Aspektualität und Verbkomposition. Der Fall herum + Verb

This paper examines the German verb particle herum considering its pre-verbal function in those verb combinations where it seems to loose its directional- circular meaning (i.e. er fuhr ständig um die Siegessaule herum) in order to convey a lexicalized meaning (Bopst, 1989) such as “unplanned”, “without a precise aim” (see Duden Grammatik, 2005). When herum has this meaning it does not only act on the semantics of the base verb in order to develop a completely new meaning. It functions instead as a lexical modifier that tends to characterise its actionality in terms of “repetition”, “indefinite duration”, “iterativity” (see Krause, 2003). Referring to concrete examples taken from different internet texts, this article aims to consider the great productivity of those verbs where herum seems to express a merely durative or iterative meaning. Although this phanomenon cannot yet be considered as completely lexicalized in contemporary German, it still represents an interesting morphological device to express imperfective aspectuality.