Funktionsvielfalt und Funktionserweiterung: Zu haben im Deutschen
Functional variety and extension of the functional field: on haben in German language

Summary/Abstract: The present paper highlights the sui generis character of the ubiquitous verb haben, which displays a broad spectrum of heterogeneous functions in contemporary German, starting with the expression of possession, going through existence, locality and characteristic assignment, continuing with its desemanticised use in fixed expressions and idioms and ending with its auxiliary role for the perfective aspect and for modal obligation. Having undergone several metaphorical transfers and grammaticalisation processes, the word has changed more and more into a mere connective item, establishing an unspecified relation between two entities. Haben-sentence patterns are canonical transitive structures, although the verb is neither grammatically, nor semantically a transitive one. Utterances with haben prove to be basically grammaticalised structures of the general linguistic strategy of person prominence, in which the human being is encoded in topical position as grammatical subject of the sentence.

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