Ein „Sprachwandel der Vergangenheit“ – eine Erwerbshürde für italophone DaF-Lernende. Was bietet die diachrone Perspektive der didaktischen Vermittlung der deutschen Syntax?

This paper focuses on the structure of the German Satzklammer and the difficulties Italian students of German as a foreign language encounter in learning this structure. Consequently, it raises the question of which teaching strategies can clarify the systematic nature of German sentence structure and develop students’ linguistic awareness. After outlining the typical syntactic characteristics of German productions by Italian-speaking students (Chapter 2), the essay presents a teaching proposal for university-level linguistics courses. This proposal introduces the German Satzklammer from two perspectives: first, in contrast with Italian from a synchronic perspective (Chapter 3), and second, in comparison with Old High German from a diachronic perspective (Chapter 4). The final section discusses the heuristic and didactic potential of a description of German syntax based on the integration of synchronic and diachronic perspectives (Chapter 5).