About this blog

About this blog Über mich | Su di me Lebenslauf |CV

Brief Overview 
Languages: German, English, French, Italian, Catalan + some basic knowledge of Irish, Russian and Basque. 
Field(s): Coming from translatology (classical functionalist approach), literature (French and Catalan) and hobby linguistics (heard of Saussure, peeped into Talmy), moving on to real linguistics (Generative Grammar - OT Phonology, Distributed Morphology, Minimalist Syntax, Sentential Semantics)

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’m happy like a little child, as we say in my native German (Ich freue mich wie ein kleines Kind) every time I see parallels between a new language I’m learning and German or one of my other languages.

When I was 16 and started listening to some Irish learning CDs, I found the Munster Irish for ‘How are you’,  conas tánn tú, to sound similar to Italian come stai, which has the same meaning. Half a year later, I came across another Munster Irish version of ‘How are you’, conas táir, which resembles the correspondent phrase even more - not only in sound but also when it comes to its structural meaning:

1. 
   

Irish				Italian
conas	tá	-ir		come	stai
how	be.ᴘʀᴇs	-2sɢ		how	be.ᴘʀᴇs.2sɢ
‘how are you’				‘how are you’
sɢ: singular, Xsɢ: Xth person singular

Both tá and stare denote a temporary state of being (note that state is a cognate of stare) whereas the copula is expressed by is in Irish and essere in Italian.

Note that there is no 1:1 equivalence between tá / stare and is / essere and there is no 1:1 equivalence between these forms and the correspondent Spanish / Catalan forms either, as the following versions of the phrases The book is on the table and I am tired demonstrate: Irish Italian Spanish Catalan Tá an leabhar ar an mbord Il libro è sul tavolo Il libro sta sul tavolo El libro está sobre la mesa El llibre és sobre la taula Táim tuirseach/ Tá tuirse orm Sono stanco/a GLMI: So’ stanco/a Estoy cansado/a Estic cansat/da For introducing adverbial phrases of place, both Irish and Spanish use tá / estar, whereas the Catalan version has  ser and Italian allows both stare (which is more common in the South) and essere (which is more common in the North). One might assume that the use of stare /essere  in Southern Italy is equivalent to that of tá / is in Irish  and estar / ser in Spanish while the use of stare / essere in Northern Italy is equivalent to that of estar / ser in Catalan, but this is not the case: In the example I am tired,  not only the Standard / Northern Italian version but also that of the Gruppo Linguistico Meridionale Intermedio (GLMI abbreviation mine), i.e. Middle Southern Italian varieties has a form of essere, while Catalan, Irish and Spanish use estar / tá. For more information about the use of tá / is, stare / essere, (es) estar/ser and (cat) estar/ser see reference grammars of the respective languages.

A year later or so, I found myself in the school yard of my new school telling some French teacher I never had in class about Irish Níl agam ach teach amháin being a funny mix of English I have but one house (which itself might be an ellipsis of I have nothing but a house) and French Je n’ai qu’une maison, whereupon he told me: “That’s linguistics what you’re doing there” (Das ist Linguistik, was Du da machst).

Irish	Níl	(= ní	fhuil)	ag-am	ach	teach	amháin
	ɴᴇɢ.be.ᴅᴇᴘɴᴅ (not.be)	ɴᴇɢ	be.ᴅᴇᴘɴᴅ	ᴘʀᴇᴘ-1sɢ (at-me)	ᴀᴅᴠᴇʀs but	house	one
English	I			have	but (ᴀᴅᴠᴇʀs)	one	house
French	Je	n’		ai	qu’	une	maison
	1sɢ	ɴᴇɢ (not)		have.1sɢ	ᴄᴏᴍᴘ than	one	house
ɴᴇɢ: negation , ᴅᴇᴘɴᴅ: dependent form (abbr. mine), ᴘʀᴇᴘ: preposition, ᴄᴏᴍᴘ : comparative, ᴀᴅᴠᴇʀs : adversative (abbr. mine)
The Irish phrase resembles the French one in that the concept of ‘only’ is expressed by a negation ([ga] ní, [fr] ne) and a conjunction ([ga] ach, ‘but’, [fr] que, ‘than’), but while the conjunction used in French is a comparative one, the one used in both Irish and English is adversative. On the other hand, while the negation can be simply conveyed by a negation particle (ní / ne) in Irish and French, this is not possible in English due to some syntactical constraints I will eventually find out about in the next years, so the negation has to be either covert (meaning we don’t hear or see it but it’s still there) or coded overtly by nothing, which is not a negation particle but a quantifier pronoun. This is problematic, though, as I have but one house and I have nothing but one house do not mean the same: While I have but one house means ‘I have no more than one house’, I have nothing but one house means ‘I have no other objects than one house’. - Wait, did I just say ‘than’? Here it comes, the French que! But then again, I am not a native, so my use of ‘than’ might as well be an interference from French que or German als. By the way, I have nothing but a house can be rendered in German as Ich habe nichts als ein Haus, als being a comparative conjunction like French que.

So when I went to university, I was thrilled to learn more about linguistics. I had enrolled in Translation studies because I wanted ‘something with a career perspective’ but in the deepest depth of my heart I knew my main interest weren’t text type conventions of operating instruction manuals, rent contracts or complaint letters and their appropriate transfer between languages but the languages themselves, their sound, their feel and...their grammar structures. So now, after having completed my Bachelor’s degree in Translation Studies (my thesis is about descriptions of nonverbal elements in children’s literature), I am finally moving on to linguistics - and finding out I know nothing about it and the reflections on grammar I’ve had so far are highly trivial, superficial and un-systematic.

Still I resolved to list my trivial, superficial and un-systematic reflections and tidbits of data here, as

1. It might be interesting for other laypeople and amateur linguists - and maybe for some professional linguist looking for certain data or wanting to know why their students make certain mistakes...
2. As the quantity of data grows, I (or some other linguist) might eventually see some of them match, like in a mosaic, and form evidence for some theory. Who knows?
3. It is a nice way for me to practise writing glosses and explaining examples, which might come in handy for my future papers.

If you see any mistakes in my glosses or explanations, please do correct me! Meanwhile, have fun!