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Typical Analytical Problems
All
Columbia School grammatical analyses begin with a question about the appearance
or position of a linguistic form in
a particular language. Listed below are examples of such questions for which
analyses have been done.
(Full references in bibliography)
-
Why
do English speakers sometimes select a
–self pronoun, while on
other occasions select a simple pronoun?
She bought flowers for herself.
She carried an umbrella with her.
(Stern, 2001)
-
Why do English speakers sometimes opt for a gerund
complement and on other occasions for an infinitive complement?
After a year she will like living
in France.
Some day, she would like to
live in France. (Wherrity,
2001)
-
Why do English speakers sometimes put the
‘recipient’ of a gift in a to
phrase and elsewhere do not?
I sent a package to
Mary.
I sent Mary a package.
(Huffman,
1996)
-
Why do singular verbs sometimes occur with plural
subjects (and vice versa)?
The sex lives of Roman Catholic nuns does not, at first blush, seem
like promising material for a book. [Example from Newsweek]
(Reid, 1991)
-
Why is
subject-verb inversion used both for questions and non-questions?
Should he leave
before supper? He can eat in
town.
Should he leave
before supper, he can eat in town.
(Diver, ms)
-
Why does the word gun
appear after the verb fired in the
first sentence and before the verb fired
in the second sentence when both sentences could describe the same scene?
The soldier fired a
gun
The gun fired a
40-mm shell.
(Diver,
ms)
-
In French, why is the accusative pronoun used
for the (direct object) complement of some verbs and the dative pronoun used
for others?
Je le suis
I follow him.
Je lui obeis
I obey him.
(Huffman, 1983, 1997)
-
In
English, why does the adjective sometimes appear before the noun and other
times after the noun?
The boys painted the red
barn.
The boys painted the barn
red.
(Diver, ms)
-
Why do we typically say ‘she came in
a taxi’ but ‘she came on a
bus’? (Reid, 2002)
-
In Spanish why does the adjective sometimes appear
after the noun and other times before the
noun?
un viejo amigo
an old (longtime) friend
un amigo viejo
an old (elderly) friend (Klein,
1968 & 1983)
-
In
Spanish why does combining an impersonal se
with a reflexive se result
in an ungrammatical sentence in view of the fact it seems neither
structurally nor semantically anomalous?
*Se se bañó
One bathed oneself. (Garcia,
1977)
-
In
German, why is the direct object of some verbs in the accusative
case and in the
dative case for others?
Sitta sieht den Jungen (Accusative) an.
Sitta looks (ansehen) at the boy.
Sitta sieht dem
Jungen (Dative) zu.
Sitta looks (zusehen) at the boy.
(Zubin, 1972, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1980)
-
In
Italian, why is the singular masculine pronoun
egli sometimes
used for the grammatical subject and
other times the singular masculine pronoun lui used?
Egli non
rispose He
did not answer.
Lui
non rispose He did not answer.
(Davis, 1992, 1995a)
-
Can a connection be
found between Hebrew triconsonantal roots
(CCC) and their meanings? For
example: /C-r-C/ roots appear
to reflect a general semantic
field of “Change in Structure".
(Tobin, 2001)
-
In
Swahili and other Bantu languages, a different and smaller set of tenses is
used in the negative than in the affirmative.
Why? (Contini-Morava,
1989)
- In Swahili and other Bantu languages,
noun class prefixes signal information about noun class membership as well
as number. But the classes do
not all pair into binary singular-plural sets.
What number information is actually signaled by the noun class
prefixes and how does it relate to the noun classification system?
(Contini-Morava, 2000).
-
I couldn't have made a more
distinct comment if I tried.
... In fact, a distincter
comment than that is difficult to imagine.
(Tobin, 1990)
-
Why is it more appropriate to respond to someone saying
"I love you" with:
"I love you, too" rather than: "I
also love you" or "I
love you also"?
(Tobin, 1990) |
