This paper is concerned with the syntactic properties of hypothetical comparison clauses (¼ HCCs) in German. These are introduced either by als (‘as’) or wie (‘how’); for example, Ben fährt Rad, {als wenn er betrunken wäre / als ob er betrunken wäre / als wäre er betrunken / wie wenn er betrunken wäre} (‘Ben is cycling as if he were drunk’). I argue that als in als-HCCs contributes a prepositional C-head that involves idiosyncratic selectional restrictions regarding the embedded conditional clause. HCCs with wie, by contrast, are treated as by and large ordinary free relative clauses; what sets them apart from other free relative clauses is that their initial wh-phrase is extracted from an empty VP, which is licensed by the explicit conditional antecedent. The proposed analyses are backed up by evidence from the following sources: (i) the behavior of HCCs with regard to diagnostics for (dis) integration/subordination as opposed to coordination, (ii) basic semantic properties of HCCs, and (iii) structural contrasts between HCCs introduced by als and HCCs introduced by wie. I spell out the proposals in terms of Sternefeld’s (2006) featuredriven lexicalist syntax model.

This paper addresses the compositional semantics of hypothetical comparison clauses (= HCCs) in German. HCCs are introduced by either wie ('how') or als ('as'); for example, Ben fährt Rad, {wie wenn er betrunken wäre / als wenn er betrunken wäre / als ob er betrunken wäre / als wäre er betrunken} ('Ben is cycling as if he were drunk'). I argue for the following hypotheses: (i) Based on an explicit conditional antecedent, HCCs license the interpolation of hypothetical scenarios that give rise to an equivalence relation between entities provided by these scenarios and the given explicit matrix information. (ii) The equivalence relation may hold either between particularized properties (e.g., manners) of hypothetical events and the given matrix event (= V-HCCs), or between hypothetical topic situations and the matrix situation against which the given matrix clause as a whole is evaluated (= S-HCCs). The proposed semantic distinction is traced back to a structural contrast and, thus, is compositionally motivated: V-HCCs relate to the verbal head of the matrix clause, while S-HCCs are non-integrated CP-adjuncts. (iii) Both wie and als lexically encode the relevant mediating equivalence relation; while HCCs with wie allow a regular compositional interpretation in terms of by and large ordinary free relative clauses, als projects rather idiosyncratic semantic (and syntactic) properties.

In contrasting newly coined lexical and phrasal adjective-noun combinations as e.g. Blautee (‘blue_tea’) versus blauer Tee (‘blue tea’), the present paper argues in favour of a different semantic make-up of phrasal versus lexical modification in German. Whereas the former triggers direct modification along the lines of ordinary predicate modification, the latter involves a mediating free variable to be instantiated at the conceptual level. The analysis accounts for interpretational differences between phrasal and lexical adjectival modification in the cases of incompatible attribution and negation. Furthermore, the proposal made here supports the assumption of a particular naming function of lexical units. Additional evidence will be drawn from the observation that non-predicative adjectives and comparatives are ruled out in adjective-noun compounds and that adjectives projected word-internally contribute atemporal properties. Finally, it is shown that despite the particular naming function of lexical units a straightforward identification of lexical adjective-noun structures with kind-referring expressions is too strong a conclusion.

Modification is a combinatorial semantic operation between a modifier and a modifiee. Take, for example, vegetarian soup: the attributive adjective vegetarian modifies the nominal modifiee soup and thus constrains the range of potential referents of the complex expression to soups that are vegetarian. Similarly, in Ben is preparing a soup in the camper, the adverbial in the camper modifies the preparation by locating it. Notably, modifiers can have fairly drastic effects; in fake stove, the attribute fake induces that the complex expression singles out objects that seem to be stoves, but are not. Intuitively, modifiers contribute additional information that is not explicitly called for by the target the modifier relates to. Speaking in terms of logic, this roughly says that modification is an endotypical operation; that is, it does not change the arity, or logical type, of the modified target constituent. Speaking in terms of syntax, this predicts that modifiers are typically adjuncts and thus do not change the syntactic distribution of their respective target; therefore, modifiers can be easily iterated (see, for instance, spicy vegetarian soup or Ben prepared a soup in the camper yesterday). This initial characterization sets modification apart from other combinatorial operations such as argument satisfaction and quantification: combining a soup with prepare satisfies an argument slot of the verbal head and thus reduces its arity (see, for instance, *prepare a soup a quiche). Quantification as, for example, in the combination of the quantifier every with the noun soup, maps a nominal property onto a quantifying expression with a different distribution (see, for instance, *a every soup). Their comparatively loose connection to their hosts renders modifiers a flexible, though certainly not random, means within combinatorial meaning constitution. The foundational question is how to work their being endotypical into a full-fledged compositional analysis. On the one hand, modifiers can be considered endotypical functors by virtue of their lexical endowment; for instance, vegetarian would be born a higher-ordered function from predicates to predicates. On the other hand, modification can be considered a rule-based operation; for instance, vegetarian would denote a simple predicate from entities to truth-values that receives its modifying endotypical function only by virtue of a separate modification rule. In order to assess this and related controversies empirically, research on modification pays particular attention to interface questions such as the following: how do structural conditions and the modifying function conspire in establishing complex interpretations? What roles do ontological information and fine-grained conceptual knowledge play in the course of concept combination?

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