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Good strike rate for German grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5226 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 57 of 70 31 December 2013 at 12:37am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think Chung's point is well taken. A language must not be seen as a logical, homogenous, centrally planned system but rather a hodgepodge of historically rooted structures and subsystems that co-exist and are constantly evolving. This is particularly evident when you compare the standardized language taught in schools with the reality of spoken language that are seen in corpus-based studies.
I don't want to harp on this idea but we know that in all languages a small number of key words or structures, regardless of how illogical or bizzare they may seem, are in constant use. For this reason I think there is a basic trend towards simplification and systemization. At the same time, as we move out from the core features we see in the lesser used features and structures, especially in written, literary or formal usage the many exceptions and unusual items that are vestiges of historical usage. This is why grammar books are full of pages of these items and explanations on how to use them. English is a good example of this, beginning with its seemingly chaotic spelling system. Unlike many languages - and I'm thinking of Spanish - there is no central authority and no official attempt to put any kind of order into the language in any fashion. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6393 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 58 of 70 31 December 2013 at 4:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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When one thing is simplified, something else gets more complex. For example the Romance languages got rid of the Latin cases, but compensate for that by the word order.
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| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5226 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 59 of 70 31 December 2013 at 7:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
As much as I like discussing the history and theory of grammatical gender, I humbly suggest that the discussion return to the fundamental question that has been raised and that is how to learn a complex grammatical gender system. When I read through Hammer's book on German grammar, the word that came to mind was "daunting." And just this morning I was listening to a program with little excerpts of German radio programs. The speech seemed so fast to my ears. That's a normal reaction of course but what really amazed me was how people could accurately use proper grammar at such speed. I like the idea suggested by Bakunin here. I'd be curious to see how it would be implemented in German. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Papashaw1 Newbie Australia Joined 3827 days ago 30 posts - 35 votes | Message 60 of 70 31 December 2013 at 8:21am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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edit out double post Edited by Papashaw1 on 31 December 2013 at 8:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Papashaw1 Newbie Australia Joined 3827 days ago 30 posts - 35 votes | Message 61 of 70 31 December 2013 at 8:22am | IP Logged | ||||||||
English has no cases and neither do many Analytic asian languages but they do not have the word order rules like those of German. Strict SVO with only changes in the system to change the meaning. No verbal cluster or v2 rules based on pronouns or conjunctions. Complex inflection no matter. What has gotten more complex in languages in Europe without cases and tons of irregular noun class remnants? Anything that has gotten more complex probably has already in those other languages. This theory looks nice and all but it is untrue based on what I have seen. Analytical Asian/Austronesian languages and English are just simplified to death in some sense. Simpler in word order and auxiliaries, and inflection both.
Yeah, it is a thing to ponder. Couldn't other nation's people have had the same level of effort when speaking their language to have something complex as well? It seems not.
I would think all language would develop irregularities somewhere but not so. Chinese and no irregular verbs and English with 180. But Russian has 16 verb cIasses. Slavic languages have aspect, verbs of motion, and cases etc. German has the word order, irregular plurals, and inflection system. What do the rest of us have? The Analytical language speaker with simpler inflection and simpler word order while lacking as many strange peculiarities and areas of memorization. Or with inflection yet regular with free word order. But having inflection and word order.... So nothing gets easier or harder if one languages lack a feature. Some are just plain difficult and full of irregularities and details, others just end up simple and it doesn't always matter how large the population is if you consider how Austronesian languages are spoken by islanders yet Russian is used by millions. The modern highly inflected indo-euro languages are not synthetic languages like the ones that came before, but languages with all the complexities and methods an analytical language like Thai, English, or Chinese with hardly none of the non features such as a lack of conjugation or aspect. Prepirphrasic constructions? Inflected for gender and case. Verbal aspect? Inflected as well for person and number. Word order? Even more rules in the case of German. And to those who say German has less of a verbal system than English, well maybe standard. But they now have a continuous formed in dialect using am+ infitive. and dialects use double perfects which can make a past conditional (ich haette das getan gehabt) and they form the perfect two ways (sein and haben). Some just end up choosing to have a lot of detail. I have been in Thailand, their language is isolating and uninflected. No word agreement etc. and to think this small country, unlike the developed Germany who historically has been relatively less isolated, has a language that is possbily less irregular or frustrating than German or Russian is a new thought I may have to entertain. For German it is the word order, just how could even more analytical languages such as Chinese or English have simpler word order? Edited by Papashaw1 on 31 December 2013 at 12:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6393 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 62 of 70 31 December 2013 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Complexity should be compared to the previous stage, not to a different language. And English has its own quirks that you don't see as a native speaker (assuming you are one - it would be good if you filled out your profile :)) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4503 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 63 of 70 31 December 2013 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I don't think German word order is that hard actually. It's pretty much always the same.
So that to me is simple. Russian word order is harder because it is flexible and therefore unexpected. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 3828 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 64 of 70 31 December 2013 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
We have our word order quirks. Such as: I believe him to be cold (Ich glaube ihm kalt zu sein??? I believe to be cold him? Or the other?) And we have v2 conjunctions like somit: We can/can't do that, so/never/neither/etc. can he (like the conjunctions making v2 in German) The strict word order defines who is who so we can say something like this: The men marched the other men (subjeckshub, much less often than in German, reflexive pronouns or rewording are often needed) We use V2. for negative inversion and we must use do support. At no time did he do that. We may not have V2. for everything but adverbs of frequency come before the main verb unless to-be. We often go. We have often gone. (Wir gehen heute, wir habe heute gehen, same position) Participle clauses exist in both languages, but they are formal in German, they are needed in English. And having to switch between adjective clauses and subordinate ones has to be done in English based on feel for length. You can say everything before the verb in German (Der in dem haus singend mann) (The singing man, the man singing in the house) Can the am+infinitive be used in the passive, past perfect, or with participles? Maybe, but it would be awkward as hell I bet. The double perfects are used for emphasis in the North, but the use in the South is as a replacement for the plusquamperfekt. Conjugation in German? The preterite is so rare outside modal verbs that you mostly remember -e, -t, -st, -en But not being able to drop the pronoun and the irregular conjugations for modals and auxiliaries? yeh sorta. Plurals in German? look at our adjectives. French, Dutch, Thai, Saudi, Afghanistani, Icelandic. two with no ending and root change, two with -i, and one -ic. Franzoezisch, niederlandisch, thailandisch, saudisch, afghanisch, islandisch.) -isch. one with vowel change though. But the plurals are tough and have to be memorized, I wonder what percentage of German words take an irregular plural instead of -e for masculine/neuter or -en for feminine. The weak verbs where masculine takes -en for everything except nominative is another complexity, and some of them take -ens for the genitive and some -en! More irregularity. Prepositions taking a case? Ours take another prep bit. In dem vs in das, inTO the vs in the instead OF the vs anstatt des But many have to take one or the other concerning dative or accusative, another factor. I think multi word prepositional phrases are more numerous in used English, but I read some of them in German too. Adjective inflection? Yes, the gender is hard to remember. I dare say German would be nearly the same difficulty as English if it were genderless. That would take along the gender inflections and many articles with it. Weak nouns do throw in a needed memorization but they may be masculine in origin. Still the irregularities won't all go. The lack of noun inflections for case, lack of the genitive, and the simple past being dead like you said really seem favorable in Southern Dialects. It is mostly the irregularities that can arise in an inflecting language unlike an isolating one. Word endings can morph and so on easily to become irregular. The lack of alternative noun classes arising or conjugations because two items in a sentence are separated and not placed close can be true. I wonder if there are equivalent irregularities in uninflecting languages elsewhere. What could be irregular about these analytical languages, if there are any? Agglutinating languages tend to have nearly no irregular verbs but have many vowel or consonant change classes for cases or conjugations, luckily many of the well known ones have no gender. And how many verbs take an irregular conjugation in Fusional languages? How many verbs exist in the Russian verb classes outside of the most common ones that have little change. 90% of all verbs may well be in the only one of the classes. Maybe not. It may be like Spanish or not. To add once again, the thing making English relatively easier is the lack of gender, not lack of inflection at all. Edited by Stolan on 01 January 2014 at 12:02am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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