Nesta dissertação tratamos de questões relativas às dificuldades de ensino dos tempos verbais pretérito indefinido e pretérito perfecto compuesto do modo indicativo nas aulas de Espanhol Língua Estrangeira ELE para falantes do português brasileiro. Partimos do pressuposto de que a Linguística Contrastiva pode contribuir de maneira eficaz visto que possibilita ao estudante contrastar as convergências bem como as divergências inerentes ao uso de sua língua materna em relação à língua espanhola, especialmente devido à relativa semelhança existente entre os idiomas em destaque. Nossos objetivos consistiram em: a) observar e buscar preencher as lacunas relacionadas ao ensino dos tempos verbais pretérito indefinido e pretérito perfecto compuesto; b) descrever quais são suas semelhanças e diferenças em relação ao uso em língua portuguesa; c) analisar de que maneira a Linguística Contrastiva pode contribuir quando do tratamento dos tempos verbais destacados nas aulas de ELE, além de analisar sua abordagem em alguns materiais didáticos; d) detectar quais procedimentos de ensino são mais cabíveis para o ensino desse tema. O arcabouço teórico utilizado fundamentou-se, principalmente, nos conceitos propostos e/ou defendidos por Bello e Cuervo (1943), RAE (2010), Alarcos Llorach (1995), Matte Bon (2010a), Cunha e Cintra (2007), Bechara (2009), Luft (1996), Almeida (1973), Durão (2004a) e Santos Gargallo (1993), bem como nas reflexões contidas nas OCEM (BRASIL, 2006). Os resultados obtidos por meio da pesquisa revelaram que os professores de ELE ensinam os tempos verbais em destaque apoiados na definição básica apresentada nas gramáticas, isto é, a forma simples deve ser empregada para fazer referência a situações passadas ocorridas em um espaço de tempo encerrado e a forma composta deve ser utilizada para expressar acontecimentos pretéritos realizados em um espaço-temporal ainda não concluído e, portanto, não esclarecem a seus alunos as diferentes possibilidades de uso dos dois tempos verbais. Os docentes-colaboradores também acreditam que os materiais didáticos abordam o assunto de maneira superficial, pois oferecem poucas explicações e/ou sugestões de atividades. Os manuais, por sua vez, utilizam a abordagem contrastiva, mas não enfocam os tempos verbais em pauta de maneira abrangente. Por fim, verificamos que os docentes, em geral, fazem uso de procedimentos de ensino que remetem à metodologia Tradicional e Áudio-oral de ensino. Julgamos que os 11 resultados desta pesquisa contribuem para o ensino do pretérito indefinido e pretérito perfecto compuesto nas aulas de ELE na medida em que enfatizam e valorizam as diferentes possibilidades do uso real que o falante faz da língua e salientam a importância do aperfeiçoamento contínuo do professor para o desenvolvimento de sua função. / This thesis is about the questions related to the difficulties encountered in the teaching of the verb tenses pretérito indefinido and pretérito perfecto compuesto in the Spanish as a foreign language classes SFL for Brazilian Portuguese speaker students. We assume that the Contrastive Linguistics approach can effectively contribute as it gives the students the chance to contrast the differences and similarities in the structures and usage of their mother tongue and the Spanish language, due to the alikeness existent between both languages. Our objectives were: a) observe and fill in the gaps related to the teaching of the two verb tenses mentioned above; b) describe the similarities and differences in their usage in relation to the usage in Portuguese; c) analyze in which ways Contrastive Linguistics can contribute to the teaching of those verb tenses in the SFL classes, besides analyzing its approach in some teaching materials; d) detect which teaching procedures are better for the teaching of those verb tenses. The theory in this essay was mainly based on the concepts proposed and/or endorsed by Bello and Cuervo (1943), RAE (2010), Alarcos Llorach (1995), Matte Bon (2010a), Cunha and Cintra (2007), Bechara (2009), Luft (1996), Almeida (1973), Durão (2004a) and Santos Gargallo (1993), as well as the reflections enclosed in the OCEM (BRASIL, 2006). The results found in this research revealed that SFL teachers, teach these verb tenses based on the basic definition presented in grammar books, that is to say, the simple form should be used with reference to finished periods, whereas the compound form suggests a connection between the past event and the present. Therefore, teachers do not point out the different possibilities of the use of both verb tenses. Teachers who helped in this research also believe that teaching materials approach this subject in a superficial way as they offer very few explanations and/or suggestions of activities. Teachers guides use the contrastive approach but they do not focus deeply on the verb tenses. Lastly we observed that teachers in general either use Traditional procedures, or the Audio-oral teaching approach. We believe that the results of this research can contribute to the teaching of the verb tenses pretérito indefinido and pretérito perfecto compuesto in the SFL classes as they emphasize and value the different possibilities of the real use the native speaker makes of the language and point out how important continuous teachers development is for their career.

La position défendue ici est que l'étude quantitative parallèle d'un phénomène linguistique, effectuée dans desconditions identiques, permet de mieux comparer deux systèmes linguistiques que l'étude du mêmephénomène en traduction. En l'occurrence, ce sont les catégories adjectivales de l'anglais et du français quiont été étudiées. Des critères d'identification communs ont été définis dans une perspective typologique.Ensuite, dans deux corpus bilingues traduits de 10 000 mots chacun, environ 1 800 SN ont été recensés etétiquetés manuellement dans chaque langue comme étant sans épithète ni attribut, ou bien avec épithète, oubien avec attribut, ou bien les deux en même temps. D'autres paramètres contextuels (déterminant, fonctionsyntaxique du SN, présence de SP et/ou de relatives, gradation, classe sémantique du nom recteur) ont aussiété pris en compte dans l'étiquetage manuel. Deux corpus littéraires de 5 millions de mots dans chaquelangue ont aussi été réunis selon des critères communs, et étiquetés par catégories grammaticales. Desrecherches par expressions rationnelles ont permis d'établir pour chaque adjectif sa prédisposition à lafonction épithète ou attributive, et sa réceptivité à la gradation. L'étude quantitative parallèle a permis deconstater des convergences entre l'anglais et le français en ce qui concerne les rapports entre adjectifs etdéterminants, des divergences quant aux interactions avec les prépositions, et d'établir une corrélationstatistique entre la compatibilité avec la fonction attributive et la réceptivité à la gradation. Cependant,aucune de ces tendances n'apparaît clairement dans le recensement des traductions auxquelles les adjectifsont donné lieu. / The argument put forward herein is that a quantitative parallel study of a linguistic phenomenon is bettersuited to the comparative study of two linguistic systems than the observation of the same phenomenon intranslation. The adjectival categories in English and French were studied in such a manner. Common criteriafor identification were first defined from a typological perspective. Then, in two bilingual corpora oftranslated texts of around 10,000 words each, around 1,800 NPs were manually inventoried and labeled ineach language either as having no attributive or predicative adjective, or one or more attributive adjectives, orone or more predicative adjectives, or both at the same time. Other contextual parameters (determiner,syntactic function of the NP, presence of prepositions or relative clauses in the NP, marks of intensity,semantic class of the noun) were manually inventoried as well. Two predominantly literary corpora of around5 million words in each language were collected using common criteria, and tagged with part of speechlabels. Regex searches were used to evaluate the predisposition for attributive or predicative function, andsensitivity to intensifiers of each adjective. The quantitative parallel study of adjectives revealedconvergences between English and French regarding the interactions with determiners, divergences in regardto prepositions, as well as a statistical correlation between the compatibility with predicative function andreceptivity to intensifiers. None of these tendencies

Abstract In my study I have taken a contrastive look at Finnish and Estonian inflectional morphology as evidenced in their literary forms. In its perspective the present study differs from the contrastive linguistic research as it is commonly practiced in Finland, in which the objects of research have usually been the relations between Finnish and a morphologically poorer Indo-European language. The languages now in comparison are both morphologically rich languages, viz., Finnish and Estonian, and they also share a common historical background. The objective of my study is twofold: the primary goal is to obtain theoretical information about the relations of inflectional morphology that pertain between these two languages and, secondly, to acquire pedagogically applicable data for language teaching purposes. In order to achieve these goals, it is essential to find out how and to what extent Finnish and Estonian differ from each other morphologically, where the differences come from and how the changes have affected these languages typologically. The results show that by comparing languages it is also possible to discover such features that would not have been possible to detect by just focusing on one language. Natural morphology and markedness theory have served as the theoretical bases for this study. Even in the common grammatical categories there are differences in the markedness relations between Finnish and Estonian. Contrastive research usually deals with a synchronic comparison of languages. However, in analyses of morphological relations between Finnish and Estonian it has turned out practical to relate the synchronic phenomena to their historical background. By adopting this procedure, we are able to unveil the strategic solutions that have taken the languages in different directions. These solutions are reflected in synchronic differences and they can also be indications of typological differentiation. The reasons underlying morphological divergence between Finnish and Estonian can often be found in the developments that have taken place in Estonian: phonological changes can have led to changes in morphological structures and even to morphological innovations. The complete morphologicalization of consonantal gradation and the birth of internal inflection are two of the important processes that Estonian has undergone. To some extent, differences have also been caused by conscious development and standardization of the two languages. A comparison of inflectional morphology in Finnish and Estonian nouns shows that the singular and plural genitive forms have a more focal position in Estonian than they have in Finnish. I will also show in more detail, both diachronically and from the point of view of markedness, the nature of the relationship between the three plural types of Estonian compared to the two types in Finnish. In verb morphology there are important differences, for example, in the passive construction, the mood system and past tense relations as well as in the selection and morphology of the infinite forms. A characteristic feature of Estonian is the weakening of the category for person: many finite verb forms are without the person suffix altogether, or it is optional. The present analysis shows that the relations between Finnish and Estonian paradigm types are quite complex. For instance, many Finnish two-stem word-types are parallel to an Estonian type that has evolved into a single-stem type. However, Estonian can have developed a secondary consonant stem type, which has no equivalent in the Finnish paradigms. There is also ample evidence for one Finnish paradigm having its parallels in two or more types in Estonian. This is the case, for instance, in the two-syllable e contracted nouns and contracted verbs. In addition, a path of development in Estonian may also have led to merging of two paradigm types, such as the coalescence of us quality terms and action terms. / Tiivistelmä Tarkastelen tutkimuksessani kontrastiivisesti suomen ja viron taivutusmorfologiaa niiden kirjakielisen edustuksen pohjalta. Lähtökohdiltaan työni poikkeaa Suomessa yleensä harjoitetusta kontrastiivisesta tutkimuksesta, jossa kohteina ovat olleet tavallisesti suomen ja jonkin usein morfologialtaan köyhemmän indoeurooppalaisen kielen suhteet. Nyt vertailtavina ovat paljolti yhteisen taustan omaavat läheiset sukukielet, suomi ja viro, jotka ovat morfologialtaan rikkaita. Tutkimukseni päämäärä on kahtalainen: ensisijaisena tavoitteena on saada teoreettista tietoa kielten taivutusmorfologisista suhteista, mutta toiseksi myös pedagogisesti hyödynnettävissä olevaa tietoa kielenopetuksen tarpeisiin. Keskeistä on sen selvittäminen, miten ja missä määrin suomi ja viro poikkeavat toisistaan morfologisesti ja mistä erot johtuvat sekä miten muutokset ovat vaikuttaneet kieliin typologisesti. Tulokset osoittavat, että kieliä vertailemalla niistä voidaan saada selville sellaisiakin seikkoja, jotka eivät olisi havaittavissa vain yhteen kieleen keskittymällä. Tutkimukseni teoreettisena viitekehyksenä on luonnollinen morfologia ja tunnusmerkkisyysteoria. Suomen ja viron välillä ilmenee yhteisissäkin kielioppikategorioissa eroja tunnusmerkkisyyssuhteissa. Kontrastiivisen tutkimuksessa on tavallisesti kyse kielten synkronisesta vertailusta. Suomen ja viron morfologisten suhteiden selvittämisessä on osoittautunut tarkoituksenmukaiseksi synkronisten ilmiöiden suhteuttaminen historialliseen taustaan. Tällöin näkyvät kieliä eri suuntaan vieneet strategiset ratkaisut, jotka nyt kuvastuvat synkronisina eroina ja voivat olla osoituksena typologisesta erilaistumisesta. Suomen ja viron morfologisten erojen syynä on usein etenkin virossa tapahtunut kehitys: äänteenmuutokset ovat voineet johtaa kielen muotorakenteessa muutoksiin, myös morfologisiin innovaatioihin. Tärkeitä prosesseja ovat virossa olleet astevaihtelun täydellinen morfologistuminen ja sisäisen taivutuksen synty. Niin ikään eroja on jossain määrin aiheuttanut kielten tietoinen kehittäminen ja normittaminen. Suomen ja viron nominien taivutusmorfologian vertailu osoittaa, että virossa erityisesti yksikön ja monikon genetiivimuodoilla on järjestelmässä huomattavasti keskeisempi asema kuin suomessa. Esitän myös lähemmin, millainen on viron kolmen monikkotyypin suhde suomen kahteen tyyppiin sekä diakronisesti että tunnusmerkkisyyden kannalta. Verbimorfologiassa kielten kesken on tärkeitä eroja muun muassa passiivissa, modusjärjestelmässä, imperfektityyppien suhteissa sekä infiniittimuotojen valikoimassa ja morfologiassa. Virolle leimallista on persoonakategorian heikkeneminen: monet finiittiset verbimuodot ovat vailla persoonapäätettä tai sellainen on valinnainen. Suomen ja viron paradigmatyyppien suhteet osoittautuvat varsin kirjaviksi. Monia suomen kaksivartaloisia sanatyyppejä vastaa virossa yksivartaloiseksi kehittynyt tyyppi. Toisaalta viroon on voinut syntyä sekundaaria konsonanttivartaloisuutta, jollaiselta suomen paradigmoista puuttuu vastine. On myös useita esimerkkejä siitä, että yhtä suomen paradigmatyyppiä, esimerkiksi kaksitavuisia e-supistumanomineja sekä supistumaverbejä, vastaa virossa kaksi tai useampia tyyppejä. Kehitys on virossa voinut johtaa myös kahden paradigmatyypin, kuten us-ominaisuudennimien ja -teonnimien, yhdistymiseen.

High failure rates in English as a second language at secondary school level have become a concern in the Namibian education sector. From 2005 until 2013, the overall performance of the grade 12 learners in English as a second language on Ordinary level in the Oshana region was unsatisfactory. In fact, only a minority (18.52 percent) of the grade 12 learners obtained a grading in the range of A to D in comparison to the majority (81.48 percent) of learners who obtained a grading of E to U. The poor performance was attributed to: poor sentence structure, syllabification and spelling (Directorate of National Examination and Assessment, 2007-2010). The causes of these low performance rates however, were not scientifically explored in this region. Therefore this study embarked on an investigation in order to identify the reasons behind the low performance rates of the grade 12 Oshiwambo speaking learners of English and to determine whether the impressionistic results from the Directorate’s report correlate with the present study’s findings. In order to understand the dynamic linguistic system of the learners, a contrastive analysis of Oshiwambo and English was done in order to investigate the potential origins of some of the errors. An error analysis approach was also used to identify, classify and interpret the non-standard forms produced by the learners in their written work. Based on the results obtained from this study, a more comprehensible assessment rubric was devised to help identify learners’ written errors. A group of 100 learners from five different schools in the Oshana region was asked to write an essay of 150 to 200 words in English. The essays were analysed using Corder’s (1967) conceptual framework which outlines the steps that a researcher uses when undertaking an error analysis study. The errors were categorised according to Keshavarz’s (2006) linguistic error taxonomy. Based on this taxonomy, the results revealed that learners largely made errors in the following categories: phonology/orthography, morpho-syntax, lexico-semantics, discourse and techniquepunctuation. The study concluded that these errors were most likely due to: first language interference, overgeneralisation, ignorance of rule restriction and carelessness. Other proposed probable causes were context of learning and lack of knowledge of English grammar. The study makes a significant contribution, in that the findings can be used as a guide for the Namibian Ministry of Education in improving the status quo at schools and informing the line Ministry on various methods of dealing with language difficulties faced by learners. The findings can also empower teachers to help learners with difficulties in English language learning, thereby enabling learners to improve their English language proficiency. The study has proposed methods of intervention in order to facilitate the teaching of English as a second language in the Oshana region. In addition, the study has devised an easily applied assessment rubric that will assist in identifying non-standard forms of language used by learners. The reason for designing a new rubric is because the rubric which is currently being used is believed to be subjective, inconsistent and lacks transparency. / Name in Graduation Programme as: Nghikembua, Anneli Ndapanda

The subject of this diploma thesis is the use of Turkisms in Bulgarian, Greek and Albanian languages. First of all, the basic principles of lexical borrowing and the place of Turkisms in the current linguistic situation of the Bulgarian, Greek and Albanian languages are discussed. Attempts have been made to identify a specific number of Turkisms in each language, and some views have been presented on the term "Turkism", according to some scholars. Periodization of the onset of Turkisms are discussed, as well as a brief overview of previous studies on Turkisms as an introduction to the problem. After that, the subject of the work went on to the morphological and lexical-semantic analysis of Turkisms. From a morphological point of view, the basic Turkish suffixes borrowed in these three Balkan languages and their main meanings are considered. The analysis is performed with the selection of 70 Turkisms from the index of Prof. dr. Maxim Stamenov and having as source language for the comparison the Bulgarian language. The most famous and extensive dictionaries of each language from which the meanings of the lemmas came from were selected for comparison. In the same way, the analysis of Bulgarian, Greek and Albanian Turkisms in the language of the media is carried out. I have tried to find examples of...

The present study is based on a translation into Swedish of three French journalistic articles on energy sobriety. The study aims at comparing the source and the target texts, with regard to clause frequency and the use of various clause and phrase categories. This analysis is linked to the structural differences between the two languages, that have been stated by researchers in contrastive linguistics. The clause and phrase categories in focus have been defined by Olof Eriksson (1997), and used as translation units in his contrastive study on the French and Swedish languages.  The results of the analysis prove that the Swedish translation is characterised by a considerably higher clause frequency than the French source texts. The reason is that the translation has led to more phrases being replaced by clauses, than the opposite. This divergency is conform to the stated differences between French and Swedish – a conclusion that also can be drawn regarding the most frequent shifts from phrase to clause categories, especially the ones including a participle phrase. However, not all observed shifts are obligatory, which means that the results could be somewhat different if the analysis was based on a translation conducted by someone else. In a future study, it would therefore be interesting to extend the analysis to include several versions of the same translated text.

Thesis (MA) -- Stellenbosch University, 1976. / No Abstract Available

This thesis presents a description and analysis of non-canonical case-marking of core arguments in Lithuanian. It consists of an introduction and six articles, providing historical and/or contrastive perspective to this issue. More specifically, using data from Lithuanian dialects, Old Lithuanian and other languages such as Icelandic, Latin and Finnic for comparison, the thesis examines the development and current state of non-canonical case-marking of core arguments in Lithuanian The present work draws on empirical findings and theoretical considerations to investigate non-canonical case-marking, language variation and historical linguistics. Special attention is paid to the variation in the case-marking of body parts in pain verb constructions, where an accusative-marked body part is used in Standard Lithuanian, and alongside, a nominative-marked body part in Lithuanian dialects. A common objective of the first three articles is to clarify and to seek a better understanding for the reasons for this case variation. The research provides evidence that nominative is the original case-marking of body parts in pain specific construction, i.e. with verbs, with the original meaning of pain, like skaudėti and sopėti ‘hurt, feel pain’. On the contrary, in derived pain constructions, i.e. with verbs like gelti with the original meaning of ‘sting, bite’ and diegti with the original meaning ‘plant’, accusative is the original case-marking of body parts. This accusative is explained by means of an oblique anticausative and it is argued furthermore that it is extended into the pain specific construction. The three last articles focus on the comparative and contrastive perspective. Their main results include the following: Lithuanian and Icelandic differ considerably in the frequency of using accusative vs. dative marking on the highest ranked argument. Accusative is more frequently used in Lithuanian while dative is dominant in Icelandic. The semantic fields of the dative subject construction have remained very stable, suggesting that the dative subject construction is inherited. It has, however, become productive in the history of Germanic, Baltic and Slavic. The similarities in Finnic and Baltic partiality-based object and subject-marking systems are due to Baltic influence. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: In press. Paper 2: In press. Paper 3: In press.</p>

This master thesis deals with a comparison of the most common German and Czech valency lexicons, focusing on the dictionaries E-VALBU and VALLEX in particular. It employs two different methods: a confrontation of selected verbal translation pairs using corpus analysis and taking the introspective valency tests of the individual dictionaries into account, as well as qualitative research among the linguists - the authors and users of valency dictionaries. The thesis proves the usability of corpus analysis for this kind of research and shows that most differences in dictionary entries are not caused by a different behavior of the respective verbs in both languages, but rather by divergent theoretical bases of the dictionaries. The interviews with selected linguists confirm the theoretical discrepancies, but also show many similar opinions and experiences, in particular those regarding practical work with the dictionaries: a stress on the user-friendliness of the dictionaries and the use of real language data from the corpora.

In dieser Arbeit werden verschiedene Sprechtempoparameter in den Sprachen Chinesisch, Deutsch, Englisch, brasilianisches und europäisches Portugiesisch sowie Spanisch zueinander in Bezug gesetzt: Die Maßeinheiten Laute, Silben, Wörter und Morpheme pro Sekunde werden unter Ein- und Ausschluss der Pausenzeit gemessen. Dabei ergeben sich für die germanischen Sprachen niedrige Durchschnittswerte, die romanischen Sprachen liegen im mittleren bis hohen Bereich und das Chinesische weist je nach betrachtetem Parameter mittlere oder hohe Werte auf. Eine Analyse der Pausenstruktur ergibt vergleichbare Pausenanteile, aber einen höheren Anteil interner Pausen in den Sprachen Chinesisch, europäisches Portugiesisch und Spanisch. Weiterhin werden nonverbale Aspekte berücksichtigt und die Größen Gesten, Gesichts¬ausdrücke und Bewegungen des Kopfes und Oberkörpers pro Minute gemessen. Im brasilianischen Portugiesisch sind Gesten und im Chinesischen Bewegungen des Kopfes und Oberkörpers auffallend häufig. Geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede sind in allen Bereichen gering und nur im europäischen Portugiesisch statistisch signifikant. Bezüglich des wahrgenommenen Sprechtempos zeigt sich in Experimenten und Umfragen, dass die romanischen Sprachen als schnell bezeichnet werden. Chinesische Hörer schätzen außerdem das Sprechtempo anders ein als deutsche, wobei die Silbenkomplexität für beide Gruppen unterschiedliche Rollen spielt. Daneben bestehen zwischen diesen beiden Gruppen signifikante Unterschiede in der Beurteilung von Sachlichkeit und Vertrauenswürdigkeit in Aufnahmen. Für die untersuchte Sprechsituation wird davon ausgegangen, dass in verschiedenen Sprachgemeinschaften die Verwendung unterschiedlicher sprachlicher (verbaler wie nonverbaler) Mittel bevorzugt wird. Das Sprechtempo wird damit als eine von phonetisch-phonologischen Faktoren, aber auch von in gesellschaftlichen Gruppen vorhandenen Tendenzen im Sprachgebrauch beeinflusste Größe verstanden. / This doctoral thesis is a cross-linguistic analysis of speech tempo, comparing Chinese, English, German, Brazilian and European Portuguese, and Spanish. There are several parameters of speech tempo under analysis: sounds, syllables, words, and morphemes per second. The Germanic languages show lower values, whereas Romance languages tend to have medium and high values, and Chinese appears to have different, both medium and high values depending on what element is counted. An analysis of pause structure renders comparable percentages of time spent on silence, yet the proportion of internal pauses is considerably higher in Chinese, European Portuguese and Spanish. Furthermore, nonverbal aspects of speech are considered and data are collected for the measures gestures, facial expressions and movements of the head and torso per minute. Gestures are remarkably more frequent in Brazilian Portuguese, and movements of the head/torso are highly frequent in Chinese. Differences between genders are generally small, only within European Portuguese some statistically significant differences can be observed. Surveys on stereotypes and perception experiments show that the Romance languages are generally perceived as spoken more rapidly. The listeners’ native language appears to be a factor of perceived speech tempo: Chinese listeners’ responses are significantly different from German listeners’ responses. Syllable complexity plays different roles for these two groups of listeners. They also show significant differences when judging objectivity and trustworthyness in recordings. Considering the particular communication situation analyzed here, it is pointed out that in different speech communities, different verbal and nonverbal behavior is preferred in certain contexts. Speech tempo is influenced by phonetic and phonological factors, as well as tendencies towards a certain communicative style that can be observed within a given society.