The English grammar has many similarities with the grammar of German, since both have their roots in the Germanic languages. Therefore English and German share lexical and structural, but also semantic properties. In order to deepen one’s understanding of these properties this paper will deal with differences and similarities of the English and German verb system.
Transitivity alternation is based on the syntactic distinction of verbs that are divided into transtive and intransitive verbs. This paper deals with both verb categories, taking into account semantic matters as well. In English and in German a verb can express the way in which an action affects its object, which is part of the so-called ergative model. This model shall be introduced in Chapter 2 with examples of the English language. After the introduction to the usage of ergative verbs a comparison of English and German structures follows in Chapter 3. Mistakes of translation are often due to structural and semantic differences within the ergative model. English and German verbs do not always provide the same variety of possibilities to express an action, therefore it shall be shown in Chapter 3.1 in which language the verb system is more flexible in regards to ergative processes. Chapter 3.2 deals with morphosyntactic differences of German and English within the ergative model. As the German structure shows similarities as well as differences to the English verbs, an attempt is made in Chapter 4 to discover potential semantic distinctions within those German verbs that either differ or resemble the English structure.
The aim of this paper is to bring out a comparison of the English and German language that gives an insight into their verb systems in regards to syntactic as well as semantic properties.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Ergative Alternation in English
3. English and German structures in comparison
3.1 The Analytical Causative Type and common mistakes among English Learners
3.2 Morphosyntactic differences within the Ergative Model
4. A semantic approach to the German reflexive pronoun SICH
5. Conclusion
Bibliography
1. Introduction
The English grammar has many similarities with the grammar of German, since both have their roots in the Germanic languages. Therefore English and German share lexical and structural, but also semantic properties. In order to deepen one’s understanding of these properties this paper will deal with differences and similarities of the English and German verb system.
Transitivity alternation is based on the syntactic distinction of verbs that are divided into transtive and intransitive verbs. This paper deals with both verb categories, taking into account semantic matters as well. In English and in German a verb can express the way in which an action affects its object, which is part of the so-called ergative model. This model shall be introduced in Chapter 2 with examples of the English language. After the introduction to the usage of ergative verbs a comparison of English and German structures follows in Chapter 3. Mistakes of translation are often due to structural and semantic differences within the ergative model. English and German verbs do not always provide the same variety of possibilities to express an action, therefore it shall be shown in Chapter 3.1 in which language the verb system is more flexible in regards to ergative processes. Chapter 3.2 deals with morphosyntactic differences of German and English within the ergative model. As the German structure shows similarities as well as differences to the English verbs, an attempt is made in Chapter 4 to discover potential semantic distinctions within those German verbs that either differ or resemble the English structure.
The aim of this paper is to bring out a comparison of the English and German language that gives an insight into their verb systems in regards to syntactic as well as semantic properties.
2. Ergative Alternation in English
The major information about verbs provided by dictionaries is usually a syntactic differentiation between transitive and intransitive verbs. A transitive verb requires two arguments and occurs with a direct object, whereas intransitive verbs are not followed by an object noun phrase and only require one argument, the subject (Kilby 1984: 37). But in fact only few verbs correspond to this “ideal type”(Kilby 1984: 37) of restricted transitive and intransitive use, many of them can even be used both ways. In order to have a better understanding of the English verb system of transitivity it is necessary to introduce causative and anti-causative structures.
In the English language causative processes are very commonly used and refer to transitive verbs which express an action and allow for an intransitive variant (Kilby 1984: 38). The action is caused by a usually animate and conscious Agent that “directs its energy towards something or someone (the Affected), so that this undergoes the action named by the verb, with a consequent change of state” (Downing and Locke 2002: Seite 132). An example for that transitive-causative structure is the sentence “Paul opened the door” (Downing and Locke 2002: Seite 132), in which Paul is the Agent that expresses an action towards the Affected Theme the door.
In this sentence two elements are semantically essential, the participant that causes the action and the one that undergoes the action (Downing and Locke 2002: Seite 133). Therefore, the process that is expressed allows for another structure opposite to the transitive-causative process, namely an “anti-causative structure” (Downing and Locke 2002: Seite 133). It refers to the intransitive variant of the verb in which the Agent is omitted and the Affected Theme, respectively the direct object the door becomes subject: “The door opened.” (Downing and Locke 2002: Seite 133). As the intransitive pattern somewhat derives from the transitive one, the anti-causative structure is also related to as “Derived Intransitivity” (Cranmer 1976: 76). Both structures, in which the object of the causative process is the subject of the derived intransitive clause, form an “ergative pair” (Downing and Locke 2002: Seite 133).
The process that takes place within the ergative pair can be visualized by two tree diagrammes, where the obligatory object-NP the door moves into the first NP as subject-position (Cranmer 1976: 21). The object-NP becomes empty and is marked by t for trace. The rule of this process is called “Object-Preposing” (Cranmer 1976: 63), as the object moves into first position.
illustration not visible in this excerpt
The difference to the so-called “‘object-deleting’ verbs” (Kilby 1984: 38), which also appear transitively and intransitively, is that object-deleting verbs “retain[…] the same subject” (Kilby 1984: 38) in both variants, e.g: “An old lady swallowed a fly” and “The old lady swallowed hard” (Kilby 1984: 38). Kilby points out that “ergative verbs are without exception verbs of change of physical or mental state or location” (1984: 42), whereas only few object-deleting verbs correspond to this “semantic class” (1984: 42). In fact, there are few ergative exceptions that cannot be rated verbs of change, such as repeat or present, which Kilby has not taken into account, but they will turn up again in Chapter 3.2. Both verbs can describe verbal or relational processes, but as they also have an Agent in a transitive phrase (Halliday 2004: 291) that is deleted in the derived intransitive variant, they count to ergative pairs. In the given example, however, the state of the door changes from being closed to open, and also verbs like “disperse, melt, roll, break, […], turn, etc.” (Halliday 2004: 38) are ergative verbs as they imply a change of state.
Halliday differentiates between “‘doing’ and ‘happening’ in the ergative model” (2004: 284). When the role of the Agent is externalised in the derived intransitive variant so that the process appears semantically as being self-caused, the alternation refers to ‘happening’. The term ‘doing’ on the other hand is related to the process “represented as being caused by a participant that is external to the combination of Process + Medium.” (Halliday 2004: 284). By Medium Halliday means the semantic role that is described by the Affected Theme in this paper. The difference between ‘doing’ and ‘happening’ becomes clear in the following example where the interpretation of both points of view is possible:
John flew through the air.
a. What did John do?
b. What happened to John? (Cranmer 1976: 86)
The questions that can both be answered by the sentence above illustrate that the ergative model is also a semantic matter and can depend on context. In regards to question a. John is the Agent who causes the process of flying, while question b. indicates that something happened to John which he might not have influenced, therefore he is the Affected Theme (Cranmer 1976: 86). So ergativity does not only seem to refer to the relation of object and subject in transitive and intransitive clauses, but also to the question whether the subject causes the process volitionally or whether it is made to undergo the process by an external force. Thus in the case of ‘happening’ one can assume that an Agent, that is not mentioned in the clause, might have caused the process “in the real world”, although it is semantically “represented as having been self-caused” (Halliday 2004: 290).
Causative and anti-causative, respectively self-causative processes differ more clearly in syntax when the “analytical type, based on combinations with verbs such as make and turn” (Downing and Locke 2002: 133) can be used. This is possible in the following two clauses that correspond to the ergative model: “The police exploded the bomb” and “The sergeant marched the prisoners” (Halliday 2004: 299). Using the “‘analytical causative’ with make […] we can say the police made the bomb explode” (Halliday 2004: 299) and the sergeant made the prisoners march. This structure emphasizes that in ergative alternation the verb does not refer to the Agent but to the Theme that is effected by the action caused by the Agent. It is the bomb that explodes and the prisoners do the marching, not the sergeant (Halliday 2004: 299). Of course the analytical type cannot be used for all ergative pairs, the clause Paul made the door open, for example, sounds ungrammatical. But by considering that in ergative examples, like the two clauses above, the analytical structure with make is possible we can analyze in which way that form of structure influences German learners of English in using English verbal structures, as we will see in the following chapter.
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- Citation du texte
- Franziska Scholz (Auteur), 2009, Transitivity Alternation, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/138176
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