Enantiosemic Syntactic Constructions with als würde in German

Abstract

This paper discusses the grammatical tense form Konjunktiv II and its use in enantiosemic syntactic constructions with the als würde component. The concept of enantiosemy at the syntactic level in the German language and the concept of asymmetry in syntactic constructions are investigated. The research material included fiction in German and examples from the German DWDS corpus. The main content of the work is the analysis of enantiosemic syntactic constructions with als würde. The following methods were used: comparison and analysis of the structural and semantic features of enantiosemic syntactic constructions and contextual analysis. During the  research, syntactic models of sentences with enantiosemic meaning were identified, as well as conditions contributing to the development of their opposite meaning. The paper studied enantiosemic syntactic constructions in the form of complex sentences with an adverbial clause of comparison with als würde, including the verb of behaviour tun and verbs of impression aussehen, scheinen, klingen, as well as with the component es war in the main clause. The research revealed that enantiosemy, which is characterized by asymmetry of form and content, is inherent in these syntactic constructions. The analysis of enantiosemic syntactic constructions with als würde demonstrated that they do not require context in order to be recognized, since the discrepancy between grammatical form and content is inherent in the constructions, namely, in the adverbial clauses of comparison expressing an unreal action. According to the results, certain schemes of syntactic constructions with enantiosemic meaning can be introduced into scientific discourse, which can help identify such constructions in the German language and facilitate further research into the issues of German semantics, stylistics, and syntax.