Re: French and German (jara: An introduction)

Hi!

John Cowan <jcowan@...> writes:
> Henrik Theiling scripsit:
...
> > discrepancy between number of grammatical positions and number of
> > endings is simply too confusing:
>
> Presumably the very low functional load of these adjective endings means
> that errors don't normally interfere with intelligibility, though.
That's what I tried to write, too, yes. :-)

> How obtrusive is it to make such an error, compared with (say) getting
> a noun in the wrong gender or with the wrong plural, both of which are
> also quite irregular?
Hmm, I think it's very disturbing.  The problem I think is more that
you expect something to be said which in turn is not said.  This makes
me stumble.  It's not that you *need* the information carried on the
adjective endings, but that it is exhausting to mentally correct them
all the time.

No problems in understanding, though.

Compared to others:
   - wrong gender: less harmful for understanding (for me)
     (Maybe because there is a good set of cases where Germans don't
     know either or where there is choice.)

   - wrong plural: depends on how different.  When using only -s for
     all nouns, it become impossible to understand, I think.  But
     commom mix-ups are -en for -e and vice versa, which does not
     disturb me too much.

   - word order: sometimes very hard to understand if wrong
     (German word order is quite complex, I think, too)

So I would say, strangely, I need the adjective endings most of those,
although they carry only a wee bit of information.

These are all my personal feelings, of cause.

**Henrik