“...wie in einem schweren Traum versinkend”:participi presenti tra indefinitezza e complessità nella raccolta Ein Landarzt di Kafka

This essay offers a linguistic analysis of the use of present participles contained in Franz Kafka’s short story collection Ein Landarzt and shows the key role played by these forms in constructing the dreamlike dimension thanks to their temporal indeterminacy and their formal complexity. Through a combined quantitative and qualitative linguistic investigation, this essay aims to show how both simple and extended participle constructions contribute to the syntactic complexity in Kafka’s prose. The analysis aligns with a line of research at the intersection between linguistic and literary studies, and demonstrates the potential of grammatical-linguistic approach when applied to literary texts.