Two Neglected Factors in Language Comparison

Abstract

IKE all titles, this one is no doubt misleading and not representative of the material to be treated in this paper. The title probably should be: Two factors which are generally overlooked but which should be taken into consideration in making language comparisons. The first of these factors is the tendency of many students of a second language to extend the use of a pattern or the forms that make up a pattern beyond the limits required of them in the normal, colloquial language. Here, this phenomenon, dubbed the misapplication of analogical formations, is similar to the child's production of foots or feets instead of feet when he is learning English. The second of the two neglected factors deals with the frequency of occurrence of forms and structures in language and some evidence that indicates the relevance of this frequency to language comparisons. For the first of these, usually there is no explanation or attempted explanation in language comparisons for the overextended use of forms or patterns that occur as misapplied analogical formations. Kleinjans, for instance, in his comparison of English and Japanese noun-headed structures mentions how Japanese students produce such patterns as The Michigan State University,' but he offers no explanation for the occurrence of this pattern nor does he explain how he arrived at the knowledge of this pattern's occurrence through language comparison. Now, from a point of view of a com-