Kaveh Bahrami Sobhani
Abstract
IntroductionThe German language has four grammatical cases: Nominative (Nominativ)– subject, Accusative (Akkusativ)– direct object, Dative (Dativ)– indirect object, and Genitive (Genitiv)– possessive. Grammatical case is mostly responsible for determining the syntactic-semantic ...
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IntroductionThe German language has four grammatical cases: Nominative (Nominativ)– subject, Accusative (Akkusativ)– direct object, Dative (Dativ)– indirect object, and Genitive (Genitiv)– possessive. Grammatical case is mostly responsible for determining the syntactic-semantic relations in the sentence. In languages that have a relatively free sequence of words, case can pave the way to recognize grammatical relations and understand semantic relationships. Grammatical case is formed in two ways: 1. case government/ rection, and 2. case congruence. Case government/ rection is the syntactic relationship between two linguistic phrases. That is to say that the first linguistic element determines the grammatical features of the second linguistic element that is dependent on it. In the German language, four lexical categories determine grammatical case: verb, preposition, adjective and noun. In the second type of grammatical case assignment, the noun phrase takes the grammatical case of another noun phrase without being dependent on it. Case congruence is observed in predictive nominal phrases, conjunctive phrases and apposition. There exists, however, yet another grammatical case which is called "free case". The complications related to free case, which will be discussed in the present paper, are due to the fact that the reason for its appearance in the sentence is not clear, and it is often considered by language learners as a direct object. In this research, in addition to introducing free case and its types, the ways of distinguishing this type of grammatical case from the grammatical case that are granted through lexical elements in the sentence are shown. It is sought to investigate the extent to which language learners are familiar with free case and whether they can distinguish the syntactic functions formed through free case from those dependent on the verb of the sentence. It is hypothesized that lack of knowledge about free case would make language learners face problems in recognizing syntactic functions. Therefore, in the experimental phase of this study, two groups of language learners were asked to participate in a related test. Background of StudyIn a book titled "Grammatical Case" Sahel, (2018) has discussed in detail the various dimensions of case. In this book, in addition to discussing topics such as case government, case congruence, and the relationship between semantic roles and grammatical case, the writer also discusses how grammatical case is learned by children. Czepluch (1996) compared grammatical case in German and English languages. On the other hand, Dürscheid (1999) tried to provide a comprehensive definition and description of grammatical case from the point of view of syntax and meaning. Also, Einsenbeiß (1994) addressed the relationship between grammatical case and word sequence in the German language and examined the learning of these issues in the first language. Marks (2014) discussed the issue of teaching grammar to immigrant students and the difficulties faced by language teachers. Also, Vater (2006) referred to the issue of features of the grammatical case in the construction of apposition, and, in 2015, in another study, examined the issue of changes and fluctuations in the grammatical case in contemporary German. In her doctoral thesis, Egorova (2006) discussed the issue of grammatical case in German language, examining the adverbial role of direct and indirect objects in nominal groups and their corresponding grammatical cases.
MethodologyWith the aim of applying this research, the main part of the present article, which is focused on the distinction between different grammatical cases in the German language, was investigated through data collection. To this end, 28 undergraduate students in the field of German language and literature at Shahid Beheshti University were invited to participate in the test. The students were divided into two groups of fourteen participants. The experimental group consisted of 14 students (nine female and five male students in the age range of 19 to 30 years). The experimental group participants who were at the end of their fifth semester participated in a 90-minute face-to-face session in the course "Advanced German Linguistics" and learned about "Free Case in German Language". The control group also included 14 students (ten female and four male students in the age range of 18 to 26 years). The students in the control group, who were at the end of their third semester when they participated in the test, had only learned about the structure of the German language in the courses "Grammatical Analysis" and "Basics of Linguistics". After the training of the experimental group, both groups participated in the test which consisted of three sections. In the first section of the test, six sentences were presented and the participants were asked to identify the direct object of the verb. In the second part, five sentences were presented and the participants were asked to determine the indirect object of the verb. In the third and final part of the test, seven sentences were presented to the participants and they were asked to determine the object related to the verb of the sentence. In the end, the results obtained from both groups in all three sections were analyzed.
ConclusionIn the present study, free grammatical case in German language was discussed. Case government and case congruence were also introduced through various examples. It was shown in what cases the free grammatical case of the direct object, which takes the grammatical role of the adverb, is manifested. Also, the types of grammatical case of the free indirect object were delved into. Next, in addition to introducing the grammatical case of the indirect object, it was also pointed out that this grammatical case shares a common feature with the grammatical case of the direct object, in which both of them play the grammatical role of the adverb in the sentence. Next, with the aim of applying this research, the main part of the present study, which is focused on the distinction between different grammatical cases in the German language, was examined in a data-oriented way. To this end, examples of all three grammatical Oblique case were given to the experimental and control groups. The results revealed that in all cases, the number of correct answers by the participants of the experimental group who were familiar with the types of free grammatical cases was more compared to the control group. It was also found that familiarizing language learners with the free grammatical case will help them distinguish between the grammatical functions of adverbs and the grammatical functions of verbs.