ENG 401 Morphology Professional Assignment 3 Topic: Syntaxs Role in Morphology Professor Claudia Schroeppel October 17, 2010

Allomorphism in the German Language by William Schober The British Royal Coat of Arms for Prince Charles has the German motto, Ich Dien, which means I serve. This could be owing to the fact that the House of Windsor is a branch of the German House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The largest ethnic group in the United States is German, at about 47 million as of the year 2000 (Mitchell, 2009). In 1795, the U.S. Congress debated whether to translate U.S. laws into German in addition to English. Even today, the Amish and the Mennonites still speak German in the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina. The high-quality precision found in German cars (e.g., Mercedes Benz, BMW, Porsche) is also found in the German language itself. The German language has inflectional word forms for the nominative, accusative, genitive and dative cases. The German language also distinguishes between singular and plural nouns per case. German nouns are metamorphosed by changes in their stems, articles, determiners, noun modifiers, demonstrative pronouns, possessive pronouns, and adjectives. Specifically, herein, the German definite article for the English word the and the German indefinite article for the English word a(n) will be focused on with attention to allomorph identification and syntactic function. Moreover, the German no noun-modifier and demonstrative pronouns will be looked at.. The definite article the for masculine, feminine, and neuter singular nouns in the nominative case in German are respectively der, die, and das. Three examples of their use

are: Masculine Noun der Hund the dog Feminine Noun die Katz the cat Neuter Noun das Fenster the window

Definite article forms der, die, and das can be viewed as three allomorphs in German for the English word the with their complementary distribution determined by noun gender within a given case. When singular nouns are alternatively used in the accusative case, only the definite article for the masculine nouns transforms from the nominative case as shown: Masculine Noun den Hund the dog Feminine Noun Neuter Noun die Katz das Fenster the cat the window

In the accusative case, an additional word form for the definite article the is found in the German word den; making three allomorphs in the accusative case: der, die, and das. For the genitive case, the definite articles for the singular nouns are: Masculine Noun des Hund the dog Feminine Noun der Katz the cat Neuter Noun des Fenster the window

The genitive case reveals still another word form of the German definite article: des; making two allomorphs in the genitive case: des and der. The dative case presents still another word form of the German definite article: dem, which is distributed within the dative case as follows: Masculine Noun dem Hund the dog Feminine Noun der Katz the cat Neuter Noun dem Fenster the window

This makes two allomorphs of the German definite article in the dative case: dem and der. The above examples only encompass the complementary distribution of singular nouns according gender within the nominative case. An example of plural nouns in the nominative case is:

Masculine Noun die Shuhe the shoes

Feminine Noun die Zeitungen the newspapers

Neuter Noun die Fenster the windows

Two declensions in German for the English the provide an overview: Nominative der das die Singular Nouns Accusative Dative den dem das dem die der Genitive des des der

Masculine Neuter Feminine

Masculine Neuter Feminine

Plural Nouns Nominative Accusative Dative die die den die die den die die den

Genitive der der der

A more general declension for the definite articles of plural nouns, irrespective of gender is: Plural Nominative die Accusative die Dative den Genitive der

Overall, this leaves us six different word forms for the German definite article. They are: der, die, das, des, den and dem (Berlitz, 2003). They are weak suppletive word forms of one another ( i.e., they are collectively weak suppletive word forms although des, den, and dem are phonologically distinguished from each other, and der is phonologically distinguished from die if /r/ is considered a single phoneme) that have a complementary distribution into eight different syntactic positions (i.e., two number dimensions by four case dimensions). Once in a syntactic position is determined by case and number, the definite article may or may not allomorphically differentiate over three gender classes. These six word forms of the German definite article are all nonconcatenative stem changes and free morphemes.. In English, many of the participles of irregular verbs are weak suppletive word forms of the present tense such as: catch/caught, buy/bought, and sell/sold to name a few. The English

definite article the is represented by only two word forms: /i/ and //. The /i/ word form is used before words beginning with vowel sounds, while the // word form is used before words beginning with consonant sounds. The complementary distribution of the two English word forms for the is not complex; whereas, the conjugation of verbs for the manifold English verb tenses is intricate. The nominative case is the subject of the sentence or independent clause; whereas, the accusative case is the direct object. The dative case is the indirect object; whereas, the genitive case is used for possession. These are the basic grammatical cases of the German language. There are general rules for assigning gender to German nouns but each rule has many exceptions rendering these rules ineffectual. An effective method for a learning the genders of a large quantity of German nouns is to include the nominative singular definite article (which are free morphemes) when studying them. Some examples of this are: der Tisch, die Nacht, das Ei. The inefficient method would be to just learn Tisch, Nacht, Ei (Berlitz, 2003). Similarly, there is no rhyme or reason to English irregular verbs; but rather, they are the disconnected vestiges of patterns lost over time, no longer in use. The cultural perception of masculine and feminine is different now than when these German words originated; consequently, making the gender association of many nouns inaccessible or not readily perceptible. An example of the complementary distribution of the word forms of the German definite article is: Das Kind sieht die Frau des Mannes in dem Auto. The child sees the wife of the man in the car. For the plural forms, the sentence becomes: Der Kinder sehen die Frauen der Mnner in den Autos. The children see the wives of the men in the cars.

The German indefinite article, ein, has a similar complementary distribution of its word forms as shown in the same example, but with indefinite articles: Ein Kind sieht eine Frau eines Mannes in einem Auto. A child sees a wife of a man in a car. The word forms of the German indefinite article ein have a complementary distribution according to case; and, then, may or may not differentiate over three gender classes through the use of inflectional suffixes e, -er, -en, -em, -es or zero expression. The word forms of the indefinite article have a similar complementary distribution to that of the definite article, but lacking a plural (Cording, 2009): Nominative Accusative Dative Genitive Masculine ein Hund einen Hund einem Hund eines Hundes Neuter ein Licht ein Licht einem Licht eines Lichtes Feminine eine Katz eine Katze einer Katze einer Katze

The declension of ein for the English word a(n) provides another overview: Masculine Neuter Feminine Nominative ein ein eine Accusative einen ein eine Dative einem einem einer Genitive eines eines einer

The indefinite article in English has only two word forms: a and an. The a word form is used before words beginning with consonant sounds; whereas, the an word form is used before words beginning with vowel sounds. Additionally, the German word kein, for the English word no, has a very similar declension to that of ein; except that there is a plural for kein as shown (Cording, 2009): Nominative Accusative Dative Genitive Masculine kein Hund keinen Hund keinem Hund keines Hundes Neuter kein Licht kein Licht keinem Licht keines Lichtes Feminine keine Katz keine Katze keiner Katze keiner Katze Plural keine keine keinen keiner

The corresponding declension of kein is: Masculine Neuter Feminine Plural Nominative kein kein keine keine Accusative keinen kein keine keine Dative keinem keinem keiner keinen Genitive keines keines keiner keiner

Related to the article declensions are the declensions for the demonstrative pronouns; i.e., this/these and that/those which are respectively as follows: Nominative Accusative Dative Nominative Accusative Dative Masculine dieser Mann diesen Mann diesem Mann Masculine jener Mann jenen Mann jenem Mann Feminine diese Frau diese Frau dieser Frau Feminine jene Frau jene Frau jener Frau Neuter dieses Kind dieses Kind diesem Kind Neuter jenes Kind jenes Kind jenem Kind Plural diese diese diesen Plural jene jene jenen

Both stems, deis for this/these and jen for that/those, receive the inflectional suffixes e, -er, -en, -em, or -es throughout their respective declensions. German determines and noun modifiers are syntactically conditioned insofar as it is the grammatical case that determines which inflectional word form is used. According to Boeree (2010, p. 1), Morphemes are words, word stems, and affixesthey are considered part of a languages syntax or grammar. German is a very precise language. Germans imbue precision into every product they manufacture. It is no wonder that their language exhibits the same precision found in many aspects of their lives. Their precision with articles is also remarkable in that some languages completely lack articles. The German language is just as syntactically precise with pronouns, possessive pronouns and adjectives as it is with determiners and noun modifiers. To be a technologically-advanced nation requires a precise language which the German people well

have. Bibliography and Works Cited Boeree C. G. (2003). Morphology. Copyright 2003. Retrieved October 17, 2010, from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/morphology.html Dr. C. George Boeree, who was born in the Netherlands, was a professor in the Psychology Department at Shippensburg University and also is the creator of the Lingua Franca Nova. Lingua Franca Nova is and auxilliary constructed language with a vocabulary based on the Romance languages, highly reduced grammar, and phonemic spelling. Dr. Boeree got his BA from Pennsylvania State University, and his MS and PhD from Oklahoma State University, in Psychology. Dr. Boeree has written numerous articles is the fields of linguistics and sociolinguistics. This work is germane because it establishes that morphemes are part of a languages syntax or grammar. In this work, Dr. Boeree posits that inflected word forms and allomorphs are generally syntactically conditioned. .German learners guide. (2003). Singapore: Berlitz Publishing/APA Publications GmbH & Co. Verlag KG, Singapore Branch. Berlitz International, Inc. was founded by Maximilian D. Berlitz, a Swiss immigrant, in 1878 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Berlitz became a Professor of German and French, two languages spoken in Switzerland, at the Warner Polytechnic College in Providence. Presently, this internationally recognized language school has more than 470 language centers in 70 countries. Berlitz international has training programs, in about 10 different languages, one of them being German. This instructional book is germane inasmuch as it affords the reader a foundation in German grammar necessary to perceive the syntactical conditioning of various word forms in the German language. Fox, A. (2005). The structure of german. Oxford, Engand: Oxford University Press. Mitchell, A. (2009, September 5). Americas Largest Ethnic Group. Article Alley. Retrieved August 21, 2010, from http://www.articlealley.com/article_1067397_27.html Corder, A. (2009, June 3). Die Deklination von Artikeln und Adjektiven-Declensions in German. Word Press. Retrieved August 26, 2010, from http://tasida.wordpress.com/2009/03/06/156/