ISOLATION OF ATTRIBUTE IN THE MARI AND GERMAN LANGUAGES

Galina L. Sokolova¹, Anna L. Kolyago²*, Alla A. Fokina^3
1Assos. Prof., Mari State University, Russia, askgalinasokol@mail.ru
²Assos. Prof., Mari State University, Russia, kolyago@yandex.ru
³Assos. Prof., Mari State University, Russia, allafokina70@mail.ru
*Corresponding author

Abstract

In foreign and domestic linguistics a full experience of syntax issues has been accumulated. Issues of comparative study of languages studied by contrastive linguistics allow us to penetrate deeper into peculiarities of each language than it is possible in the study of a single language. At the same time it becomes possible to identify and describe those peculiarities of the comparative languages that can escape our attention in the internal study of language.

The article is devoted to isolated and non-isolated attributes in the Mari and German languages. At the present stage of development of linguistics the comparative analysis of languages belonging to different language families is of great interest and attention of researchers. Comparison of unrelated languages is interesting both in terms of grammar and from the standpoint of foreign languages teaching methods. The fact that the Mari language is the representative of the Altaic language family and the German language belongs to the Indo-European languages, does not mean that there is no similarity between them. The goal of the work is to reveal the matter and principles of isolation of attribute in the Mari and German languages and to find similarities and peculiarities. The goal involves a solution of certain tasks among them the disclosure of the nature and causes of isolation in the comparative languages. The method of the synchronic description of collected material with use of the distributive analysis and elements of the diachronic method is used to solve the goals and tasks set in the article. The comparative method makes possible to establish similarities and peculiarities in the analyzed languages.

Isolation takes place in order to give the communicative value to the secondary member of the sentence in the language. In addition to the general features of isolation each secondary member of sentence uses its distinctive ways of isolation. In the Mari language the attribute is after a dependent member; 2) it is associated with a personal or definitive pronoun; 3) it has an additional adverbial meaning; 4) there is some other word between the attribute and a dependent member; 5) the attribute and a dependent member are separated from each other.
Isolated attribute in German as well as in Mari is located in the postposition. But unlike the Mari language in which both components of an attributive construction are coordinated on all possible categories, in German the attribute in the postposition loses its grammatical connection to the dependent member. There is no concord of gender and case, concord of number may be preserved.

Keywords: syntax; the Mari language; the German language; isolation