Grammatical Structures of English and Spanish - Essay Example

? GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURES OF ENGLISH AND SPANISH Insert (s) Grammatical Structures of English and Spanish Exercise1 Dicen que el chico que se escapo de la carcel estaba preparado para atacar a otra persona, pero que la chica no In English, the above sentence can be translated as: “They say that the boy who escaped from the jail was prepared to attack another person, but that girl does not.” The analysis of the grammatical features of the above Spanish sentence highlights a number of structural and syntactical similarities as well as differences between English and Spanish. Generally, Spanish is widely considered to be an inflected language and the choice of verbs usually depends on the tense, person and mood. However, despite being more inflected than English, the sentence above reveals several aspects of verb grammar that are strikingly similar According to Stockwell and Bowen (2005, 77), the basic structure of the Spanish sentence is the same with English sentences. For example, just like in English, the word order of the Spanish sentence has generally followed the Subject-Verb-Object order. Generally, many experts concur this may be attributed to the fact that both Spanish and English language grammar structures are usually based on the tense. However, it is worth noticing that Spanish allows for more grammatical structure flexibility and this can be explained by the placement of the word “no” (not) at the end of the sentence to put more emphasis on it. This flexibility usually results in non standard syntax when Spanish is directly translated into English1. Another visible grammatical feature of the above Spanish sentence with respect to structural similarities and differences with English language is the use of the relative pronouns. Spanish language has a wide range of pronouns that are often used differently as compared to the English pronouns. Some of the common Spanish relative pronouns that are commonly used in everyday Spanish include la que(singular feminine), los que(plural masculine) and las que(plural feminine). For example, the Spanish relative pronoun “que” has been used twice in the above sentence to refer to both a person and an object. The relative pronoun “que el chico”…. “that the boy” and “que se escapo”……. “who escaped” as used in the first part of the sentence have all been applied to refer to the boy(singular masculine). Generally, in most cases, the use of “que” in either objects or subject position in Spanish is often equivalent of the use of the English words such as “whom, who, that and which” in the contemporary English grammar as shown in the following examples: El hombre que es pobre…………………………The man “who” is poor (Person, Subject) La senorita que conoci…………………… The young lady “whom” I met (Person, Object) In English, relative clause usually follows the noun which it modifies. The choice of relative pronoun is normally affected by whether the clause is modifying human or non-human noun as well as the role of the relative pronoun in the relative clause2. For example, “who” is applied for a human antecedent while “that” is only used for a non human antecedent. However, a major difference in the use of relative pronouns in Spanish and English is that while relative pronoun is usually omitted in English, this is not the case in Spanish as shown below: La casa que compramos es nueva……………The house “that” we bought is new. As seen in the English version, the relative pronoun “that” can easily be omitted without changing the meaning of the sentence. On the other hand, just like English, Spanish also has a number of definitive article articles (equivalent to “the”) as well as indefinite articles (equivalent to the English “a/an, some”). However, unlike English, the Spanish articles are normally categorized into feminine, masculine, adjective, singular or plural. Lastly, with regard, to verb Ser/estar, the word “se” in the sentence is a form of “Ser” that has been used to denote a permanent property is attributed the subject. In the above case, the estar would not have been appropriate because it is primarily used in Spanish to indicate locations and temporary states of an object or a person. However, in English, both the two Spanish verbs ‘ser’ and ‘estar’ are normally translated as “to be”. Exercise 2 Based on the sentences provided in the data (1)-(7), it is clearly evident that the children’s general lack of copular verb be was systematic and not accidental. Their omission or use of the verb be throughout the sentences in (1)-(7) was particularly reminiscent of the ser/estar distinction in Spanish language. Generally, the missing auxiliary elements as well as the absence of main copular verbs in sentences like “he dog” instead of “he is a dog” is common among monolingual English children. In most cases, copular ‘be’ forms normally come before the auxiliary ‘be’ forms3. (a) Which of the following two hypotheses better describes the data in (1)-(7)? In my opinion, the hypothesis that best describes the sentences provided in the given data is that child American English be is like Spanish estar while the child American English be is like Spanish ser. This is particularly because the examples above reveal that in child American English, “to be” is dropped when a permanent property is attributed to the subject (ser). For example, their ommision of “to be” forms such as “I’m, I am, she is and he is” resembles the use of Ser in Spanish language while their omission of the auxiliary elements resemble the Spanish use of Estar. Although the two Spanish verbs ‘ser’ and ‘estar’ are both translated as “to be” in English language, their usage in Spanish are contrastingly different. According to many experts,“Ser” usually pertains to elements of permanent identity while “Estar” normally pertains to the temporary state of being. In this regard, it is arguable that the omission of “to be” in child American English is equivalent to ser in Spanish. In Spanish language, the verb Ser is normally used in the identification and classification of permanent attributes such as physical description, personality characteristics, time, gender, profession, race, origin or relationship. As seen in the examples provided in the data in (1)-(7), the children have generally have systematically omitted to be forms such as “I’m, I am, she is and he is” primarily in places where Ser verb should have been used to provide physical description or the characteristics of the person or object they are talking about. On the other hand, the verb Estar is normally used to indicate locations and temporary states such as the mood, appearance, position, emotion, condition or action. Just like monolingual Spanish adults learning English, monolingual child English speakers normally face the problem of using the “to be forms” (Ser and estar in Spanish) as well as the use of auxiliary elements in their sentences (Butt and Carmen, 2004, 26). However, in the case of the adult Spanish learners of English, understanding the cross linguistic influence requires a critical analysis of the conditions that may prelude the acquisition and influence of the grammar of the two different languages as the children develop. According to many experts, the influence of grammar of two different languages among bilingual children as they develop occur as a result of the cross linguistic interference that takes place at the syntactic/pragmatic interface thereby resulting in the confusion of the underlying forms. Others suggest that factors such as transparency and input frequency of syntax-pragmatics mapping may also play an important role in the bilingual acquisition of certain language features among growing children. Consequently, although it is often difficult to make accurate predictions regarding the kind of influence that takes place between Spanish and English languages due to the diversity of opinions, systematic omission or incorrect application of auxiliary elements have been widely witnessed among bilingual children. (b) Point out three predictions for child American English that your ser/estar-style analysis of (1)-(7) makes regarding types of contexts not exemplified in these examples. Based on my ser/estar style analysis, there are a number of predictions for the child American English in some contexts that have not been exemplified in the above examples. For example, since the child American omission of “to be form” is observed when the subject possesses some form of permanent property (as in the case of Spanish ser), it is likely that child American English speakers are also likely to omit the be form in other sentence cases involving permanent attribution such as when using certain adjectives. Some of the examples of the likely omission of the “ser to be form” in cases involving adjectives describing certain permanent attribution include He tall*……….Instead of “He is tall” Another potential grammatical error likely to be made by the child American English monolingual speakers is inconsistent tense and agreement morphemes particularly with the forms of the auxiliary be(ser/estar) such as am, are, is, were and was among others. Although child American English speakers normally begin to use these forms of tense and agreement morphemes at quite an early age, they tend to pass through a period or stage in which they are unable to consistently produce these morphemes. As a result, in their normal conversations, the children are likely to omit tense agreement and morphemes particularly in the obligatory contexts. For example, when using normative subject pronouns, the children are likely to omit the necessary tense and agreement morphemes as in the case: “He happy” instead of He is happy. Lastly, with regard to their use of adjectives, it is expected that the child American English will have some asymmetry in their sentences. This is particularly because at some stage of development, child American English with difficulties in the use of to be forms (ser/estar style) often omit the functional elements in most of their sentences and utterances. According to many experts, they may not only omit the determiners or copula but also the verbal inflectional morphology as well as the auxiliary verbs in nearly all their sentences. It is particularly important to note that in most cases, the nominal predicates that child American English normally use usually exclusively denotes the permanent attribution of the subjects such as the label or the name of the object(Spanish ser) (Fisiak, 2000, 37). On the other hand, the locative predicative usually denotes temporary locations (similar to Spanish estar). Additionally, children are often unable to effectively classify adjectives at a certain stage on the basis of their lexical category. This is particularly attributed to the fact that adjectives normally consist of a single lexical category. As opposed to individual level or stage level, each adjective must always be learnt on an item basis. This aspect generally explains the reason for the discrepancies between the permanent/temporary meaning of an adjective and its behavior. As a result, child American English is normally characterized by omission of the copula together with the adjectival predicates. However, there are a number of adjectives that normally behave both like the individual level predicate as well as like stage level predicate Examples of predicted sentences include: This is orange This empty Her thirsty You warm enough In summary, children American English normally has a systematically omitted to be forms such as “I’m, I am, she is and he is” in places where Ser verb should have been used to provide permanent description or the characteristics of the person or an object. This is particularly attributed to the fact that child American English, “to be” is always dropped when a permanent property is attributed to the subject (ser). Bibliography 1. De la Cruz, Cabanillas I. English and Spanish in Contrast. Alcala de Henares: Universidad de Alcala, 2009. 2. Fisiak, J. (2000) Theoretical Issues in Contrastive Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 3. Stockwell, R. P., J. D. Bowen and J. W. Martin (2005) The Grammatical Structures of English and Spanish. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 4. Sanchez Benedito, F. (2004) Manual de pronunciacion inglesa comparada con la espanola. Granada: Comares. 5. Butt, John and Benjamin, Carmen (2004), A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish (4th ed.), Hodder Education, 2004. Read More