What makes languages similar
- Genetic relations
- Contact: borrowing
- Universals
- Coincidence
Similarity of form
- Cognates
- False friends
- embarrassed, Spanish embarazada 'pregnant'
- sympathetic, Spanish simpático, etc. 'nice'
- igloo, Inuktitut ᐃᒡᓗ iglu 'house'
- Japanese ベースアップ beesu appu (base up) 'raise in the base salary'
Lexical differences
- One-to-one, with differences in grammatical details
- regret, Spanish arrepentirse de; I regretted coming, me arrepentí de haber venido
- put on, Spanish ponerse; he put on the coat (put the coat on), se puso el abrigo
- One-to-many lexical relationships
- Semantic dimensions; kinship terms
- Inclusion: abstractness, generalization
- parrot, squash; more specific words in Spanish
- blue, green not distinguished in some languages;
two Russian words for blue: синий sinij, голубой goluboj
- eat, carry, etc. in Mayan languages
carry; Tseltal: chaw (in hand), chup (in shawl), k'ech (in arms, on shoulders),
kajan (on top), kuch, lep (loads), lutz' (hidden in clothes), pach (upright),
pet (in arms)
- Navajo words for be at, put, depending on the class of the patient
- wear in Japanese, Korean (depending on the body part where the wearing occurs)
- water, Japanese 水 mizu 'water in general, cold water', 湯 yu 'hot water'
- Complex lexical semantic overlap
- Spanish for take
Grammatical-lexical differences
- Tense, aspectual differences
- know, Spanish conocer 'know', but in the past tense corresponds to 'come to know, become
acquainted with'
- put on, wear, Japanese 着る kiru; die, be dead, Japanese 死ぬ shinu;
the difference in Japanese is expressed grammatically, not lexically: 'wear' = 'have put on'
- French passé composé, English simple past and present perfect;
je les ai vu, I saw/have seen them
- Progressive in English vs. French or German, where it's absent
- Differences in derivational morphology
- Valency-shifting morphology in Swahili
- Decreasing number of arguments
- Passive
Juma amefungua mlango. 'Juma has opened the door.'
Mlango ulifunguliwa. 'The door was opened.'
- Stative
Mlango umefunguka. 'The door was opened.'
Mlango unafunguka. 'The door is openable.'
- Reciprocal
Juma anapenda Fatuma. 'Juma loves Fatuma.'
Juma na Fatuma wanapendana. 'Juma and Fatuma love one another.'
- Increasing number of arguments
- Causative
Juma alihama. 'Juma moved.'
Serikali ilimhamisha Juma. 'The government moved (resettled, expelled) Juma.'
- Applicative (prepositional)
Juma aliwafungulia wageni mlango. 'Juma opened the door for the guests.'
- Combinations of valency-shifting morphemes
- Fundi alitengeneza gari. 'The mechanic repaired the car.'
- Passive: Gari lilitengenezwa (na fundi). 'The car was repaired (by the mechanic).
- Applicative: Fundi alimtengenezea Juma gari. 'The mechanic repaired the car for Juma.'
- Passive(applicative): Juma alitengenezewa gari (na fundi). 'Juma was repaired-for the car (by the mechanic).
- Differences in what's optional, obligatory, unmarked
- Pronoun subjects and objects
- Number
- Classifiers in Chinese, Japanese, Mayan, etc.
- Quasi-semantic noun or verb categories: one, be
- Syntactic differences
- Syntax-to-semantics mapping
like; Spanish gustar, German gefallen
I like you
Spanish me gustas, German du gefällst mir,
lit. 'you appeal to me'
- Adjectives vs. nouns
I'm hungry
Spanish tengo hambre, German ich habe Hunger;
lit. 'I have hunger'
- Adjectives vs. verbs
hungry, thirsty, tired, bored
I'm tired
Amharic ደክሞኛል dǝkmoññal, lit. 'it has tired me'
Pragmatic differences
- Personal pronouns
I, me, Japanese わたくし watakushi, わたし watashi, あたし atashi, 僕 boku, おれ ore
- Situation-specific formulas
Gaps
- Lexical gaps
- Amharic ተግደረደረ tǝgdǝrǝddǝre 'pretend to have had enough of something when offered more'
- concuñado/-a, 'brother-in-law of wife, sister-in-law of husband
- Sound symbolism in Japanese, Bantu languages, etc.
Summary of differences
- One-to-one, but sometimes word-to-multiword expression or MWE-to-MWE
- One-to-many, often with a "default"
- Many-to-many
- Gaps
