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Comparison of the Verbal Category of Tense In German and English

Table 1: Czech, English and German versions of the same sentence (Ondrakova et al. (2019, p. 30))

Czech English German
Dám to chlapcům. I will give it to the boys.I am giving it to the boys.I am going to give it to the boys. Ich gebe es den Jungen.
Dám – the person is clear from the verb form itself, no personal pronouns / subject is needed– the future time is referred to through the “present“ form of the verb I will give / I am giving / I am going to give– a personal pronoun / subject is needed to clarify the person– more tenses refer to the future time (all of them consist of an auxiliary verb and a particular form of the full verb Ich gebe– a personal pronoun / subject is needed to clarify the person – present tense refers to the future time
to it es
chlapcům– the morphemic ending expresses the category of Case and Number of the noun to the boys– Case is expressed through a preposition and word order, –Number is expressed through the morphemic ending – Determination is expressed through the definite article den Jungen- Case and Number are expressed though a declined form of the article and morphemic ending of the noun– Determination is expressed through the definite article
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