Translation of Possessive Noun-Phrases
in Germanic languages
Synchronic correlation analysis of linguistic strategies
concerning the loss of genitive case-marking
Master Thesis
Final Version
Student: J. Davies-Popken Student number: 10581324 Supervisor: A.P. Versloot
Master: Linguistics: Language and Society (Scandinavian Languages) Date: 17 December 2017
Index Index 2 Introduction 4 1. Background 6 1.1 Deformed genitives ... 6 1.2 Dative/Accusative case ... 10 1.3 Zero Marking ... 11 1.4 Compounds ... 12 1.5 Preposition constructions ... 13 1.6 Personal pronouns ... 14 1.7 Subordinate clauses ... 17 1.8 Summary ... 17 2. Methodology 19 2.1 Collection of data ... 19 2.2 The languages ... 20
2.3 The translated texts ... 21
2.4 Categorizing the data ... 22
2.5 Analysis and hypotheses ... 26
3. Results 28
3.1 General overview ... 28
3.2 Correlations ... 30
3.3 Languages with original genitive case ... 31
3.4 Partitives in translation ... 34
3.5 Languages with deformed genitives ... 35
3.5.1 English ... 35 3.5.2 Dutch ... 37 3.5.3 Luxembourgish ... 37 3.5.4 Faroese ... 38 3.5.5 Swedish ... 38 3.5.6 Elfdalian ... 38 3.5.7 Danish ... 39
3.6 Languages without genitive case ... 40
3.6.2 Fering ... 41 4. Discussion 43 4.1 Discussing results ... 43 4.1.1 German ... 43 4.1.2 Icelandic ... 44 4.1.3 English ... 45 4.1.4 Dutch ... 47 4.1.5 Luxembourgish ... 48 4.1.6 Faroese ... 49
4.1.7 Swedish & Danish ... 50
4.1.8 Elfdalian ... 51 4.1.9 Afrikaans ... 52 4.1.10 Fering ... 53 4.2 Translational decisions ... 54 Conclusion 57 Bibliography 60
Introduction
There are several ways to express a possessive relationship between two nouns in various languages. One can for example place a preposition between the two nouns to imply their relationship with each other (The book of John), use a certain suffix to one of the nouns to express their relationship (Johns book), or use an even different strategy. It depends per language which strategies are common in expressing a possession between two nouns.
This research will focus on the differentiation in strategies between Germanic languages in how they express a possessive noun phrase. The direct motivation for this research topic is the loss of the morphological case in most Germanic languages. In languages like English, Dutch, Swedish, Afrikaans and Danish, a case system is barely in use (except for some archaic forms), while in languages like Elfdalian and Faroese, the morphological cases are at least changing. In all of these languages the genitive case, used to express a possessive relationship between two nouns, has been either lost, or changed into a very minimalistic form. Only in German and Icelandic, this genitive case has maintained its original form and function. With the loss of the genitive case in these languages, their other strategies to express a possessive noun phrase, must have come more in use, leading to the question which strategy/strategies is/are preferred. And even without the loss of the genitive case, it is questionable whether a case-marking is the most preferred strategy in languages like German and Icelandic.
Much extant research has tried to explain this loss of the genitive case by means of a diachronic analysis and of its evolution to a new form. This leaves an unexplored possibility for a synchronic research concerning these alternatively used possessive constructions in Germanic languages. Furthermore, a comparison can be made between the languages in order to find out how these languages manage the loss of the genitive case and if languages share preferences to certain linguistic strategies to express a possessive noun phrase. In order to be able to conduct such a research, a basic text or speech is required which is available in all the language intended for research. For this purpose, Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943) is an ideal source as it is translated into many (Germanic) languages and is therefore great material for a case-study. Not only is it possible to analyze this text per language on the expression of possessive noun phrases, but it also gives the possibility to make an equal comparison between the languages.
In order to investigate the preferred strategies per language (in comparison to the others), possessive noun phrases where acquired from Le Petit Prince and analyzed on how they were translated into the following languages: English, Dutch, Afrikaans, Luxembourgish, Faroese, Fering, Swedish, Elfdalian, Danish, Icelandic and German (a further explanation of the choice of
languages will be given in the methodology). The possessive constructions were ordered, analyzed and compared, leading towards a clearer insight in which possessive constructions were preferred per language and if languages acted alike in their translation strategies.
Chapter One presents a background overview on the possible possessive constructions and how they are used in the aforementioned languages. In Chapter Two, the methodology is presented, together with some hypotheses that resulted from the background information. The results of the comparative analysis will be given in Chapter Three. An interpretation of the results, together with the information in Chapter One, leads to Chapter Four: Discussion. At the end of this thesis, a conclusion is formulated and the research questions will be answered, as well as possibilities for further research will be discussed.
1. Background
In linguistics, a possessive construction indicates an (asymmetrical) relationship between the subject that is possessing (possessor) and that which is possessed (possessee/object). This does not necessarily indicate a Noun-Noun only relationship because according to Bril (2012), it can be used in a much broader semantic context. Examples of these possessive relationships are kinship relations, part-whole relationships, body parts, attributes and partitive relationships (p. 65). A possessive construction or possessive Noun Phrase (NP), which contains some form of a possessive modifier, can be formed either morphologically or syntactically. All of these forms, as will presently be outlined, are functionally equivalent to genitives (Dahl 2015, p. 157).
The genitive case, part of a morphological case-system, is used to express a possessive relationship by adding a suffix to a possessive NP. In Germanic languages, this case is mostly found in Icelandic and German, as the use of the genitive case has decreased in most other Germanic languages. Due to the loss of the genitive case, other possessive modifiers came into use, as has been discussed by Dahl (2015, p. 157-200). Dahl (2015) mainly focused on the Scandinavian language area but also showed a clear overview of the possible constructions used to express a possessive NP. Solutions which subsequently presented themselves are deformed genitives (a morphological solution that originated from the genitive case), dative/accusative case, compounds, zero-markings, preposition constructions, personal pronoun constructions and subordinate clauses. In this chapter a closer look will be taken into what extent these constructions are important in Germanic languages. First, an explanation will be given of each of the given possibilities of expressing possessive NPs.
1.1 Deformed genitives
In most Germanic languages a form of the genitive case is preserved, though often in a different or minimalistic form. A form like this can be called a "Deformed Genitive". This kind of genitive is still a morphological modifier but has lost most of its former dimensions. An example of this kind of the genitive is the so-called s-genitive. Instead of a complete genitive case, only an -s is added as a suffix to the possessive NP. This can be illustrated by examples of German (DE) (with a genitive case) and English (GB) (with an s-genitive):
DE: Das Buch des Mannes > Genitive Case GB: The man's book > S-suffix / S-genitive
The genitive case in German is expressed by the article des and the adding of -es to the possessor. Originally, English contained a similar morphological case-system to German, meaning that the addition of different article forms and suffixes to nouns could express a possessive relationship. In Modern English only the s-suffix remained, resulting in the genitive case losing its original form in English, hence a deformed genitive. Dahl (2015) refers to these deformed genitives as s-genitives, which he claims can be found in many Germanic languages: Dutch, West-Frisian, English, Danish, Swedish and to a lesser extent in Norwegian (p. 158). Other examples of these genitives can be found in Elfdalian (a dialect spoken in Sweden) and Faroese. In Elfdalian, a possessive NP can be formed with a dative case plus an es-suffix (instead of no case-marking plus an s-suffix in other Germanic varieties) (p. 173). In Faroese, the deformed genitive can be formed with a sa-suffix (Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2003, p. 627).
That the deformed genitives originate from the genitive case, does not mean that they share the same domains. The genitive case as shown in the German example modifies the possessor in a possessive NP, which also happens in the English example. Remarkably, in English, it is possible to not only modify the possessor but a full NP. Therefore the English s-genitive has extended its domain into a 'group genitive'; the suffixed -s can be added to a complete NP/'Noun Group' (Allen 2003, p. 2). A sentence such as: 'The federal government's chief', is, therefore, possible in English. Feist (2012) finds that it depends on the semantics of a possessive NP as to whether an s-genitive or another possessive construction can be used (p. 286-287). As he finds the English s-genitive to be rather independent, it is often the (grammatically) free choice of the speaker/writer which construction he/she wishes to use (p. 287).
The s-genitive in Dutch turns out to be much less freely used than the English s-genitive, leaving Weerman & de Wit (1999) to think that they even might be a different construction. To mark this difference, they refer to the Dutch s-genitive as an s-construction. They first of all argue that the s-construction in Dutch has no synchronic relation to the genitive, as found in modern German. The following arguments are given: an s-construction can only follow an N in an NP (a genitive could occur on both sides) and the s-construction cannot be used as a complement of verbs or adjectives (as a genitive might be) (p. 1165-1166). What does relate the s-construction to the older genitive case is their origin; the s-construction develops diachronically from the Old Dutch genitive (p. 1167). These arguments explain the differences between the Dutch s-construction and the genitive case but do not make clear what the difference is with the English s-genitive. This can be shown in the following example:
NL: *[mannen]s boek *[Oude mannen]s boek
GB: Mens book Old mens book
Both of the Dutch examples are ungrammatical because the Dutch s-construction is mainly restricted to proper names or words that we can understand as being independent. The s-genitive in English can be attached to other words, as for example in the plural form of the word 'man': men. The other difference lies in the placing of the attachment. In English, the s-genitive can be attached to the end of the NP, while the Dutch s-construction can only be attached to a single noun (p. 1172-1173). For this thesis on the possessive NPs in Germanic languages, the distinction between the terms s-construction and s-genitive will not be applied, as both derive from the genitive case. Both will be referred to with the name s-genitive. The research of Weerman & de Wit shows that there are differences in usage of the s-genitive in both English and Dutch.
The research of Weerman & de Wit (1999) sheds a light on the resemblances of the English, Dutch and Swedish s-genitives. According to their research, the Swedish s-genitive follows the same diachronic development as the Dutch s-construction/s-genitive, as they both derive from the genitive case (p. 1176). They mention that the English s-genitive may have a different source (maybe the pronoun his) (p. 1175) and therefore has possibly followed a different diachronic path (although this is far from certain (Norde 1997, p. 91). When analyzing these s-genitives synchronically, it becomes clear that the Swedish s-genitive shares the same features as the English s-genitive and less so with the Dutch s-construction/s-genitive (p. 1176). The difference between the English and Swedish s-genitive lies in their grammatical rules. As stated by Feist (2012), the usage of the English s-genitive is relatively free and depends on semantics and the choice of the speaker/writer. In Swedish, alienability is an extra factor that plays a role in the choice of possessive constructions. When the relationship between a possessor and possessee is alienable, the usage of the s-genitive is mandatory (for example: 'Anna's bil'), while in English this can be replaced with for example a preposition construction: 'The car of Anna'. (Dahl 2015, p. 188).
According to Dahl (2015), the same rules on the Swedish genitive apply to the Danish genitive. When a relationship between possessor and possessee is alienable, one must use an s-genitive. According to Perridon (2013), the Danish s-genitive is used more freely in the spoken language than the English genitive. Younger speakers tend to not only use it as a group genitive but use it even after an adverb, or sometimes a verb (p. 142-143). This usage of the Danish s-genitive is, strictly speaking, ungrammatical; however, due to its frequency in (amongst other things) social media, it possibly constitutes a functional usage (p. 143).
Norwegian. It is sometimes found in some resilient forms but it is rarely present in the language (Dahl 2015, p. 158). In the non-standard varieties of Scandinavian languages, one can find not only the s-genitive but also alternative endings, such as an a-genitive (Dahl 2015 p. 158-159). One of these varieties is Elfdalian, spoken in Sweden (Dalarna region). This dialect is as far removed from Swedish as Swedish is from Icelandic and therefore Dahl argues that it can be considered to be a different language (Dahl 2005, p. 40). Elfdalian preserves a case-system, although the genitive case is mainly lost. Instead of this, one can find either a dative case (paragraph 1.2 Dative/Accusative case) or a complex dative construction. According to Dahl, this complex dative construction is a form of a deformed genitive, formed by adding an es-ending to the dative case:
EL: Ita jar ir kullumes saing > Complex Dative Construction 'This here is the girls' bed'
(Dahl 2015, p. 170)
The es-ending added to a dative case, is supposed to be the closest equivalent to the s-genitive in Swedish (Dahl 2015, p. 173). The Dalecarlian dialect area (Dalarna region) is mostly known for using Elfdalian but also smaller dialects of this 'language' are still in use. These dialects can also use other forms of the es-ending, like: -sa, -os, etc. (p. 178-182).
As in Elfdalian, the case-system in Faroese seems to be mainly intact (Kaptjevskaja-Tamm 2003, p. 627). In this language, the deformed genitives have a different ending: a suffix. This sa-suffix seems to have quite a few similarities with the English s-genitive, as it is possible to add it to the end of an NP. The difference lies in where it is used, namely: kinship terms, proper nouns and names (Petersen 2016, p. 2):
FA: Mammusa bilur 'Mother's car'
The s-genitive as found in English is not standard in Faroese (Thráinsson, Petersen, Jacobson, Hansen 2004, p. 63).
The Frisian language, spoken in both the Netherlands and Germany, can be divided into West-, East- and North-Frisian. Dyk & Heyen (2017) have written about Frisian morphology and have found that West-Frisian has, as well as the s-genitive, preserved an e- and ene-ending. The use of the s-genitive is rather restricted (and therefore different than the English s-genitive), and is mostly found in names and kinship terms. The e-ending is even more widely found, and can only be
used if the possessor ends in a stressed syllable or a schwa. The ene-ending is only used in (archaic) written language when it is in an NP without a determiner. Heyen (2017) found that in North-Frisian, specifically Fering (FE) (spoken on the island Föhr), the s- and e-ending can only be found in fixed constructions, and are still rather characteristic in their partitive use. This can be seen in the following example:
FE: Wat ruads/wat ruaden > Partitive genitive 'Something red'
It is of particular note that in Fering both an s- and en-ending can be used, whilst in most other Germanic languages only the s-ending (s-genitive) is possible.
1.2 Dative/Accusative case
With the loss of the genitive case, other case-markings came into use in order to express a possessive relationship. An example of this is the dative case, as can be seen in the comparison between German and Elfdalian (EL):
DE: Den Zeichnungen des Verfassers > Genitive Case EL: Tekkninggär författeram > Dative Case 'Drawings of the author'
Where the German example has a preposition marked with a genitive case, (des and an s-suffix to the possessor), a possessive relationship is expressed only with a dative case marking ( -am on the possessor), in Elfdalian. This is not the same as the complex dative construction, which still uses an es-ending as a form of a deformed genitive.
In Faroese (FA), it is possible to express possession with an accusative case, for example when expressing family relationships:
DE: Der Vater des Jungen > Genitive Case FA: Papi dreingin > Accusative Case
'The boy's father'
expressed by an accusative case-marking to the possessor (-in) in Faroese (Thráinsson, Petersen, Jacobson, Hansen 2004, p. 63).
1.3 Zero Marking
In the Elfdalian example of the dative case, the possessive relationship is implied by using a dative case. According to Dahl (2015), a lack of morphological marking can imply such a possessive relationship:
EL: Kalln Smis-Margit > No Case Marking 'Smis-Margit's Husband' (Dahl (2015), p. 162)
Dahl calls this construction a zero-marking construction, meaning that in the cases that one would generally expect to find a case-marking, instead, the words seem to be added together without forming a compound, though they still imply a possessive relationship with each other (p. 162).
The zero-marking construction is mentioned in Sigurðssons research on the central traits of NPs in Icelandic. He does this in relationship to partitives, finding that in so-called pseudo-partitive constructions (see Delsing 1993, p. 185) Swedish (SE) and German can use a zero-marking construction:
DE: Drei Flaschen wein > Zero-marking Zwei Schachteln Zigarretten
SE: Tre flaskor vin > Zero-marking Två paket cigaretter
'Three of bottles wine, two packets of cigarettes'
This is not possible in either Icelandic or English, where a sentence such as this requires a preposition construction (see paragraph 1.5 Preposition Constructions):
IS: Þrjár flöskur af víni > Preposition construction Tveir pakkar af sigarettum
'Three of bottles wine, two packets of cigarettes' (Sigurðsson 2006, p. 13)
According to Sigurðsson, it is barely possible to use a genitive case on pseudo-partitive constructions (in contrast with normal partitive constructions) and zero-marking constructions are completely ungrammatical. In this construction, a preposition is mandatory, in contrast to Swedish and German (p. 13).
1.4 Compounds
The somewhat vague relationship between two nouns in a zero-marking construction, in this instance implied by their lexical meaning, is much clearer when they come together in a compound. The following example shows again a genitive case marking in German, in comparison to a compound in Dutch (NL):
DE: Das Land der Tränen > Genitive Case NL: Het tranenland > Compound 'The land of tears'
This genitive case in German does not contain the typical s-suffix, as this is a plural possessor, giving a genitive preposition der and an -n at the word ending. In Dutch, the possessor and the possessee are put together into one word, which can be described as compounding. A possessive relationship is in this case not implied by a morphological suffix, but by having the possessor and possessee (in that order) in a compound.
In some Dutch compounds, remnants of the genitive case can be recognised due to a linking-s, found in compounds such as: 'Bakkersroom' [Bakers cream] and 'Stationsgebouw' [Station building] (Weerman & de Wit 1999, p. 125). The first English translation shows the same linking-s, attached to the first noun of the NP. This construction can still be understood as a compound, even though these words are written separately in English. The second construction, 'station building', can easily be mistaken for a zero-marking construction due to the 'loss' of the linking-s. Whether this is a compound or a zero-marking construction would then depend on the semantical meaning of the whole sentence.
In West Frisian some compounds still contain a form of the genitive case. These compounds distinguish themselves from normal compounds (N+N) in several ways, but for the purposes of this research, their morphological characteristics are of particular interest (Hoekstra 2002, p. 228). The first noun of the compound ends either with a zero-marking, an -s or an -e. The s-ending appears after a full vowel or a consonant, while the e-ending was historically added to nouns that originally
ended with an -e, like: 'Tsjerketoer' [Church tower/The church's tower] (for further explanations see: Hoekstra 2002, p. 230). What is important to note is that the s- and e-ending should, according to Hoekstra, not be confused with the linking-s found in 'normal' compounds, as they are presented in the Dutch examples above (p. 238). According to Hoekstra, the North Frisian dialect area Fering-Öömrang does have genitive compounds, though not in the same form as West Frisian (p. 241). 1.5 Preposition constructions
A construction that does not (necessarily) use a morphological solution, is the preposition construction. A possessive NP with a preposition usually follows the following pattern: possessee -preposition - possessor. The -preposition explains the relationship between these two nouns, which can be anything from kinship terms to part-whole relationships. Examples of such a relationship are:
GB: The book of John > Preposition construction NL: Het boek van Jan > Preposition construction
In both the English and the Dutch example, the preposition does not govern a case-marking of the possessor (as these Germanic languages no longer use a case-system in the present day), but in German this is still the case:
DE: Samen von schlechten Pflanzen > Preposition construction 'Seeds from bad plants'
In this example, the German preposition von is the equivalent of the English preposition of. In German, this preposition governs the dative case as a suffix to the possessor. This preposition construction with von (or another preposition) can be used when the genitive case is not marked in an NP. It depends on the meaning of the NP as to whether a genitive case or a preposition construction is used in German (Pittner 2014, p. 46-49).
The van-construction in the Dutch example has been researched by Weerman & de Wit (1999), who found that use of the construction is relatively high due to the loss of the genitive case (p. 1164). The English of-construction shared a similar diachronic path following the loss of the genitive case and the rise of the preposition construction (which would have happened simultaneously) (p. 1158). Though the form of the van-construction in Dutch is not similar to that of
the genitive case, it has semantic overlap, making it a suitable replacement to the case-marking (Scott 2011, p. 105). It is not certain if the same holds true for the of-construction in English, as there are other possessive markers that act independently of this preposition construction. The English s-genitive, for example, is able to attach to the end of an NP, whilst an of-construction must be placed between the possessor and the possessee as a post-modifier.
Afrikaans, which originated from the Dutch of the 17th-century colonists, uses the van-construction, but this is not as common as in either Dutch or English (Roberge 1996, p. 124). This does not have the same usage as in Luxembourgish, where a vun-construction (equivalent to the Dutch van-construction) is often the preferred possessive construction1.
For both Elfdalian and Faroese, research has been conducted on the use of possessive preposition constructions and which prepositions can be used. Lundqvist (2011) found that when the Swedish s-genitive was translated into an Elfdalian preposition construction, the following prepositions were possible: að, eter, frå, i, millå, å and yvyr (p. 46). An example of a possessive preposition construction with the preposition i [in] is
EL: Swertą i wattnę > Preposition Construction 'The water's blackness'
(Lundqvist 2011, p. 46)
It does not become clear which semantic rules apply when using a specific preposition in Lundqvist's research. What is interesting about these different prepositions is that, similar to German, the prepositions govern a case-marking. With the loss of the genitive case, the preposition sometimes shifts to a different case, meaning that (for example) the preposition að no longer governs the genitive, but the dative case (Eekman 2013, p. 21). In Faroese, the preposition most often used is hjá [of]. This preposition governs the dative case. It depends on the semantics as to whether other prepositions can be used (Thráinsson, Petersen, Jacobson, Hansen 2004, p. 62). 1.6 Personal pronouns
A possessive relationship is often expressed by a form of a personal pronoun, for example: 'My house' or 'His bike'. These examples contain a personal pronoun as possessor and a noun as possessee. This differs when a personal pronoun is placed between the possessor and possesee: 1 This information comes from an online platform called Duolingo. The article is on the Luxembourgish' his-genitive:
*'My mother her cat'. This form of a possessive NP with a personal pronoun is often found in Afrikaans (AF):
DE: Der Boden des Planeten > Genitive case
AF: Die planeet se grond > Personal pronoun construction 'The soil of the planet'
The possessive relationship in the German example is again expressed by the article des and the en-suffix attached to the possessor. The possessive relationship in Afrikaans changes the position of the possessor and possessee, and the possession is expressed by the personal pronoun se. The implication of a possessive relationship now lies with the semantic meaning of the resumptive personal pronoun.
The personal pronoun construction is known in the Dutch language by the term: z'n-construction. This construction is not (diachronically or synchronically) related to the genitive case but shows functional similarities with the English s-genitive (Weerman & de Wit 1999, p. 1174-1175). As described earlier, the English s-genitive can be attached to the end of an NP and is therefore relatively independent (in comparison to the Dutch s-genitive). The z'n-construction appears to have the same level of dependency:
GB: A friend of mine’s house > S-genitive NL: *Een vriend van mij's huis
Een vriend van mij z'n huis > Personal pronoun construction (Weerman & de Wit 1999, p. 1174)
According to Weerman & de Wit, the Dutch z'n-construction shows functional similarities with the s-genitive in both English and and Swedish (p. 1176).
The se-construction in Afrikaans shows several similarities with the Dutch z'n-construction. The word se derived from the Old Dutch masculine pronoun 'syn' [his] (Roberge 1996, p. 124). Roberge compares the se-construction with the English s-genitive and the Dutch z'n-construction, to show its high level of independence:
AF: Die man wat nog in die hospitaai behandel word, se toestand is kritiek. NL: (*) De man die nog in het ziekenhuis behandeld wordt z'n toestand is kritiek. GB: * The man who is still being treated in the hospital's condition is critical.
(Roberge 1996, p. 125)
As well as the Dutch z'n-construction and the English s-genitive, the Afrikaans' se-construction can be used after an NP. What makes the se-construction unique is the ability to be attached to a complete subordinate clause that defines the possessor. The Dutch example feels rather unnatural when using a z'n-construction after a subordinate clause. The English example with the s-genitive is ungrammatical. Roberge proves the similarities between the personal pronoun constructions in Dutch and Afrikaans and the English s-genitives, but also shows the differences in dependency. This is supported by Norde (1997) who claims that these constructions might seem compatible but neither is as free in use as the Afrikaans' se-construction (p. 61).
The personal pronoun construction can also be found in Luxembourgish, where the source from Duolingo calls this a 'his-genitive'. A construction like: 'Dem Man säi Buch' [*This man his book] would show a personal pronoun that takes over the form of the genitive ('säi') and therefore implies the possessive relationship between the possessor and possessee. For this research, the term 'his-genitive' will not be used and instead be replaced by a personal pronoun construction, as this also refers to the z'n- and se-construction.
In Norwegian, a possessive construction with a personal pronoun is not unknown. This is often referred to as an h-genitive, which is not common in other mainland Scandinavian languages such as Swedish and Danish. The h-genitive has the following structure: possessee - possessive pronoun - possessor, and with that is different to the regular structure of linking pronoun constructions (the possessee and possessor are reversed) (Dahl 2015, p. 183). This becomes clear in the following example:
NO: Huset hans Per > h-genitive
GB: *Per his house > Personal pronoun constructions
(Dahl 2015, p. 183)
This construction is also found in Icelandic and in some Swedish dialects. There is quite a lot of discussion in the linguistic field about whether this h-genitive is not 'just' a possessive pronoun construction (Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2003, p. 630). This will not play a role in this thesis, as I will refer to both as a personal pronoun construction.
1.7 Subordinate clauses
The last grammatical construction named in this chapter lies between free translations and possessive constructions. When using a subordinate clause to express a possessive relationship, the possessor is paraphrased, as showed in the following example in Elfdalian:
DE: Ein Rosengarten > Compounding EL: Ienum traigard, so war full i ruosum > Subordinate clause
'A rose garden'
The German example shows a possessive compound, where the possessor comes before the possessee. The Elfdalian example shows the possessee, where the possessive relationship is explained in the subordinate clause.
1.8 Summary
In this chapter, an overview of possible possessive constructions was established. For constructions such as the s-genitive and preposition constructions, several lines of research were followed, leading to an insight into the use of these constructions per language. In particular, the research into the s-genitive was extensive, and comparisons between some of the languages discussed already started to become established. According to this background information, it can be surmised that the s-genitive in English, Swedish and Danish is similar in use as a 'group genitive'. The following rules can also be established:
• The Dutch s-genitive is more restricted in use and cannot be attached to the end of an NP. The s-genitive has a different form in Elfdalian and Faroese, where a different case or ending is used.
• The zero marking construction is used in various different forms in Swedish, German, Icelandic and English, depending on the use of partitives.
• The preposition construction, mostly described with the preposition of (or an equivalent), is in use in many of the languages. However, this construction is more popular in English and Dutch than it is in Afrikaans.
• Afrikaans uses a personal pronoun construction, which has similarities with the s-genitive in English.
Regarding other constructions, such as subordinate clauses and dative/accusative cases, a comparison has not yet been made between the languages. The amount of data connected with these constructions is limited and shows the gap in the current research field. Even with the more-deeply researched constructions, this research can shed a light on the accuracy of the comparisons between the languages.
2. Methodology
The goal of this thesis is to analyze possessive constructions in Germanic languages. In order to be able to do this, the number of variables are kept to a minimum, as the constructions and languages can already vary. This means that there should be a set amount of tokens from a comparable source. Based on this set amount of examples it will then be possible to create a numeric overview of data, as opposed to an otherwise one-by-one review of individual examples. In this chapter, the sources for the tokens will be explained, as well as the basis overview and research planning. In the last paragraph of this chapter, various hypotheses will be given and it will be explained how these will be researched and checked.
2.1 Collection of data
The possessive constructions are acquired from the book Le Petit Prince of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943) as this work meets the conditions set in the previous paragraph. Because this book has been translated into nearly all the languages that are of interest for this research, it is also possible to use comparable data for each language. The other reason this book is suitable for this research is the fact that it has been written from the point of view of a child. This, in the first instance removes the necessity (and obstacle) of fluency required in the languages covered in this thesis, due to the outwardly simple nature of the text in question. In the second instance, this is also a text written for children, but to be understood by adults (in a similar vein to the work of C.S.Lewis and Oscar Wilde), which means that while the text may be simple, the meaning remains sophisticated, and the necessity of a quality translation remains high. The simple yet layered nature of this text therefore makes this book an ideal subject for a translation comparison.
There is a certain advantage in using a French original text for acquiring possessive constructions. This is that a possessive construction is easily recognized in French, as it can be expressed in four different ways: with adjectives, pronouns and two different prepositions. The first two constructions mainly contain personal pronoun constructions (with for example: votre, vôtre, son and sien) and will therefore not be taken into account, as the translation of personal pronoun constructions is not of interest for this research. Out of the two different preposition constructions (á after the verb être and the preposition de), the possessive constructions formed with de (or du/des depending on the noun following) are of special interest. Due to the fact that this possessive marker is an equivalent of the preposition of/van in Germanic languages, it is used as a compound marker and as a partitive marker, and will therefore show possessive constructions between two nouns
without personal pronoun constructions. Apart from these features, the preposition constructions are easily recognizable as they appear only in three varieties of the construction (de/du/des). The preposition construction with á after the verb être will not be taken into account, as the scope of this research does not encompass possessive verb phrases.
The possessive constructions formed with the possessive preposition de are written down per token in an Excel sheet, omitting any repetition (e.g. an example such as 'la planète du Petit Prince' [the Little Prince's planet] (p.27) is only given once). The examples are marked by number in order to keep an overview and are marked as to whether it is a partitive construction. These tokens are then similarly noted in the translations in the other languages.
2.2 The Languages
The languages used for this research are German, Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, Elfdalian, Faroese, Fering, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish, and Afrikaans.
As shown in the background overview, German and Icelandic maintained the original form of the genitive case. Icelandic is the most conservative language in the Germanic language group and is therefore of special interest for this research. As German does use the genitive case but is not closely related to Icelandic (there is no pattern of descendance), this language is also taken into account.
Danish, Swedish, Elfdalian, Faroese, and Icelandic all descend from Old Norse. Faroese, being the other insular Scandinavian language (next to Icelandic), is therefore taken into account, since it is different from other Scandinavian languages and is also relatively distant from Icelandic. This can be explained by the difference in use of the morphological case system. Danish and Swedish, being two of the biggest Scandinavian languages, may be closely related, but are known to be less closely related than, for example, Danish and Norwegian (especially syntactically). That is why Norwegian (Bokmål) is not taken into account, but Danish is. Nynorsk could be of interest as an example of a counter-language to Danish, but a translation of Le Petit Prince was not accessible in Nynorsk and could therefore not be taken into account in this research. Swedish is, therefore, the second most significant Scandinavian language used (as it has the largest speech community of all the Scandinavian languages). For both Danish and Swedish it will be interesting to see how the s-genitive is used in comparison to the English s-s-genitive, or the s-genitive case in German and Icelandic. This is due to their assumed similarities, as presented in the background information.
Elfdalian is not an officially recognized language, but is known to be as different from Swedish as Icelandic. The Elfdalian dialect is also known to have a case-system, although the
genitive case is now barely used. Because Elfdalian used the dative case (amongst other constructions) to replace the genitive, this language is taken into account as it can be compared to the construction strategies of other Germanic languages.
The Dutch language is spoken by at least 16 million people in the Netherlands alone and is therefore a significant Germanic language. Its noun-based case system is practically defunct but it does contain an s-genitive, which is of interest for this thesis. The same holds for English, which is also the language that is most widely spoken in the Germanic language family. Both languages use other ways of expressing possession than using a genitive, whether this is an s-genitive or another construction.
Additionally, in the North of the Netherlands and Germany, there are many languages and dialects that come together under the name 'Frisian languages'. The translation of Le Petit Prince is available in both Westlauwers Fries (Frisian spoken in the Netherlands) and Fering (a dialect of North Frisian, spoken on the island of Föhr), but only the Fering translation is taken up in this research. West-Frisian dialects are more closely related to Dutch than Fering (Simons & Charles 2017) and Dutch has a strong influence on Frisian syntax and morphology (Gorter 1999, p. 115). Fering, having a weaker relationship with its neighbouring languages of Dutch, Danish, and German (Simons and Charles 2017), is therefore, more interesting for this research.
Luxembourgish can be of particular interest due to its trilingual state. As there are varieties near to the Belgian border with more French words, and as Luxembourgish is as far removed from Standard German as Dutch (Simons & Charles 2017), Luxembourgish is used in this research.
The last language chosen is Afrikaans. This language is interesting due to its geographical position and due to the fact that for many years, there was barely any influence stemming from Germanic languages. Since a hundred years or more, English is spoken in Africa, meaning that there is more language contact and therefore a greater likelihood of Anglicisms in the language. As Afrikaans originated from Dutch and now has close connections to English, it is interesting to study the closeness of the bond between these languages when discussing possessive NPs.
2.3 The translated texts
The tokens collected in the original French texts are searched for in the translated texts. The followings translations are used:
English: The Little Prince 2009 Translated 1943 by K. Woods
Hamel
German: Der Kleine Prinz 2015 Translated 2015 by M. Herbert
Danish: Den lille prins 2013 Translated 1950 by unknown
Swedish: Den lille prinsen 2015 Translated 2015 by N Gullberg Zetterstrand & H. Petersen
Elfdalian: Lisslprinsen 2007 Translated 2007 by B. Westling
Icelandic: Litli prinsinn 1988 Translated 1988 by Þ. Björnsson Faroese: Tann lítli prinsurin 2015 Translated 2013 by A. Kristiansen
Fering: De letj prens 2016 Translated 2010 by A. Arfsten
Luxembourgish: De klenge Prënz 2009 Translated 2009 by J. Braun Afrikaans: Die klein prinsie 2015 Translated 1994 by A.P. Brink
The translations of the English, Dutch and Danish texts were all made before 1951, the Icelandic translation is from 1988, the text in Afrikaans is from 1994 and the other translations are all conducted after 2007. Though the translations of the English, Dutch and Danish Le Petit Prince were written more than fifty years ago, they were all reprinted from 2009 onwards. One can assume therefore that the text did not need to be revised in order to be read by a readership of the 21st century. Therefore the texts are suitable for research, when compared to the more recent editions.
The Icelandic translation was written in 1988 and is the only extant version, as well as the only one ever published. As Icelandic is the most conservative language of the Germanic language group, and has not changed in recent years, no difficulties of meaning or semantic change are foreseen with using this translation across an extended time period.
The Afrikaans version was written in 1994 and reprinted in 2015. The timespan between the first and second edition is only twenty years, which makes the translation valid for this research due to the fact that language changes are minimal during a single generation (which would be longer than twenty years).
All the other translations mentioned are more recent. For some of the texts, this was the first translation; it was the first translation in Eldalian, Faroese, Fering and Luxembourgish. The German version is a re-translation, as the previous translation had been conducted as long ago as 1950 and was slightly outdated (Gerling 2015).
2.4 Categorizing the data
As mentioned above, the possessive tokens of the French text are collected and put into an Excel spreadsheet. These tokens (now numbered) are searched for in the translated texts ad written down in the spreadsheet. When written down, the tokens are analyzed regarding what occurred with the possessive constructions in the translation, leading to the following categories:
Direct translations:
• Genitive
The possessive construction is transformed into an NP with a genitive case. Instead of using a syntactical strategy, a morphological one is applied. This category contains the regular genitive case as used in Icelandic and German, as well as the deformed (s-genitive) genitives that can be found in some other languages. For example:
FR: La vie du petit prince GB: The little prince's life
• Dative
The possessive construction is transformed into an NP with a dative case. Instead of using a genitive case, this translation makes use of the dative case to express a possessive relationship. For example:
FR: La planéte du géographe EL: Plajetn landlärdam
[The geographer's planet]
• Preposition
The possessive construction, being in French already a preposition construction, becomes a preposition construction in the translated text as well. For example:
FR: La copie du dessin GB: A copy of the drawing
• Compound
The possessive construction is transformed into a compound, resulting in a word where both the possessor and possessee are recognizable. For example:
FR: Un allumeur de réverbères GB: A lamplighter
• Zero marking
The possessive construction is no longer visible through an extra marker. This means that the possessive relationship is implied. For example:
FR: Un crayon de couleur GB: A coloured pencil
• Personal pronoun construction
The possessive construction is translated into an NP with a personal pronoun. For example: FR: L'intérieur du serpent boa
AF: Luislang se binnekant
[The inside of a boa constrictor]
• Subordinate clause
The possessive construction is translated and expressed through adding a subordinate clause. The possessor is written before the subordinate clause, while the possessee is featured in the additional sentence. This category lies somewhere between direct and indirect translations, due to the rewriting of the possessee in an additional NP. For example:
FR: Un jardin fleuri de roses GB: A garen, all a-bloom with roses
Indirect/free translations:
• Verb phrases
The possessive construction is translated into an active phrase, making it a VP instead of an NP. The possessive construction is still recognizable. For example:
FR: La planète du petit prince
GB: The planet where the little prince lived
• Non possessives
The possessive construction in French does not result in a possessive construction in the translated text. However, the construction is nevertheless translated. An example can be a possessive construction in French that is expressed through one noun in the translated text, while having a similar meaning. For example:
FR: De courants d'air GB: Draughts
• Not translated
The possessive construction is not translated and therefore not recognizable in the translated text.
After collecting and organizing the data from all the translations, a general analysis can be carried out. Firstly the amount of token per category is written down for every language. Then the total amount of tokens per category is summarized. Using these numbers, it will be visible which construction is favoured in all of the Germanic languages concerned, as well as which construction is preferred per language.
For the purposes of displaying any constructions over-represented in a certain language, a table based on absolute and relative numbers will be outlined, in order to clarify whether the over-representation is not only based on absolute numbers but on frequent occurrences (median). This is based on a comparison with the other constructions in the language itself and the usage of that construction in other languages.
possible to determine which languages hold a stronger relation to one another. A correlation table will be formed in order to understand in which gradation languages are similar to each other, based on possessive NPs.
2.5 Analysis and hypotheses
In order to find whether there are any over-representations in a certain language regarding possessive constructions, the data must be analyzed using both absolute and relative numbers. In order to find these numbers, firstly an average per constructions must be found. The following formula is applied: x (total amount of a construction) / y (total amount of constructions of all languages) * z (total amount of constructions per language) = a (average). For example: 120 (preposition constructions in all languages) / 2000 * 200 = 12. With a total amount of 10 tested constructions, 10 averages are calculated.
With these averages, a complete table with absolute numbers can be formed. This means that for each language an absolute number can show the absolute over-representation per possessive construction. It will be calculated as follows: r (real number of a possessive construction in a language) - a (average of that possessive construction) = b (absolute number of a possessive construction in a language). For example: 120 (total amount of preposition constructions in English) - 12 (average of preposition construction) = 108. When conducted for all languages in relation to possessive constructions, the occurrences of over-representation become visible.
In order to see if these over-representations still exist with relative numbers, the following formula is applied: b (absolute number of a possessive construction in a language) / a (average of that possessive construction) = c (relative number of that possessive construction in a language). For example: 108 / 12 = 9. With these relative numbers, it becomes clear that there is a relatively large number of occurrences based on a comparison with the other constructions in the language itself, and the usage of that construction in other languages.
To understand which languages hold a stronger relationship with each other, the correlation coefficient is calculated between the cell ranges of two matrices. This correlation coefficient will show to what extent the matrix are related. In this research the two matrices will be extracted from the first table with absolute numbers, using the following formula: CORRELATION (matrix 1; matrix 2) (part of mathematical formula performed by Microsoft Excel). For example: CORRELATION (all constructions in English; all constructions in Dutch). The comparison between the use of different constructions in those two languages will give a percentage, that shows how closely they are related. This means that a 1,0 (or 100%) is the highest possible correlation and 0,0
(or 0%) the lowest possible correlation.
The following relationships are hypothesized:
I. Scandinavian mainland (Swedish and Danish), due to their shared history and the common ground on possessives as explained in the background information (i.e. the specific rules for the use of the s-genitive and preposition constructions).
II. Genitive preserving languages (German and Icelandic), due to their morphological similarities. Both languages maintain the original genitive form, though possibly not always under the same conditions (Icelandic has other rules regarding the partitive genitives). III. Dutch and Afrikaans, due to the fact that Afrikaans partly descends from (colonial) Dutch.
Both languages seem to make use of the personal pronoun construction, although this in Dutch is more of a colloquial form; while in Afrikaans, this is also seen in the written language. As this construction is also described in Luxembourgish, one can expect a higher correlation between these languages.
The other possible relationships can only be guessed at, having no strong indication of common ground based on the expression of possessive relationships in these languages. It is indeed possible to find differences and similarities based on, for example, the use of the s-genitive, but this does not imply relationships between the languages and are therefore not treated as such.
The second hypothesis is based on the use of the genitive case. As there might be a difference regarding the use of this case, an analysis will be conducted to research this specific possessive construction. First of all, the translation that contains the most genitive cases (from Icelandic and German), will then be used as a 'filter'. This means that if there are, for example, 50 genitives in the German translation and 40 in the Icelandic translation, a number of tokens will be set to 50. Subsequently, a table of real numbers can then be drawn up, indicating how these 50 tokens have been 'translated' into Icelandic and the other Germanic languages. With this table of real numbers, the absolute and relative numbers can be acquired as described above for the overall analysis. After that, a correlation table will be formed (as described above on the general analysis) which should illustrate how the languages correlate when specifically filtered in the genitive case in either German or Icelandic.
In the case of other over-representations, a similar analysis can be conducted. This depends on the relative over-representation found in the general analysis of all the data acquired from the translations.
3. Results
3.1 General overview
In this research on the translation of possessive NPs in Germanic languages, 191 French possessive NPs with de/du/des were found and analyzed in the translation of Le Petit Prince. The analysis was performed on eleven translations in the following languages: English (GB), Dutch (NL), German (DE), Swedish (SE), Danish (DK), Icelandic (IS), Faroese (FA), Luxembourgish (LU), Afrikaans (AF), Fering (FE) and Elfdalian (EL). Per language, the translated tokens were marked by either a direct translation: preposition construction (preposition), compounding (compound), zero marking (zero marking), adding of personal pronoun (personal pronoun), genitive case (genitive), dative case (dative), or rewriting into a subordinate clause (sub clause); or by indirect translations: rewriting into a verb phrase (VP), no possessive construction (no possessive), or by being not translated (not translated).
All tokens were organized in to a table with real numbers, meaning that it shows how often a certain construction is used per language:
Table 1: general results GB AF NL LU FA FE SE EL DK IS DE TOTAL
Preposition 127 79 79 71 67 63 63 63 52 43 32 739 Compound 15 27 31 27 32 18 37 40 35 47 37 346 No possessive 8 11 35 28 28 33 14 37 17 20 18 249 VP 14 18 14 18 23 32 27 26 26 21 17 236 Zero marking 19 30 29 26 17 23 23 6 26 7 23 229 Genitive 6 0 1 1 2 0 21 1 29 35 62 158 Sub Clause 2 6 0 8 13 18 3 5 4 12 0 71 Not translated 0 5 0 7 4 3 3 3 2 3 0 30 Personal pronoun 0 15 2 5 1 1 0 2 0 1 2 29 Dative 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 8 0 2 0 14
With a 191 possessive construction per translation, the total amount of tokens is 2101. From all these constructions used, 32.5% (739) were preposition construction, making it the most popular possessive construction. Other percentages were: compound (16.5%), no possessive (11.9%), VP (11.2%), zero marking (10.1%), genitive (7.5%), sub clause (3.8%), not translated (1.4%), personal pronoun (1.4%) and dative (0.7%).
For some of these constructions there appears to be an over-representation in a language. These are, for example, the preposition construction in English (127 out of 191), the genitive in German (62 out of a total of 158 genitive constructions), VPs in Fering (32 out of a total of 236
VPs), and the dative in Elfdalian (8 out of a total of 14 dative constructions). Some of these constructions may seem over-represented in the total number but are relatively little used in the language itself. When looking at the Elfdalian example, there might be a relatively high proportion of datives in the Elfdalian language but with only 8 out of 191 tokens, it is still an uncommon construction.
To understand whether the assumed over-representations can be proved by numbers, an analysis based on absolute and relative numbers is required. First of all, the averages were obtained for all constructions per language with the following formula: x (total amount of a construction) / y (total amount of constructions of all languages) * z (total amount of constructions per language) = a (average). For example the preposition constructions: 739 / 2101 * 191 = 67.2. The other averages are compound (31.5), no possessive (31.5), VP (22.6), zero marking (20.8), genitive (14.4), subordinate clause (6.5), not translated (2.7), personal pronoun (2.6) and dative (1.3).
The averages were put into the following formula to acquire the absolute numbers: r (real number of a possessive construction in a language) - a (average of that possessive construction) = b (absolute number of a possessive construction in a language). For example, the preposition construction in English read as: 127 - 62.7 = 59.8. The following table shows an overview of the absolute numbers:
Table 2 shows a high score for preposition constructions in English, the genitive case in German (and to lesser extent in Icelandic) and the dative case in Elfdalian. There are certainly more languages which show a high use of a certain translated construction, although they might not be as evident as those in English, German, Icelandic and Elfdalian. To support or falsify these assumptions, an overview of relative numbers is needed. These are acquired through the following formula: b (absolute number of a possessive construction in a language) / a (average of that
possessive construction) = c (relative number of that possessive construction in a language). For the preposition construction in the English translation this led to the following equation: (127 - 67.2) / 67.2 = 0.9. The following table shows the relative results for all languages and possessive constructions:
The absolute numbers may have shown an over-representation of preposition constructions in English (59.8), but Table 3 shows a relatively low over-representation with 'only' 0.9. The genitive case in German leads to a relative over-representation of 3.3, which means that it is more widely over-represented than the preposition construction in English. The same holds for the genitive case in Icelandic and even in Danish. In this table the relative over-representation of the personal pronoun construction in Afrikaans becomes visible with 4.7. Fering reaches a 1.8 on subordinate clauses and the dative case in Elfdalian amounts to the relative number of 5.3.
3.2 Correlation
The overall results of the use of the translated constructions give a general idea of which languages might be more closely related than others, based on the usage of certain possessive constructions. In any case it would be logical to find a close relationship between German and Icelandic, as these languages are highly marked on the genitive case. To understand to which extent these languages (and the others) correlate, an examination based on correlation is conducted. With this, the degree of relationship between languages becomes apparent. The formula to calculate correlations was implemented into Excel, meaning that only the two matrices had to be filled in, in order to compare them. This led to the following table:
The table shows that most correlations are between 80% and 100%. It is for these reasons that the less evident relationships between languages become much more apparent. Firstly, German has the lowest correlation with nearly every other language (all below 80%). Icelandic behaves in a similar way, where only a correlation above 80% was found with Swedish and Danish. Because these four languages contain the most genitive cases, their correlation is unsurprising, but will be investigated further in the next paragraph.
The highest correlation is between Dutch and Luxembourgish (98.8%), and between Swedish and Danish with 97.5%. The lowest correlation is between German and Fering with 19.1%. Most languages show a declining relationship with other languages, where the lowest is with German and Icelandic. Although this does not hold true for all translations, it shows a similar pattern that can give an insight in the relationships between the Germanic languages.
3.3 Languages with original genitive case
Icelandic and German are two languages that have preserved a morphological case-system with full use of the genitive case. In the first overview of the used constructions (Table 1), it shows that the genitive case is more widely used in German (62) than in Icelandic (35). As described in the methodology, the language that contains the most genitive constructions acts as the filter for an analysis on the 'translation' of the genitive, as well as a comparison between the German and Icelandic genitive. The outcome of such an analysis would establish if the Icelandic genitive occurred in the same instances as the German genitive and if they would be used under the same circumstances. It would also show whether the s-genitive in other languages would occur in the same instances as the German or Icelandic genitive. With a total amount of 62 tokens, the following overview was conducted:
The total amount of tokens is now 620. Out of these 620 tokens, 292 were preposition constructions (47.1%). The other percentages are VPs (12.9%), genitive (11.3%), compounds (7.7%), no possessive (7.6%), zero marking (3.9%), personal pronoun (3.7%), sub clause (3.1%), not translated (1.6%) and dative (1.1%).
In the general overview German had the highest correlations with Icelandic, Swedish and Danish. To see whether these languages used the genitive case in the same situations as the German genitive, one could make a comparison with the overall results (table 1) and the results filtered on the use of the German genitive (table 5). Out of the 35 genitives in the Icelandic translation, 25 were used when there was a German genitive. The Danish translation contained 29 s-genitives, of which 22 occurred at the same instance as the German genitive. 22 s-genitives were found in the Swedish translation, of which 15 were used when the German translation used a genitive case.
Elfdalian and Faroese maintained a case system but nevertheless lost the original genitive case. Still, case-marking can be used to express a possessive relationship. They can also be compared to the use of the German genitive case. Elfdalian used one genitive case in its translation and this was used when the German translation used a genitive. The dative case was used 8 times, and occurred 6 times, when filtered against the German genitive case. The two genitives in Faroese were used at the same time as the German genitive.
To understand which grammatical constructions were used when German used a genitive case, an analysis was established on absolute and relative numbers. Firstly the averages were obtained: preposition (29.2), compound (4.8), no possessive (4.7), VP (8.0), zero marking (2.4), genitive (7.0) sub clause (1.9), not translated (1.0), personal pronoun (2.3) and dative (0.7). The results are presented in the following tables:
In absolute numbers, Icelandic (18.0) and Danish (15.0) score highly on the genitive case. In relative numbers it becomes clear that this is indeed an over-representation (2.6 and 2.1) but not nearly as high as other constructions. The dative case in Elfdalian has an absolute number of 5.3 and with that a relative over-representation of 7.6. The personal pronoun construction in Afrikaans has a high absolute number of 12.7 and a relative number of 5.5. The Dutch translation shows a relatively large amount of construction which are not translated (relative number 3.0). Fering used relatively many subordinate clauses (2.7).
Based on these results, a correlation table was established. Again this was filtered on the German genitive case in order to see which constructions were used in the other languages:
Most correlations are again relatively high, although more differentiated than the correlations of the general results. This can be illustrated by comparing the correlations between Icelandic and the Scandinavian languages. In the general results, the correlations between Icelandic and Scandinavian languages is: Swedish (83.2%), Danish (87.6%), Elfdalian (72.0%) and Faroese (68.4%). The numbers shift quite considerably when filtered on the German genitive case: Swedish (67.9%), Danish (86.0), Elfdalian (17.1%) and Faroese (17.1%). Only the correlation with Danish appears to be stable. As Elfdalian and Faroese use the genitive case very little, this influences the correlation when filtered on the German genitives.
English and Dutch now show the most similarities with a correlation of 98.0%. This is a small shift from the 89.4% in the overall results. Danish and Swedish show a relationship of 97.5% in the general analysis and that has lowered to 91.8%, when considering the genitive case.
3.4 Partitives in translation
The background information shows that Icelandic has different rules in expressing a partitive possession. Not all of them can be expressed by genitive or by zero marking, which is different to, for example, Swedish and German. Of the 191 French sentences, 25 were recognized to be partitives. Examples are: 'Une feuille de papier' [a piece of paper] (p. 21) and 'Deux milliards de grandes personnes' [two billion grown-ups] (p. 72). These 25 tokens were used as a filter to analyze how these 25 were translated into the Germanic languages, showing the following results:
The total amount of partitives were 275. Most of these were translated with a zero marking construction (132). In Afrikaans, Dutch, Luxembourgish, Fering, Danish and Swedish this was more than half of the tokens (between 64% and 56%). Preposition constructions were the second most used translation method (93). An example that stands out for its translation is: 'A piece of paper'. This is translated with a compound in most Scandinavian languages, with a preposition construction in English, and in other languages with a zero marking construction:
German, seemingly using more genitives in general, used the genitive case only once in a partitive construction. Therefore the genitive case was, with only 12 occurrences, not a popular construction. In Icelandic, the genitive case was used 6 times and was therefore less significant in translating a partitive construction.
3.5 Languages with deformed genitives 3.5.1 English
The highest proportion of preposition constructions is found in the English translation. With 127 constructions out of 739, this accounts for 17.1% of the total amount of prepositions. As there were 191 tokens per language, 66.5% of the English tokens were created with a preposition construction. In absolute numbers, the over-representation of English preposition constructions was 59.8, and in
Zero marking P Preposition P Compound P NL een blaadje papier 10 GB a sheet of paper 8 EL papirbit 12
DE ein Blatt Papier 9 IS pappírblað 10
DK et lille stykke papir 10 FA pappírslepa 8
AF n vel papier 10 SE pappersbit 6
LU e blat Pabeier 12
relative numbers, still 0.9. In comparison with other relative numbers, this was by far not the highest over-representation in the general results but did give rise to the question of which other translations were used when English used a preposition construction. Therefore, the English preposition constructions were used as a filter and these 127 constructions were analyzed in the other Germanic languages. This led to the following overview:
The preposition construction remains the most used construction, due to its overall number. Therefore it can be noted that the Afrikaans translation used the preposition construction most often but that does not lead to new insights. The constructions which replaced a preposition construction were most often non-possessives, VPs, compounds, zero markings and genitives. The amount of tokens per constructions show relatively little differences, but do show varieties per language. For example, the genitive case is mostly used again in German with 52 tokens. Additionally, Icelandic, Danish and Swedish used relatively many genitives. When comparing to the general results, a following comparison can be made:
Of the 62 genitives used in the German translation, 52 were used at the same time as the English preposition construction (83.9%). The Icelandic has less genitives, with 35, of which 24 were used when English used a preposition construction (68.6%). Danish and Swedish have almost the same
