»Ich bin (am) arbeiten.« Eine semantisch-funktionale Analyse von »Absentiv« und am-Progressiv in der Kurznachrichtenkommunikation

Abstract

By drawing on methodological approaches from the field of interactional linguistics (Günthner & Imo 2006; Imo Lanwer 2019), this article concentrates on the tension between the so-called absentive (de Groot 2000) and the am-progressive in German messenger communication. To what extent can both verbal constructions be compared and differentiated from a semantic and functional perspective in interactional contexts? An absentive expression ([NP][seinFIN][INF]) »Ich bin arbeiten« (engl. »I am working«) usually occurs as an answer to the question »Where are you?« and implies the absence of the respective referent, while at the same time conveying an imperfective-progressive aspect of the concerned activity. The progressive construction ([am] [NP][seinFIN][INF]) »Ich bin am arbeiten« (engl. »I am working«) is often associated with the enduring character of the activity. While there has been an increasing interest in the study of progressive constructions in German (van Pottelberge 2004; Krause 2002; Flick & Kuhmichel 2013; Ramelli 2015; Ebert 1996), scholars have yet to pay attention to a usage-based and conversational analytic approach to the formats [NP][seinFIN][INF] and [am] [NP][seinFIN][INF]. This article consists of an explorative analysis of both constructions by focusing on empirical data from the internet-based databanks Mobile Communication Database (MoCoDa) 1 and 2, collected between 2012 and 2022. As such, we aim to interpret the absentive and am-progressive constructions according to different dimensions, i. e., semantic-functionally and interactional-dialogically.