Page 57 - Difference or Disorder Digital Version

Difference or Disorder?

CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS FOR LANGUAGE: MORPHOSYNTAX

Note: Sentences marked with an asterisk (*) are not grammatical.

Feature Hebrew English Examples of Errors
Word order Flexible Strict Subject Verb The ball he threw.*/ He
Object order threw the ball.

Copula to be in Does not exist Mandatory I tired.*/I am tired.
present tense
Adjectives Adjective follows Adjective precedes The ball big*/ The big
noun noun ball.
rd
Verb inflection Many forms, 2 present tense Omission of 3 person
determined by forms: “s”:
person, gender, I eat She talk to me.* / She
and number. You eat talks to me.
highly inflected He/She/It eats
language We eat
You all eat
They eat
Indefinite article Does not exist Exists I have book.*/I have a
book.
Question Questions marked Word order You give me a sticker?*/
formation by inflection or inversion or Will you give me a
question words addition of “do” sticker?
What you think?*/ What
do you think?
We can go?* / Can we
go?

(Coulmas, 2003; Tolchinsky, 2003)

HOME CORNER

Growing up in Israel we start learning English in the third grade. I was always good at it, but

my parents thought that it wasn’t enough and hired a tutor to teach me English. I also really

liked watching movies – but I always hated reading subtitles since reading them makes you

miss much of the movie – so I just ignored them and tried to understand what I could. At the

age of 11, I went to the United States for the first time in order to visit my grandparents and,

much to everyone’s surprise, I could understand mostly everything and even communicate
45
quite well! Two years later, I visited the United States again and by that point I already could

speak freely and understand just about anything. I also acquired some friends around my age

Copyright © 2014 www.bilinguistics.com. All Rights Reserved