CL Basics Flashcards
CL definition
DEF: “synchronic comparison of two languages with respect to a large number of linguistic structures (or parameters).” → work out similarities and differences
beginning stages of CL?
believe that foreign language learning is hindered by particular native language of the learner → structures that are different in L1 will be harder to learn in L2
CL aim: determine “potential sources of error” and: determine more effective methods of teaching
basic assumptions of this early approach
Assumptions:
L2 acquisition is different than L1 -> L2 will be learnt on basis of L1; and: some features will be easier than others
-> Then CAH popularity
What is CAH
Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis: Robert Lado 1957
transfer occurs from L1 to L2:
neg transfer: L2 differences to L1 will be more difficult due to L1 influence
similarities will create positive transfer > easier to learn
Types of negative transfer (CAH)
Substitution
Overdifferentiation
(Underdifferentiation)
Overrepresentation
(Underrepresentation)
CAH: Substitution
L2 features does not exist in L1, speaker substitutes it with closely resembling feature. Or direct translations:
e.g GER uses s/z/d for “th” or “v” for “wh-ile”
e.g. false friends
OR: false friends: I become a beer. If I would ask him, he would refuse
CAH Overdifferentiation
Tendency to overdifferentiate
Attempt to find L1 feature in L2 even though it doesn’t exist: GER Obst & Frucht vs. ENG fruit -> learner will be unsure if fruit is correct;
CAH Underdifferentiation
Tendency to underdifferentiate
L2 contrast does not exist in L1: ENG has shade / shadow contrast -> Ger person would just use one of them for both contexts / or misuse them in wrong context
CAH Over and underrepresentation
A structure does exist in both L1 or L2 but is more common in one language. → unidiomatic use, even for advanced learners
e.g.
overrepresentation: L1 structures will be over-used (e.g. finite subordinate clauses with introductory relative pronoun or adverbial subordinators: The man who is sitting there -> over representing complete relative clauses
instead of The man sitting there -> underrepresenting relative pronoun deletion
Or underrepresentation: typical L2 structures will be underused
Causes mere stylistic issues not full mistakes
Critical view on CAH
- mistakes can also come from similarities: e.g. English Perfect and deutsches - Haben-Perfekt (Ich habe es gesehen)
→ GER L1 speakers overuse perfect, because Perfekt is virtually the default past tense in spontaneous speech to retell narratives, Präteritum is not needed
→ ENG cannot use Perfect for narrative purposes, instead needs Simple Past
116 Also: empirical studies did not prove the claimed errors predicted by CAH, whilst frequent grammar mistakes were not predicted at all; CAH more useful for phonological mistakes
transfer only accounts for 50% of errors
CAH better for explaining some errors than claiming validity to its significance in predicting errors
CL and its related disciplines
diachronic counterpart: historical comparative linguistics (goal: reconstruct older stages of a language, or even proto-languages → language family trees)
CL works synchronically, as do also:
areal linguistics: study of languages in close proximity to each other which have developed similarities despite not being genetically related → e.g. Balkansprachbund: Romanian shares features with Bulgarian/Modern Greek but not with other Romance languages; or features which Bulgarian does not share with other Slavic languages
Language typology: counterpart to CL
goal: identify patterns among world’s languages, distinguish language types no matter of genetic relation or geography → study of large quantity of language according to a few parameters. (opposite to CL)
e.g. types: inflectional tendencies of a language, basic word order of part of speech
Commonalities Similarities ENG / GER
due to: both part of West Germanic language family
distinction of strong verbs (ENG: sing-sang-sung GER: gehen-ging-gegangen) and weak verbs (work-worked-worked / lieben-liebte-geliebt)
only 2 tenses marked by inflection of the verb stem: past (marked); and non-past (unmarked)
in simple, declarative sentences: finite verb comes in second position
in Questions: word oder V-S
Imperative: both languages usually omit subject. VO
“historically: increasing analyticity due to the loss of various inflectional morphemes”
Morphology: Word classes that do not inflect in both languages: adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions
major difference ENG / GER
“In English, the loss of inflectional morphology has resulted in a more rigid word order, which, in turn, causes a loosening of the mapping between semantic structure and grammatical form
general typological inflectional type difference:
GER: synthetic language (very inflectional)
ENG: analytic language (hardly any inflectional endings; nearly isolating)
Contrast in morphology (nouns / pronouns)
Eng: analytic, very few inflectional morphemes (loosefit)
Ger: synthetic language, very inflectional (tight fit)
Nouns:
GER: all 4 cases
ENG: common case, or marked for possessive
Pronouns:
GER: all 4 cases
ENG: Nom, Gen and objective: he-his-him; who-whose-whom → whom is even starting to disappear and speakers prefer the unmarked “who” form
Contrasts Agreement in NP
ENG Articles and adjectives are not marked for case at all → thus no concord/agreement within the noun phrase (aka between nominal head and the modifiers)
GER: case + gender + number:
eines alten Mannes -> genitive masc singular
Government contrasts
GER: verbs and prepositions demand certain case
e.g. gedenken + Genitiv: Ich gedenke ihrer
e.g. durch + Akkusative: Durch den Wald
e.g. aus + dativ: Aus dem Wald
ENG: no government:
through THE WOODS
out of THE WOODS
GER: adj can govern case:
schuldig: genitiv: Sie hat sich des Betrugs schuldig gemacht.
ähnlich: dativ: Sie ist ihrem Vater ähnlich
ENG: needs PP
She is guilty of this deed
She is similar to her father
MASTER LIST GER / ENG CONTRASTS
typological language type
case system: Noun phrase / Pronouns
Agreement in NP
Articles
Government verb
Word order: ENG needs grammatic SVO, GER can be pragmatic and front O
Information structure: ENG needs compensation strats:
It / pseudo clefts
ENG: semantic roles more free (unusual subjects)
ENG Passive (S in front); GER Object in front (no subject)
Transitivity
Reference tracking
Adverbials ordering (ENG: loc> temp; GER temp>loc)
ENG can postpone adjectives (the people present *Die Leute anwesend)
directionality
Adj inflection contrasts?
GER: strong and weak inflection
Buch (m) → ein schönes Buch vs das schöne Buch (m) ENG has lost this completely
Verb inflection (conjugation)
GER: person, number, tense, mood
Ger mood -> Konjunktiv I (sie komme), Konjunktiv II (sie käme)
ENG: tense, person + number only 3rd pers. sing; mood (only one left: If I were you)
Subjunctive replacements:
We demand that he leave (infinitive)
We demand that he should leave (modal verbs)
König / Gast: going against Hawkins
GER can be LOOSE fit too
While GER is inflectional, the actual suffixes added are not THAT many:
Only -es or -e in singular; but even -e is fading: dative “dem Mann(e)” “dem Haus(e)”
Only -er -n in plural -> which means the Noun gets not changed at all: die/den/der Jungen
Now; in terms of articles:
König/Gast say: at least there are 6 different articles (der, die, das, den, dem, des -> many forms, it needs to be specified, therefore it is tight, especially in combination with the right noun)
However: Now Hawkins says, only 6 forms serve 24 functions (4 cases, 3 genders, and plurals) -> that’s not very many forms thus there is syncretism here. Making GER loose fit
Case syncretism in GER?
Plural forms in all cases actually don’t show that many different inflectional forms:
If Plural ends in -en, then no difference in Noun:
Wer? Wen? -> die Mädchen / die Jungen
Wessen? Der Mädchen / Der Jungen
wem? Den Mädchen / Den Jungen
–> Mädchen/Jungen stays the same. Only article changes, but not always
Also: Genitive is disappearing
Basic word orders?
ENG: strictly SVO
The father gave his child a present.
GER: SVO in main most typical, SOV in sub clauses
But Ger can also do OVSO:
Ein Geschenk gab der Vater seinem Kind.
Seinem Kind gab der Vater ein Geschenk.
Subject contrasts?
GER: can have subject-less sentences
Jetzt wird aber geschlafen!
Ihm wurde geholfen.
ENG strictly needs a subject, has dummy subject “existential it / there” constructions:
It’s raining, There are children.
ENG consequences of fixed word order?
Compensation strategies to achieve discourse-pragmatic effects
Constituents have greater mobility across clause boundaries = fused constructions / argument
trespassing → clause boundaries melt together
looser connection between form and meaning → context becomes more crucial to determine the meaning of a sentence
pragmatic word order vs grammatic word order ?
GER: pragmatic -> new information can be placed last
Wer hat dir das Buch geschenkt?
Das Buch hat mir meine Schwester geschenkt.
(Not necessary to say: Meine Schwester hat mir das Buch geschenkt)
ENG: information structuring has to take a backseat to word order: Who gave you the book?
My sister gave me the book.
(preferred would be to have old information at the end)
(Cant say: The book gave me my sister)
Information structure problem: Who crashed your car?
John crashed my car -> dispreferred, New info “John” is better to be placed LAST; But English can’t have: My car crashed John.
Thus: English has Information structure compensation strategies: Focusing construction:
Base sentence: John crashed my car.
It-cleft: It was John who crashed my car.
-> John is now at the end of the main clause.
If cleft: It was my car, which John crashed
Or pseudocleft: if focus is supposed to put on car:
What did John crash?
What John crashed is my car. (not my bike)
Passive contrasts
GER can put object in front; Eng needs to use passive:
Mich brachte mein Freund nach Hause.
I was brought home by my friend.
Mir gab meine Schwester ein Buch.
I was given a book by my sister.
However, ENG also has way more passive use:
This car has been meddled with
AN diesem Auto wurde herumgeschraubt (Adverbial moved to front, but car isnt subject, there is no subject)
GER does not need subject for passive:
Ihm wurde viel Geld angeboten (but needs dative object)
ENG: He was offered a lot of money (he is subject)
Unusual subjects English:
Subjects can have unusual semantic roles in ENG (GER S is usually the agent)
The room seats 40 people. S = a place
The bucket was leaking water. S = the source
This ad will sell us a lot. S = instrument
Tomorrow will be rather cold S = Time
Unusual Objects ENG
They fled the capital (Source)
He threatened violence (Instrument)
Transitivity
ENG has developed additional transitive meanings (in originally in transitive verbs = still in GER)
intr: 1) to stand trans: 2) to stand someone/something against the wall; -> GER needs “stellen”
intr: 1) to run 2) trans: run a horse in a race
Fused constructions:
also called Argument trespassing (across clause boundaries from subordinate clause to main clause) -> two sentences become one
I believe that she is a nice person → Ssub > Omain
→ I believe her to be a nice person (S raised)
It so happened that he knew the answer → Ssub > Smain → He happened to know the answer (S raised)
It is boring to read this book → Osub > Smain → This book is boring to read (O raised)
Ambiguity in ENG due to loss of case markings
due to loss of inflection: a decreasing number of forms had to carry an increasing load of linguistic function (= syncretism)
Er sprang auf DEN Tisch: He jumped on the table
Er sprang auf DEM Tisch (herum): He jumped on the table (same structure)
Reversed occasions where ENG is tight fit and GER loose?
Lexic: ENG has many foreign borrowings thus varied word stock expressing fine differences:
GER: Dunst & Nebel
ENG: fog, mist, haze -> 3 terms
GER: does compounding as word formation:
Schreibtisch. Kaffeetisch. Tisch. -> tisch has many functions (called association)
ENG: due to borrowings: Table / Desk -> two forms (dissociations)
Pronouns: Ger has double “sie”:
third pers sing female and third person plural
ENG: has two forms: she and they
Not complete reversal: Only GER being loose:
in case of predicative adjectives: they do not inflect
Es ist groß Der ist groß Wir sind groß
But: ein großer Baum, ein großes Pferd
(ENG also loose because adj don’t inflect at all)
GER is ambiguous after negative adverbials:
Noch nicht einmal vor einem Jahr, kam man rein, ohne zu bezahlen. -> outraged tone: a year ago, you could get in without paying
-> disappointed tone: you’ve always had to pay
ENG Loose fit - Ger tight in Lexis
semantic extension of Germanic words in ENG: can be seen in collocations: do goes with conceptually more things:
do: 1. tun/machen do homework
do: 2. rechnen: to do sums
set: 1. ein Satz/Gruppe: a set of teeth
set: 2. TV set
Put on -> GER: aufsetzen, aufziehen, anziehen, umbinden…
To know - wissen / kennen / können
Also: ENG objects can take more semantic roles:
dig: 1. a hole -> effected: hole is a result
dig: 2. the ground -> affected: ground has been changed
-> GER needs to make this difference specific
Another example: to paint (a wall / a picture) vs. ein Bild malen / eine Wand streichen
Word formation process of Conversion:
conversion typical for ENG, very loose-fit
ENG: does not change base form: adjective (a round ball), noun (first round), particle (look ‘round)
Contrast word formation processes
ENG: dissociation: with foreign influence, many different types of words for related objects:
table / desk
town / city
GER does association instead: one base form with added meaning:
Tisch / Schreibtisch
Stadt / Großstadt
But there is a reverse example:
ENG: brush - paintbrush
GER: Bürste - PINSEL (not Malbürste)
König/ Gast “massive syncretism” Where?
Say this about actual inflectional morphemes in GER: only a few different ones:
Only genitive -es in singular (dative -e is fading)
and -er -n in plural
But combination of article and noun leaves only 3 cases of ambiguity:
Die Puppe (nominative and accusative singular female)
Der Puppe (dativ and genitiv singular female)
Das Haus (Nominativ and accusativ)
Morphological tight fit phenomenon between article X gender X Plural
Nouns which have zero morpheme plural forms will always be either male or neutral, BUT NEVER female. Why?
Plural article is “die” for all gendered words; since it is also the singular female article, plural female words would not be distinguished; therefore all plural female words need to have a plural marker
Die Hose - Die HoseN
Der Bohrer - DIE Bohrer
Flügel, Kabel, Computer, Leiter…
Reference tracking
Ger has distinct possessive and demonstrative pronouns, therefore it can track reference:
Maria liebt ihre Oma und ihre Freunde (Marias).
Maria liebt ihre Oma und deren Freunde (Omas)
ENG: Maria loves her Grandma and her friends
-> her is ambiguous
Er sah seinen Bruder mit seiner Frau.
Er sah seinen Bruder mit dessen Frau.
He sah his brother with his wife.
-> His is ambiguous
Plural morphological contrasts
GER -e -en -er -s [zero] -> 5 plural morphemes
ENG: only -s BUT 3 phonetic realisations (s z iz)
but also: -ren, -en, ablaut (foot-feet), zero marking (fish)
Adj inflection in ENG
do not inflect, But there are adverbs: -ly suffix
But: debate whether its derivational word formation or actual inflectional morpheme:
suffix changes word class → argument for derivational
suffix can be added to any adjective whenever adverb is needed → seems more like inflection
Comparative and superlative
Ger: very regular: addition of -er and -en
ENG: similar: -er and -est
But also: periphrastic / analytical mechanism:
(beautiful - more beautiful - most beautiful) → younger phenomenon, shows tendency towards loss of inflection
ENG mood forms
indicative = basically always used.
One true subjunctive left: If I were…
Instead is used:
plain indicative: God save the queen. I insist that he go.
past form: If you had known this, you…
modal verb: It’s only natural that he should despise his followers
Universality of -ing
(very typically loose-fit of English)
creates forms that are identically morphologically, but differ semantically/syntactically
adjective: interesting
noun: No reading of poetry is good enough for her
gerund: Reading is fun
progressive aspect: I am reading
Preposition: Concerning you application…
Adjunct construction: Walking down the river, he saw…
Hawkins says ENG is SUbset of GER. True?
Generally yes. But GER does not have:
-ly adverbs
gender, person, number distinguished reflexive pronouns: myself, yourself
and progressive aspect
Contrast subject and agreement
ENG The problem is the students. (not the problem are)
GER Das Problem SIND die Studenten -> Subject is the Students, verb needs to be plural.
Similar:
ENG allows There’s five people in the room.
GER strictly plural. Da sind 5 Leute
Word order contrasts: verb with one argument
Verbs with one argument: nominative Subject
ENG: I am sleeping; Ger too: Ich schlafe
But GER can also do:
Mich friert (accusative)
Mir ist kalt (dative)
Worder order ENG:
Constituent order options in ENG when there are two objects:
indirect object then direct object:
-> he gave her a new hat (recipient before theme)
Simple NP then prepositional phrase:
John blamed Bill (NP) for the accident (PP)
John blamed the accident (NP) on Bill (PP)
UNLESS NP is too heavy!
-> John blamed for the accident (PP) the man who had run the red light (heavy NP)
More weight principle:
*Give the young lady (recipient) me as a husband -> ME is too light because it is a pronominal object.
Therefore: Give ME to the young lady as a husband: light theme goes first, recipient has to become a PP
Basic word order exposed:
Exclamatives:
Him write a novel? SVO
Er und einen Roman schreiben? SOV
Basic word order in GER
Finite verb second (Er hat in seinem Bett geschlafen)
Subclause word order is actually more “basic” in a way than the main clause order because all clause types can be derived from subclause order:
Ich glaube, (main)
dass Karl gestern seinem Sohn ein Fahrrad geschenkt hat.
-> question: move hat to the front:
Hat Karl gestern seinem Sohn ein Fahrrad geschenkt?
Then: topic-fronting creates all possible sentences:
Karl hat gestern seinem Sohn ein Fahrrad geschenkt.
Seinem Sohn hat Karl gestern ein Fahrrad geschenkt
Ein Fahrrad hat Karl gestern seinem Sohn geschenkt.
Gestern hat Karl seinem Sohn ein Fahrrad geschenkt.
Geschenkt hat Karl gestern seinem Sohn ein Fahrrad.
Therefore German word order is actually:
TOPIC VERB REST
Which types of inversion does ENG have
(and GER restrictions)
- inversion to encode questions, conditionals, exclamatives
(Had he seen this? He had seen it
Had he known this, he would have…
Isnt it wonderful!)
GER has these too: Hat er das gesehen? Hätte er das gewusst, Ist das nicht toll?
BUT: ENG can only invert auxiliary verbs, GER can do both:
Kennst du seinen Sohn?
Know you his Sohn? -> needs do support - Inversion after negative adverbials:
Never have I ever gone to the zoo
Not even a year ago could you get in.
BUT: if no inversion is made, then to show difference in meaning: Not even a year ago, you could go in
GER DOES NOT HAVE THIS MECHANISM -> is ambiguous - Inversion of indirect speech
ENG can have both: “…” said the man. “…” the man said.
Ger only has “…” sagte der Mann.
-> Ger has conserved its order, ENG shows need to put Subject before any verb; or its a whole post-poned phrase.
Adverbial ordering
End of sentence:
ENG: I met him at the trainstation yesterday .(loc>temp)
GER: I traf ihn gestern am Bahnhof (temp>loc)
Beginning:
ENG matches GER: Yesterday in London, I met my friend
(these examples seem off: I would totally say yesterday at the trainstation but maybe I’m just wrong)
If more adverbials: Ger and Eng seem in reversal
She has worked on the boat with great care in the garden the whole time today
Sie hat heute die ganze Zeit mit großer Sorgfalt an ihrem Boot gearbeitet
-> the closer the adverbials are logically to the verb, the closer they are to it.
Ambiguity in Eng negation:
Not is fixed in ENG: after verb
GER it can change position and express scope:
Der Professor hat mit einem Studenten nicht gesprochen.
Der Professor hat nicht mit einem Studenten gesprochen
Both in ENG: The professor hat not talked to a single student.
Hawkins influenced by Chomsky
Chomsky tries to finding the basic building blocks to formulate all possible language utterances
UG as recent focus in grammatical / theory research → finding regularities common to all languages
Chomsky’s method, and other UG searchers:
analysis, in depth description of one language, e.g. English → since UG is foundation of all languages, it can be found via just one language
But: other researchers felt analysis of just one language for UG is not enough, comparative approach instead: CL, Hawkins wants to offer GER/ENG as two most studied systems
Hawkins believes UG should exist: mathematical combination of all word order possibilities is very high -> but actual typological word order types are way less (SVO as big standard), thus there must be an underlying force
Why does Hawkins deem ENG / GER suitable for comparison:
Both genetically close related (West Germanic language)
Contrasts can be compiled into “grand topic areas”: morphology, syntax; they go deep into basics of the language, Not just a few superficial contrasts here and there
And: Unity of contrast principle: “Where the surface structures (morphology and syntax) of English and German contrast, English regularly exhibits greater ‘distance’ between form and meaning in specifiable ways”
ENG loose - GER tight
What is Hawkins’ main claim:
“Where the surface structures (morphology and syntax) of English and German contrast, English regularly exhibits greater ‘distance’ between form and meaning in specifiable ways”
Hawkins’ main claim thus: relationship between from and their meaning is looser in ENG than in GER; Ger structure retains more to a “logical-semantic” structure
Historical motivation: ENG is drifting faster away from common ancestry. Started by a change in stress pattern, that caused case system corrosion and that in turn caused fixing of word order
Hawkins’ form and meaning relation in GER/ ENG
Eng: simplified forms; fixed word order (no inflection) results in more functions that have to be served (by those fewer, and simpler forms) → loose-fit, ambiguous form/meaning mapping
GER: more complex forms (with inflection) results in less ambiguous distribution of function onto them → tight-fit; simpler form/meaning mapping
VERB Syncretism in Morphological system, Hawkins
Sees ENG as clearly full of syncretism; e.g. VERB
only three forms: say, says and past said
GER: all person inflect, only 3 forms are repeated
(er sagt / ihr sagt, wir sagen / sie sagen, wir sagten / sie sagten)
Pronoun syncretism Hawkins
GER: du dich dir ihr euch Sie Ihnen
ENG: you
7:1
directionality Contrast
GER: woher? Wohin? ENG: where / where
-> ENG verb has to make up for loss of article inflection:
Where do you live? (wo), live = static word, no direction
Where are you going? (Wohin) go = activity verb, has direction
also:
Hinter dem Tisch / Hinter den Tisch -> ENG: ambiguous behind the table
Kortmann and CL for L2 teaching. Main ideas:
CAH has been debunked/neglected
But: Kortmann still believes in teaching application of CL
reasons:
COUNTERACTING TRANSFER: (underrepresentation)
L2 learners (advanced too), majorly have to deal with “inhibitive” interference: underusing/avoiding typical L2 (not typical in L1)
→CL describes contrast in L1/2
-> results for demonstration / attention for learners;
-> CL with focus on typologically contrastive language (e.g. GER synthetic vs ENG analytic) can help showing how much inhibitive transfer there is to be expected
TYPOLOGICAL INSIGHTS FOR CL
future L2 teachers can be helped to see the forest instead of just mere trees with a birds eye view given by typology: Contrasts are due to deeper language characters:
ENG grammar features are the way they are due to analytic language type
GER grammar features are the way they are due to inflectional language
Kortmann: how does typology affect Cl?
Mutual relation of typology and CL:
Generally: typology regards 40-50 languages according to a single or very few parameters
CL on the other hand regards 2-3 languages in all their features
how do these work together?
→ typology offers hints/ideas for closer inspection of two languages
→ CL tests the results typology has shown in detail and works out fine-grained contrasts which in turn inspires typology to compare these on a large scale
Argument trespassing
I believe him to be a nice person → “him” is not an argument of believe here
(it is an argument in structures like: “I believe him” who?Him)
what happened: normal clause: I believe (he is a nice person) “he” was subject, now it is raised to O in main: I believe him to be a nice person.
39 John is hard to miss → again, it’s not an argument of is
“John is hard” → hard is argument
What are typical GER underrepresentations:
underuse non-agentive Subjects, medio-passive or raising constructions
Also: GER will struggle to mark voiced “d” at the end of words (because unmarked Auslauteverhärtung in GER inhibits ENG’s marked structure)
Marked differential hypothesis
“famous” contrast GEr / ENG: Auslautverhärtung (devoicing of final voiced consonants in Ger)
English GER learners: have no problem making the distinction in GER;
German ENG learners: devoice final consonants, struggle to “unlearn” this
many languages feature this final devoicing; can be considered as unmarked
voiced final consonants are marked
→ marked differential hypothesis (Eckman): marked contrasts in target language will cause problems, because they don’t follow universal, generic (= unmarked) tendencies
Kortmann: proof for him that typology and L2 are related:
Study comparing English relative clauses built by Persian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese speakers
chinese and japanese made less mistakes, but also used less relative clauses → avoidance strategy
reason for that was seen in typology: Chinese is a language with left-directionality (modifying element comes before its head, e.g. Object before Verb, relative clauses before head)
English is a language with right-directionality (Object follows verb, relative clauses come after the head)
→ Kortmann: Proof that there is a connection between typology and L2 production
Rohdenburg’s gripe with Hawkins
Hawkins unity principle: Where English and German grammatical structures contrast, the German surface forms are closer to their meaning (form/function 1:1) while English is more ambiguous (less forms, still same functions needed to express)
Rohdenburg: However; only true for the data Hawkins shows → insufficient
My take:
→ Overall, Hawkins examples / arguments for his tight/fit-loose/fit hypothesis can be shown across broad grammatical categories (e.g. morphology); whereas Rohdenburgs counterarguments are rather niche; also many of his examples do not appear valid to me (“He is religious” is fine, at least nowadays it is)
Rohdenburg’s deletion argument against Hawkins
ENG: favours definite argument deletion
GER: favours indefinite argument deletion
definite deletion:
ENG: The Still Life Exhibition! Have you been ((to it)) yet? I’d love to go ((to it / there)) -> can delete easily
Ger: Bist du schon DA gewesen?
*Bist du schon gewesen
Ich möchte DA gerne HINgehen
* Ich möchte gerne gehen
-> GER needs to be precise, thus its more transparent
-> GER tight fit; ENG loose fit (agrees with Hawkins)
BUT: indefinite deletion:
Liebe macht x blind. → acc obj can be left out
Vs. Love makes “people” blind. (*Love makes blind)
-> ENG needs to be more transparent (GER can be loose-fit)
Also in verbs of appeal:
The general ordered his men to blow up the bridge → argument of ordered cannot be deleted
Der General befahl x , die Brücke zu sprengen → Ger can neglect the ordered person
-> ENG more transparent
Rohdenburg: cases where GER is loose
conjunction GER one damit → ENG many words
Ich binde meine Schuhe, damit ich nicht hinfalle
I tie my shoes to ensure not falling down
Nur, damit du’s weißt.
Just to let you know
GER preposition ENG semantic verb
Für Reisende mit DB Tourist-Karte
vs For travellers holding DB-Tourist Karte
Wir singen nun Gesang 200, ohne 3. Strophe
vs We shall sing song 200, omitting verse 3.
Filme mit Bruce Lee…
vs. Movies starring / featuring …
GER preposition für vs ENG to infinitives (apparently there are 18 known translations for “für”)
Ich wurde dafür bezahlt
vs. I got paid to do it.
Für Größe 16 (Etikett)
vs To fit size 16
Ich lege Geld bei für Porto und Verpackung
vs I enclose money to cover packing and postage.
Ger standalone adjective; ENG needs precision:
Er ist musikalisch
Er ist religiös
Die Übersetzung ist frei
*He is musical → He is very musical
*He is religious → He is very religious / a religious man
*The translation is free → the translation is a bit free
Kortmann’s take on Rohdenburg’s criticism
States that both are correct, but within the particular subsystem of grammatical areas they looked at:
Hawkins: in obligatory areas (e.g. case assignment) in GER are more tight-fit
Rohdenburg: in areas of choice (e.g. using a preposition or a participle, using conjunction or an infinitive) in ENG are more tight-fit
