Your Name ____George Western______________________________________________________
LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS WORKSHEET (2 pages)
Directions: Fill in the blank with the correct answer or highlight/underline the
correct choice for each item.
1.Language of Investigation _Spanish___________________________
2. What places of origin (countries, regions, cities) is this language primarily spoken?
_Spain, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Central America, South
America with the exception of Brazil (Portuguese), and parts of California, Texas,
Florida_____________
3. This closest/ most similar language to this language is _Portuguese (followed by
Italian and, less so, French)_____________________
4. How many speakers are there globally of this language?_400 million (per
ESL.FIS.EDU website)_________________
Alphabet
5. This language has which type of alphabet?
a. Latin (every sign has a single sound)
b. Syllabic (every sign represents a whole syllable)
c. Logographic (each sign represents and entire word)
6. This language reads in which directions:
a. LEFT to RIGHT, UP to DOWN
b. RIGHT to LEFT, DOWN to UP
c. RIGHT to LEFT, UP to DOWN
d. LEFT to RIGHT, DOWN to UP
7. The letters/ characters of this alphabet are of which language family?
a. Indo-European
b. Sino-Tibetan
c. Semitic
d. Bantu
e. Uralic
f. Dravidian
g. Austonesian
h. Altic
8. Does this language depend primarily on tone or pitch?
a. Yes
b. No
9. Is this language syllable or stress timed?
a. Syllable timed
b. Stress timed
10. Does this language have strong sound/symbol correspondence? (English does not)
a. Yes
b. No
Directions: Complete this section ONLY if your language is Latin based (most
languages you will encounter are).
Phonetics and phonology
11. There are ___5__ vowels in this language.
12. They are (cut and paste the vowels in the actual script) _/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/_.
13. Which vowels sound the same as English vowel sounds? (list L1 vowel and English
vowel correspondence). _/a/ = /ah/, /e/ = /eh/, /i/ = /ee/, /o/ = /oh/, /u/ = /oo/_______
14. Which vowel sounds do not exist in English? __none – there are actually 12 vowel
sounds in English as opposed to 5 in Spanish_____
15. There are ___22_____ consonants in this language.
16. They are (cut and paste the consonants of the actual script) _b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l,
m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z_________________.
17. Which consonant sounds do NOT exist in English?_/ñ/ = /nyeh/ additionally, /b/
and /v/ are essentially the same sound in Spanish, and /h/ does not exist as a
voiced consonant_.
18. What sounds do speakers of this language have difficulty pronouncing? Spanish L1
speakers have great difficulty with the complexity of English vowel sounds – they
have 5 pure vowels, we have the same 5 vowels but 12 pure vowel sounds.
According to the FIS article, and others, other issues include: /v/, such as in
vowel or violin; ending consonants; adding a leading /e/ to words beginning with
an /s/ consonant cluster; difficulty with pronouncing other consonant clusters.
Another difficulty, because the sound does not exist in Spanish, is the voiced /h/.
19. Are there any sound placements that are different between English and this
language? YES
20. What are they? (For example, _/b/ and /v/ are placed to produce a /bv/ sound; /ñ/
= /nyeh/ and the tongue comes off the back of the upper teeth; /h/ is not vocalized
at all in Spanish; /j/ = /h/; /g/ sometimes = /h/ ______________________
21. Do any double letter combinations exist in this language? __Yes, three (3)_
22. What are they and what do they correspond to in English? (For example, Spanish:
/ll/ = English /y/). /cc/ = English /ks/ ;/ll/ = English /y/; /rr/ = English /r/ rolled or
trilled, i.e. “rrrrrrr”; also, rarely, /nn/ = English /n/
Syntax and Grammar
22. How many tenses exist in this language? 14, spread across indicative and
subjunctive groups
23. What are they? Indicative group: Preterite Perfect, Preterite, Pluperfect,
Imperfect, Present Perfect, Present, Future, and Future Perfect. Subjunctive
group: Pluperfect, Imperfect, Present Perfect, Present, Conditional, Conditional
Perfect (from .pdf retrieved from Spanish411.net)
24. The word order of this language is
a. Verb, subject, object (VSO)
b. Subject, verb, object (SVO)
c. Object, verb, subject (OVS)
d. Verb, object, subject (VOS)
e. Subject, object, verb (SOV)
f. Lacks a dominant word order
25 What are the punctuation forms used in this language? List using English
comparisons.
/¿ ?/ = English /?/ - used at beginning and end of a question. If the question
occurs within a sentence, the question marks frame only the question itself
/ ¡ !/ = English /!/ - applied in the same way as question marks. Also sometimes
used to frame a command.
Special note – if a sentence contains both a question and an exclamation, it is
permissible to use an exclamation at the beginning of the sentence and a
question mark at the end.
Commas and periods are used the same as in English, with the exception that it
is common in Spanish to see a period in numerals where we would use a comma:
example 10.000 for 10,000 (ten thousand in both cases). And, there are no
“Harvard commas” in Spanish, i.e. you would not see one, two, and three….it
would be uno, dos y tres.
Long dashes are commonly used to denote a change in speaker in dialogue
passages, replacing quotation marks.
/ « »/ = English /”…”/ - angled quotes in Spanish are used the same as Englishstyle quotation marks, with the exception that punctuation always goes outside
the quotation marks. (About.com notes that the angled (« ») quotation marks are
more commonly used in Spain; English style marks are more common in Latin
America.
26. How does this language mark gender?
Primarily via word endings. There are several rules (although as with most rules
there are exceptions):
#1 – masculine nouns generally end in /o/; feminine generally end in /a/
#2 – Nouns ending in –sion, -cion, -gion, -dad, -tad, -tud, e, z, and d are usually
feminine
#3 – Nouns ending in –ma, -ta, and –pa are usually masculine
#4 – Nouns preceded by ‘la’ are feminine; nouns preceded by ‘el’ are masculine
#5 – Some nouns, regardless of ending, can be either masculine or feminine
depending on context. Examples: dentista – dentist, modelo - model
Morphology
27. What are some shared cognates between English and this language?
Artist / artista; tourist / turista; intelligence / inteligencia / mechanism /
mecanismo;
Activity / actividad; university / Universidad; impossible / imposible
28. What are some FALSE cognates between English and this language?
Spanish asister (to be present) vs. English assist (to help)
Spanish basamento (base of a column) vs. English basement
Spanish bizzaro (brave) vs. English bizarre
Spanish complexion (physique) vs. English complexion (facial skin tone)
Spanish carpeta (briefcase or file folder) vs. English carpet
29. Through your research what have you found are the biggest difficulties of speakers
of this language learning English? Please provide specific examples.
First, understanding the added complexity of our vowel sounds. Spanish has 5
pure vowel sounds (one sound for each vowel), while we have at least two
distinct sounds associated with each vowel. Example: /a/ = Spanish /ah/ vs.
English /aye/, /aah/ as in apple, or /ah/ as in ah-ha
Second, consonant sounds that do not exist in Spanish – primary example being
the voiced /h/ as in hello (native Spanish speakers would not pronounce the /h/).
Other examples would include our /v/ as in victor or violin, and /j/ as in jello (/j/ in
Spanish is an English /h/).
The above are the most difficult issues. Another issue presenting problems for
Spanish speakers learning English is trouble with the stress-timed aspects of
English (Spanish is syllable-timed and Spanish speakers tend to “level out” the
stress patterns in English and thereby lose meaning. Also, as discussed in
questions 27 and 28 above, there are enough cognates between English and
Spanish to cause a false sense of familiarity, and therefore confusion, when false
cognates are encountered.
30. If you have an early production ELL who this language is their L1, what would be the
most important thing you will teach them in regards to the difference between their
language and English?
At this stage I would continue to stress the difference in vowel sounds and
usage, since the multiple sound concept is completely foreign to them and still
would be confusing even beyond the pre-production phase. This would include
extensive de-coding work in individual or small group settings. We would also
work on basic grammar/syntax issues. While English and Spanish are both
primarily SVO-oriented languages, in Spanish there is a tendency to place
important words at the end of a sentence for emphasis. Finally, I would start
work with him/her on deciphering some of the more common false cognates.