Wie Funktionen ihre Formen finden (und umgekehrt)

Abstract

One tried - in the 18th century - to optimize the relation between the number of nominal casus of German and the set of semantic categories of which the argument structures of sentences are formed. In spite of only four different case forms, six case positions were used. These are functional categories which, as tertia comparationis, are suitable to shed light on the functional load of the (present) formal cases - especially the dative – and the importance of different kinds of prepositional phrases.