Absentivkonstruktionen in italienischen und deutschen Interaktionen : Ein korpusbasierter Sprachvergleich

In recent studies, it has been proposed to classify the fixed verb combination [NPan] [seinfin] [Vact inf] (e.g., Hans ist essen) in German as the progressive aspect form known as absentive. The function of expressing an ongoing action in the absence of the person encoded in the subject role has been posited as an universal grammatical category. In Italian it takes the form [NPan][essere fin] [a] [Vact inf] as in Gianni è a mangiare (de Groot 2000, 693). This paper aims to capture these complex verbal constructions in corpora of spoken German (FOLK) and Italian (VoLIP), analyze their structure, and describe their pragmatic functions in specific interactions on the theoretical basis of (interactional) construction grammar. This also involves establishing a connection with other fixed grammatical and lexical verb combinations, namely the progressive forms in German ([NPan] [sein fin] [am] [Vinf]) and Italian ([NP] [stare fin] [Vger]). Finally, the similarities and differences of this construction in German and Italian are contrastively highlighted, with a particular focus on the close connection between locative, temporal, and aspectual meanings of this construction, as identified through corpus evidence.