The second language(L2) learners often struggle to identify possible grammars in their second languages. In particular, they fail to form a sentence with an appropriate functional morpheme (Lardiere, 1998; White, 2003). A functional morpheme refers to a morpheme which performs some kind of grammatical function, playing a role in lexical change. It consists of the function words in the language such as definite markers. The inflection of a definite marker, in other words, definiteness, distinguishes a nominal phrase (NP) between identifiable and non-identifiable. That is, whether or not, a referent is identifiable or previously introduced in the discourse. In addition to identifiability, definiteness is expected to incorporate other notion, …show more content…
This paper mostly analyzes the issue of cross linguistic variation of definiteness with sample data and examples from English and Japanese.
Dryer (2013) classifies definiteness into five categories. The first type is the languages in which definite article are independent, and are distinct from demonstrative words. This type is used commonly in Western-European, Oceanic and Mesoamerican languages (Dryer, 2013; Schroeder, 2006). English is categorized in this type of languages.
In English, the grammatical element is encoded with regard to a contrast between a definite article the, and indefinite articles a/an in the language. The type of noun (count versus mass) is also a factor: indefinite mass nouns and indefinite plural countable nouns can appear without articles, i.e. as bare nouns. Furthermore, other determiners in English are consist of demonstratives, possessives, quantifiers, and cardinal numbers, some of which are definite and indefinite. The distribution of articles in English is presented in (1). Examples involving singular count nouns are illustrated in (2). Note that these singular count nouns cannot be bare, as illustrated in (2e).
(1) the: definite count nouns (singular and plural), definite mass nouns e.g. the cat, the cats, the clothing a: indefinite singular count nouns
e.g. a cat, *a cats, *a clothing
∅: indefinite plural
“Authority and American Usage” written by David Foster Wallace, poses an argument about the English language, and the different beliefs of its usage. This essay was written in defense of Bryan A. Garner’s, A Dictionary of Modern American Usage. His argument in “Authority and American Usage” is the difference the between prescriptivism perception and the descriptivism perception (Linguistic terms that could easily be made into smaller, more understandable words for people like me). Since the beginning of time, language has evolved. From biblical times, to Shakespearean times, to present day; the English language has been continuously changing since it’s birth and has no intentions on stopping.
Secondly, range of similarities and differences are perceived in the sets of rules constraining the language structure of Auslan and English. In comparison to English, sign languages are visual languages, hence it is distinct in modality and word-ordering structure (Damian, 2011). To illustrate, the words of spoken languages are delivered in a fairly linear pattern, both in time and on paper (Bejan, 2001). This linear sentence structure is observed in English, but the same is not demonstrated in Auslan. However, despite this distinction, the order of signs remains of importance to produce meaningful sentences. This is because Auslan conveys many grammatical features found in the English language at phonological, morphological and syntactic levels (Johnston & Schembri, 2007). An individual’s poor English grammar is attributed for sentence fragments. These poorly formed English sentences occur when a sentence lacks a subject, a verb or do not express a complete thought (Schuster, 2006). In the same manner, the wrong ordering of signs will affect the fluency of the language. For instance, the linear English sentence ‘many black cars have disappeared’ will be signed as MANY-BLACK-CAR-DISAPPEAR (Johnston & Schembri, 2007). In this example, it is important that the determiner (MANY) and adjective (BLACK) are situated before the noun (CAR) (Johnston & Schembri, 2007). This is done for the purpose of identifying the noun within the sentence, which subsequently lead to the formation
The article has been written by Barbara Wallraff who is English Language graduate. She is enthusiastic about the recent happenings to the English Language, that’s why she discusses with people about the universality of the English language. Ms. Wallraff has started the argument of the article by developing thesis statement on the universality of the English Language which has later been supported by related arguments of the article.
The English language is particularly complex in almost all aspects. Many of the words in the English language have different meanings for the same word. This is not unlike the definition of the different levels of usage. McCrimmon defines the three levels, formal, moderate, and colloquial, by their sentence structure, diction, and tone (McCrimmon 193). ¹ Using McCrimmon’s definitions, authors can determine what type of writing is applicable to each of the three levels. For the formal writings, an adequate example of where readers can find it is in a professional journal, and an appropriate place to find an example of the moderate level is in a weekly news magazine. Also, the best place to look for an example of the colloquial level is in certain sections of the newspaper. All of the levels of usage apply to these different types of writings and assist in defining what each level involves.
Throughout twenty-centuries ago, writers thought that ordinary language and literary language were two different languages. But this is an analytical assumption. There is only one language, which
However, she still omitts articles in her speech (e.g: I don’t have boss. / I’m Biologist), and uses “ have” instead of “There is” (e.g.: Have a Science Museum in the city.) , both mistakes are made due to L1 interference. In Portuguese, as in the
The materials I have selected for my chosen learner is a chapter (64) from Raymond Murphy’s Essential Grammar in Use. This chapter specifically deals with the usage of the definite article “the” and provides exercises for the students to learn and practice from. When using this material i will adapt it to make suitable for my particular student, and i will also shorten its length so it doesn’t become too tedious for my student.
Through this poem we can come to know how every part of speech works. In the English language, words can be considered as the smallest elements that have distinctive meanings. Based on their use and functions, words are categorized into several types or parts of speech. This article will offer definitions and examples for the 8 major parts of speech in English grammar: noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, adjective, conjunction, preposition, and interjection.
In order to provide clarity of language and distinguish this ___ from other ___ Saussure comprises a summarization of four characteristics within language. First and foremost, language is a well-defined object in the heterogeneous mass of speech facts. This means ______. Next, Language, unlike speaking, is something that we can study separately. Thirdly, Whereas speech is heterogeneous, language as defined, is homogenous. The last component of language discusses is Language is concrete no less so than speaking; and this is a help in our study of
He makes an important hypothesis that universal grammar (UG). UG is a characterization of these innate principle of language faculty, I-language. (5) He then postulates some detailed structure of UG. It is a system of conditions on grammars, constraints on the form and interpretation of grammar at all levels, from the deep structures of syntax, through the transformational component, to the rules that interpret syntactic structures semantically and phonetically. The study of linguistic universals, which is classified as formal or substantive, is the study of the properties of UG for a natural language. (6) Substantive universals concern the vocabulary for the description of language and a formal linguistic universal involve the character of the rules that appear in grammars and the ways in which they can be interconnected. Language-acquisition device uses primary linguistic data as the empirical basis for language learning to meet explanatory adequacy that is defined in UG, and to select one of the potential grammars, which is permitted by UG.
Talking about “dialects”, a term often mentioned along is “standard language”. When being brought into comparison with “dialect”, “standard language” usually serves as a legitimate variant with the highest level of excellence (Bex & Watts, 1999). Though positive in nature, standardization - the procedure of standardizing a language – often raises heated controversy because of its consequences on not only linguistics field but also the society. In the second part of the essay, I will focus on the disadvantages of language standardization.
In this part of my paper I want to draw your attention to some surprising facts that pertain to the Chinese language. The research shows that the Chinese language has a relatively uncomplicated grammar. Contrary to French, German or English, Chinese has no verb conjugation (in other words tense inflection). Also, this language has no noun declension, including gender and number distinctions. While learning Chinese you do not have to memorize different verb forms of “tell/told/told.” Under such circumstances, all you have to remember is just one word: kan. Also, while learning English a person has to distinguish between “hat” and “hats”. In Chinese we have a totally different situation. The only form that is present in this language is the word mao.
In the third part, three pedagogical implications will be presented. In addition, a grammar activity and its theoretical rationale will be respectively reported in the fourth and fifth part before the final conclusion is displayed.
The results of the analysis suggest that English native speakers use a greater number of singular self-mention in linguistics research articles than scholars affiliated with Ukrainian universities, who avoid using them completely and rely on plural forms. This confirms the previous findings that primarily plural self-mention is employed in academic writing in Slavic languages (Vassileva, 1998), and that academic texts in English by native speakers show the greatest use of singular forms in comparison to other languages (Flottum, 2005; Molino, 2010; Vassileva, 1998; Wu & Zhu, 2014; Yakhontova, 2002; 2006). It can be assumed that, in American academic culture, scholars tend to establish their presence in the articles and show that research has been carried out exclusively by them and that the method and interpretations of findings are based on their own judgement. This way they might acknowledge the fact that although research should be an objective presentation of reality, it is still subjective because it is interpreted and documented by a researcher. In addition, since Americans are representatives of an individualistic culture, they might be willing to identify their personal contributions to the discourse.
It was mainly formed depending on the rules that English is made up of a particular subject that explains the presence of the structure and features of the language involved. The analysis that was given in this phase was that the features of the language were the same in the sentence grammar without a tendency to favor particular forms. The theory, however, did not explain any forms that were in existence in simple English. It is precarious to make bias perception concerning the matter, although there existed interest in the nature of the English language theoretically by itself. The most important reason for this urge was to make the available skills more relevant to learners. It was also aimed at providing learners with outline form that gives the priority in science studies and forego other forms that they might not have come across in their lifetime. It further shows that ESP course should give more importance to these