New publication by Juliane Wettmann, Jana Hasenäcker and Frank Domahs

Easy-to-read German (Leichte Sprache) is a linguistic variety used to improve the comprehensibility of texts for a target group with specific needs. Guidelines for the use of easy-to-read German advise, among other things, the avoidance of the genitive and recommend substituting it with a datival phrase with von. This is debatable for two reasons: First, this strategy cannot be applied to all types of the genitive constructions and, second, its usefulness has not been empirically substantiated. Previous empirical studies on this subject suffered from methodical flaws and a lack of statistical power. By applying a reading comprehension test, the present study seeks to find out whether the use of a von-phrase instead of the genitive really holds advantages for reading comprehension. Thirty-seven adults with intellectual disabilities were asked to read 32 focus sentences, 16 containing a possessive genitive and the other 16 containing an analogous von-phrase. Participants’ comprehension regarding ownership or belonging as indicated in the sentences was examined through single-choice questions. The analysis of the responses showed that there were no significant differences in the understanding of the genitive and the von-phrase. This was independent from the salience of morphological case marking and from the length of the sentence. Furthermore, there was no evidence for an influence of individual reading abilities for words and pseudowords or individual reading frequency. These results question the need of a general rule to avoid genitives in Easy-to-read German.