), which raises the question why it is not possible anymore. This dissertation investigates the reason for this loss and opens a new perspective in the debate on OF Dat.Exp.PVs linking language change to language processing. It examines the three elements involved in PV constructions: the verb, the object and the subject. This dissertation provides a thorough quantitative data analysis on the MCVF-PPCHF accounting for the development of the syntactic position of Dat.Exp in the history of French. Within this analysis, the distribution of Dat.Exp.PVs across their different meanings and argument structures is examined. It is demonstrated that Dat.Exp.PVs can be divided into two groups according to their semantics, providing psych notions next to non-psych notions. The main focus of the quantitative analysis lies on the dative object and on the morphosyntactic factors it may be influenced by. A comparison of Dat.Exp of PVs with dative objects of regular verbs is carried out, indicating that they behave differently in several respects. The discussion of the data starts from the assumption that markedness in terms of complexity plays an important role in language change. Additionally, it is assumed that the acquisition of dative objects and the processing of the theta role Experiencer are difficult. Based on the empirical findings of the data analysis, it is argued that there is a competition between the so-called Experiencer-first effect and the subject-first effect, which is won by the latter. More precisely, it is put forward that these effects have an impact on word order change and that the weakening of the Experiencer-first effect is responsible for the loss of preverbal Dat.Exp in OF. Thus, processing reasons seem to be responsible for the fact that this construction does not exist in Modern French anymore.

This dissertation also provides a qualitative analysis in terms of a sketch of some PVs. It investigates the omission of the preposition à with some Dat.Exp.PVs. In order to answer the question what the omitted à tells us about the verb and the object, the semantic meaning of the PVs is taken as starting point. The qualitative data analysis clearly shows that the use of à does not only depend on the psych meaning of a PV, as there are several cases where it is omitted although the psych interpretation is straightforward. For these cases, I have identified possible reasons for the omission of the preposition. This suggests that à does not indicate dative case in a reliable way.

Vorträge

• (2025) „A Fresh Look at an Old Language: Empirical Evidence for Word Order Change in Earlier Stages of French”, Symposium on Empirical Approaches to Meaning and Structure (SEAMS), University of Cyprus, 21.-23.11.2025.
• (2025) „Diachronic Paths of the Dative Experiencer“ mit Jorge Vega Vilanova, XXIV Congreso de la Asosiación Alemana de Hispanistas. Dinámicas de transferencias e hibridación. Universität Hamburg, 11.-15.3.2025.
• (2023) „Intergenerational transmission of an endangered language: The case of Bulgarian Judeo-Spanish“ mit Jorge Vega Vilanova, 8th Bucharest Colloquium of Language Acquisition, Universität Bukarest, 16.-18.11.2023.
• (2023) „Dative Experiencer Psych Verbs in Old French – A New Method for an Old Language“, Workshop on Psych Predicates in Romance Languages, HHU Düsseldorf, 20.-22.9.2023.
• (2023) „Dative Experiencer Psych Verbs in Old French“, International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL26), Universität Heidelberg, 4.-8.9.2023.
• (2023) „Dative Experiencer Psych Verbs in Old French“, 8th Naxos Summer School on Diachronic Linguistics, Naxos (Griechenland), 22.-29.7.23.
• (2023) „Dative Experiencer Psych Verbs in Old French – Data and Method“, Kolloquium am Institut für Linguistik/Romanistik, Universität Stuttgart, 21.6.2023.
• (2023) „Les verbes psychologiques avec un expérimenteur au datif en Ancien Français“, Colloque de la Société Internationale de Diachronie du Français (SIDF), München, 22.-24.3.2023.
• (2022) „Psychische Verben mit Dativ-Experiencer im (Alt)Französischen“, LIMES-Kolloquium 2022, online, 30.-31.3.2022.
• (2017) „Clitic Doubling als Schnittstellenphänomen. Eine Untersuchung zu spanisch-deutsch-bilingualen Sprechern”, XXXV. Romanistentag, Zürich, 7.-12.10.2017
• (2017) „Traces of Sephardic Bucharest“, 6. Sephardische Sommerschule, Halberstadt, 26.8.-2.9.2017.

Publikationen

• In Press. Brinkmann, Lisa Marie & Barth-Chiotoroiu, Ioana & Figura, Lisa & Gerwers, Franziska & Jonigk, Sabrina & Wegener, Hannah (eds.): Kritische Perspektiven in der Romanistik - Beiträge zum 39. Forum Junge Romanistik in Hamburg (20.-22. März 2024). AVM – Akademische Verlagsgemeinschaft.
• Vega Vilanova, Jorge & Figura, Lisa (2025): “Intergenerational Transmission of an Endangered Heritage Language: The Case of Bulgarian Judeo-Spanish” In Veronica Tomescu & Anca Sevcenco (eds.): Language Acquisition at the Syntax-Discourse and Semantic-Pragmatics Interfaces by Monolingual, Bilingual and Heritage Language Speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• In Press. “Dative Experiencer psych verbs in Old French – the role of the preposition à”. In Elga Cremades Cortiella & Rolf Kailuweit & Niklas Wiskandt (eds.): Psych Predicates in Romance languages. Venice: Ca’Foscari University Press.
• (2020) „Strategische Ansätze der Bundesländer zur Digitalisierung in der Hochschulbildung.“ Mit Christiane Arndt. Hamburg: TUHH Universitätsbibliothek. doi: 10.15480/882.2060.2
• (2019) „Überblick über Landeshochschulinitiativen zur Digitalisierung“. Mit Christiane Arndt und Dr. Tina Ladwig. Hamburg: TUHH Universitätsbibliothek. doi: 10.15480/882.2387.4