Cohesive substitution in English and German 227
(64) Für sie sind wir die beiden Hübschen, aber Dummen. Es reichen ein
Augenrucken und die Andeutung eines Lächelns, um sich über dergleichen
zu verständigen. [GO_FICTION]
(65) ... ist da vor allem der Marmorsaal im Kursaalgebäude zu nennen. Für Kenner
der Geschichte eine fast “heilige” Kulturstätte, in der sich schon Kaiser und
gekrönte Oberhäupter aus aller Welt dem sinnlichen Kulturgenuss hingaben.
Gleiches gilt für das Kurtheater nebenan, ... [GO_TOU]
In addition, genauso is also used with vague scope and no substitution of a par-
ticular preceding form:
(66) ...‘n Schwamm saugt sich voll mit Wasser, genauso unser Aktivkohlefilter, ...
(GO-INTERVIEW)
All these forms are also used cataphorically, which may be a result of their deictic
character.
The form so exhibits the greatest frequency of all substitute items in German,
partly dependent on register. Employed cataphorically, so is mainly traced in the
register of instruction manuals:
(67) So verlassen Sie den Vollbildmodus: Drücken Sie die Esc-Taste ...
[GTRANS_INSTR]
To exit Full Screen view: Press Escape ... [EO_INSTR]
Altogether, functionality and linguistic structure seem to be more clearly associ-
ated in English than in German. The specific relation of type reference seems to
be established in German more frequently by ad hoc constructions than by fixed
structural formulas.
- Summary, explanations, future work
Our contrastive account of substitution in English and German shows that lexico-
grammatical means of its realization have evolved in both languages, although
the category in the precise meaning used here hardly figures in the literature on
German. As summarized in Table 3, not only does nominal substitution exist in
German, it is also more finely differentiated than in English, as is the bottom
category ‘generalized’ substitution. On the other hand, verbal and clausal sub-
stitution do not exist in German in the strict sense, as the realizations are on the
borderline between lexical cohesion in the case of general verbs and extended
comparative reference (with adverbials such as dergleichen, genauso, etc.). Another
alternative in German is ellipsis. Of these options, lexical cohesion and reference