Report by Wilbert Soriano

1. Wilbert A. Soriano ELT 503 – Contrastive Analysis
M.A. Ed. ELT Prof. Irish C. Sioson
SYNTAX
- it is the study of how words combine to make sentences
- the way in which linguistic elements (as words) are put together to form constituents (as
phrases or clauses)
Syntactic Transfer
 positive – if the transfer involves articles and other syntactic structures
which are both evident in a NL to TL
 negative – the transfer involves a change in order of articles and other
syntactic structures from the NL to TL
The analysis of Syntactic Transfer has a great deal of evidence both in positive and
negative in studies of word order, relative clauses and negation.
Word Order
The vast of human languages have either of this basic word order:
 VSO (Verb-Subject-Object)
 SVO(Subject-Verb-Object)
 SOV(Subject-Object-Verb)
A word order of a language can be described as “flexible” and “rigid”.
The relative rigidity of some word orders of some languages according to Thompson (1978):
Language Word Order Rigidity
Irish VSO Rigid
Biblical Hebrew VSO Flexible
English SVO Rigid
Russian SVO Flexible
Persian SOV Rigid
Turkish SOV Flexible
Discourse Factors in Word Order
According to Piennemann (1981) study and others that: “A rigid word order is advantageous
because it simplifies or at least seems to simplify language processing routines. On the other hand,
flexible word order also has advantages but in learners’ use of the second language may at times reflect
discourse constraints in the native language, but at other times it may reflect discourse signals found in
all languages.”
The surveys of Ute, Turkish and Serbo-Croatian, all languages with a very flexible order, show
that some of the six possible permutations (i.e. SVO, SOV, VSO, VOS, OSV, OVS) are much more frequent
than others. (Slobin 1982;Givon 1984a). Far from being “free” or random word order in flexible
languages seems to reflect constraints imposed by the discourse needs of speakers and listeners.
Syntax 1

2. Wilbert A. Soriano ELT 503 – Contrastive Analysis
M.A. Ed. ELT Prof. Irish C. Sioson
The Topic-Comment Patterning
- a sensible strategy in establishing a topic with focus
- this is very useful in the early stages of acquisition
Zero Anaphora
- omission of a form signaling a predictable topic.
Anaphora
repetition for effect: the use of the same word or phrase at the beginning of
several successive clauses, sentences, lines, or verses, usually for emphasis or
rhetorical effect.
"She didn't speak. She didn't stand. She didn't even look up when we came in"
Aside from the word order, other syntactic devices play a in the system, as given in this scale:
Most continuous topic
Zero Anaphora
Unstressed pronoun
Right dislocation
Neutral order
Left dislocation
Least continuous topic
The basic principle is summarized below: (Givon 1984b:126)
Of the topics that are fully expressed as an independent word or pronoun, those that
are most continuous/predictable will display COMMENT-TOPIC (VS,VO) word order; while those
that are less continuous/predictable will display TOPIC-COMMENT (SV,OV) word order.
Transfer in Basic-Word Order Patterns
The discourse-based argument suggests that in the early stages of acquisition learners’
word order patterns are “asyntactic” and reflect universal principles of discourse organization.
On the other hand, the Universal Grammar argument suggests that innate principle of
syntactic organization is available in the second as well as in the first language acquisition.
Relative Clauses
Kuno (1974) has investigated the tendency in SOV languages for relative clauses to precede the
noun they modify as opposed to the tendency in VSO (and most SVO) languages for relative clauses to
follow the noun.
English (SVO) – The cheese that the rat ate was rotten
Japanese (SOV) – Nezumi ga tabeta cheese wa kusatte ita
rat ate cheese rotten
English primarily relies heavily on Right Branching Direction (RBD) while Japanese relies on Left
Branching Direction (LBD) since the head noun together with the modifying clause appears in different
sequence.
Embedded and Non-Embedded
The dish which fell on the floor broke in half. (with embedded relative clause)
The little girl is looking for the cat which ran away. (relative clause is not embedded)
Sheldon (1977) found that embedding did not affect children’s ability to interpret relative
clauses in their native languages (English and French) more crucial are sentences having parallel functions.
The lion that pushes the horse knocks down the cow. (much more easier to understand)
The lion knocks down the cow that pushes the horse. (confusing/ambiguous)
Syntax 2

3. Wilbert A. Soriano ELT 503 – Contrastive Analysis
M.A. Ed. ELT Prof. Irish C. Sioson
Negation
Fundamentally, this is the semantic notion, whereas word order is a formal arrangement.
Forms expressing negation: no (English), nicht (German)
Prefixes and suffixes that also express negation: un-, dis-, non-, -less
In English, negators may be either words or contracted forms.
Alice is not here.
Alice isn’t here.
English verb phrase negators are often preverbal but not postverbal.
But in Spanish and German rules is not simple because they may have multiple negations both preverbal
and post verbal.
Jean ne voyage pas (John is not travelling) - “ne” and “pas” function together as negators
Wode (1981) studied the use of negation in performance of monolingual and bilingual children in terms
of developmental sequences and arrived at three major stages:
1. One-word negation
2. Two-word negation
3. Intra-sentential negation
Syntax 3