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Research Proposal: Comparative Analysis of English and Spanish Syntactic

Structures
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Chapter One: Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

Usage refers to the construction or the organisation of words and phrases in a

language to form grammatically correct sentences (Unsworth, 2023). It is rather important to

mention that even if English and Spanish belong to the Indo-European family of languages,

which means that they are more similar to each other than to languages of other families, they

still have rather different syntactic structures, which sometimes create certain similarities and

differences (Mueller et al., 2020). In this comparable contrasts study, it will be useful to

investigate these syntactic structures further, including SVO, null subjects, and tense/aspect

indicators. Knowledge of these differences is vital not only for theoretical analysis in

linguistics but also in practice, for example, in foreign language acquisition, translation, and

computational linguistics (Unsworth, 2023).

1.2 Research Problem

Linguists and translators struggle with syntactic differences between English and

Spanish, despite their Indo-European roots (Davis & van Schijndel, 2020). Spanish has

greater flexibility with SVO word order than English. Additionally, the two languages have

distinct null subject patterns and tense-aspect morphology. Some breakdowns in the former

aren't enough to determine syntactic divergence's effects (Authier & Haegeman, 2019). This

study's goal of a rigorous comparative investigation of syntactic patterns to improve cross-

linguistic syntax understanding shows these limitations.

1.3 Research Questions

This proposal addresses the following research questions:

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1. How do English and Spanish differ in their use of subject-verb-object order?

2. What are the syntactic implications of null subject usage in Spanish compared to English?

3. How do tense and aspect markers differ between English and Spanish, and what are the

implications of these differences?

1.4 Objectives of the Study

The primary objectives of this study are to:

4. Compare and contrast the SVO word order in English and Spanish.

5. Analyse the usage of null subjects in Spanish and its syntactic effects compared to

English.

6. Investigate the differences in tense and aspect markers between the two languages and

their syntactic consequences.

1.5 Significance of the Study

This research improves theoretical linguistics by revealing English and Spanish

syntax. By systematically analysing syntactic characteristics, including word order, null

subjects, and tense/aspect indicators, contrastive analysis can help explain the uniqueness of

each language under study. Since knowing syntactic distinctions can improve language

learning and teaching, it is especially advantageous for people studying and teaching two

languages simultaneously. This study also impacts translation practices by identifying

syntactic variations that translators must grasp to ensure accuracy before and after

translations. The present study will also enhance English and Spanish NLP algorithms,

establishing the groundwork for stronger computational tools for language analysis and

understanding.
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1.6 Scope and Limitations

This research's domains are confined to SVO order, null subjects, and tense/aspect

markers. While other aspects of the syntactic structure may be briefly discussed in the

remainder of the literature, major attention will be paid to these three areas. These structures

will be identified in both the written and spoken language, in corpora and linguistic

databases.

Chapter Two: Review of Literature

2.1 Subject-Verb-Object Order

English and Spanish use the standard SVO sentence form. This sequence is closer due

to English's few inflectional morphemes. SAV sequence switching may produce unsightly

phrases that do not make sense in the sentence. Rewording "John eats an apple" as "Eats John

an apple" or "An apple eats John" is incorrect. Later, utilising English texts, Radford (2009)

noted that word order shows grammatical connections and roles. Hence, SVO is not

acceptable. English inflectional indications to distinguish who is used or is done to are

uncommon. Thus, subject, verb, and object must be arranged (Dhar & Bisazza, 2020).

The application of the SVO pattern subsequently provides Spanish with word order

flexibility (Declerck et al., 2020). Spanish is versatile because of the size and flexibility of the

verb conjugations based on person, number, and gender. In inflectional languages, syntactic

relations between subjects and, verbs and objects are explained even when word order

changes (Huda, 2020). Which, without losing grammar, may be rewritten as "Una manzana

come to Juan" instead of "Juan come una manzana." Reordering can pull on phrase parties or

meet stylish or contextual aims in talk or writing (Ocampo, 2003).

Thus, SOV/OSV ordering emphasises sentence components due to Spanish

flexibility. “Una manzana come Juan” emphasises an apple in poetry or fiction. In spoken
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English, word order can emphasise or topicalise something English cannot transmit without

word rearrangement or explanation (Devlin, Chang, Lee & Toutanova, 2019). Differences in

SVO sequence show syntactic shifts between languages. Since English has fewer tone

fluctuations, it needs a coordinated word cycle to link grammar and ensure mutual

understanding. Due to its complex inflectional system, Spanish can switch subject, verb, and

object positions without modifying grammar. This approach destroys subject-verb-object

relationships and displays formal and casual language (De Santo, 2019).

2.2 Null Subjects

Another major syntactic difference between English and Spanish that is especially

conspicuous in the written language is the difference in terms of null subjects (Authier &

Haegeman, 2019). There is one more peculiarity in Spanish, a famous pro-drop language:

subject pronouns can be omitted completely, which complicates the picture. This is illustrated

in such cases as "Habla español" (He/She speaks Spanish), where the subject pronoun is

implicitly understood from the existent verb morphological marker, which highlights the

conjugation of "Habla” (Guarasci et al., 2022). This ability is due to the complex

morphological structure of verbs in Spanish, in which such structural features as the number

and person of the subject are incorporated; this, in turn, allows for the exclusion of subject

pronouns in (Greeson, 2021).

On the other hand, English is not known to have such morphological flexibility; this

makes a subject to be introduced in a sentence in a way explicit (Qin & Uccelli, 2020). The

reader encounters syntactic flaws such as “Speaks Spanish”, with no subject pronoun

expressed as grammatically unwarranted/incorrect in English, unless a referent of "he/she"

should be derived from context. Chomsky (1981) has pointed out that the use of such an

island involves relying on explicit subjects in English because the language comparatively
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has less inflectional morphology to mark grammatical relationships on words, and therefore,

the grammar relies more on the order of words in a sentence (Pescarini, 2022). Therefore, in

English, definite subjects are required to accompany the verbal actions to make the resultant

sentence grammatically correct and comprehensible.

2.3 Tense and Aspect Markers

Tense and aspect to facilitate indicating temporal relations and action types are

essential in both English and Spanish but perform divergent roles (Nicoladis, Yuehan &

Jiang, 2020). English mainly uses auxiliary verbs and participles to make the difference

between tense and aspect. For instance, the present progressive 'He is eating' is different from

the simple past 'He ate' where 'is' is an auxiliary verb along with 'eating', showing that the

action is still ongoing (Comrie, 1976). This construction shows a clear distinction between

the actions that are ongoing on the one hand and the ones that are already done on the other

(Nicoladis, Yuehan & Jiang, 2020).

On the other hand, Spanish uses conjugations of the verbs themselves and auxiliary

verbs to make similar distinctions. The continuous aspect in Spanish is shown through the use

of the gerund form in form; for instance, "comiendo" in "Está comiendo" [He/ She is eating])

where the auxiliary verb indicating continuity is "está" [is] (Hualde, 2005). On the other

hand, "Comió" (He/She ate) expresses an action that has happened, and it does not require

auxiliary verbs even if it has a conjugated form of the verb. This brings about the possibility

of having a wide temporal and aspectual variation in Spanish as compared to English, in

which the conjugation of verbs and the use of auxiliary verbs are tightly intertwined.
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Chapter Three: Methodology

3.1 Research Design

This study adopts a comparative linguistic analysis approach, combining qualitative

and quantitative methods to analyse syntactic structures in English and Spanish.

3.2 Data Collection

Data will be collected from various sources, including:

1. Corpora: The real large corpora like the Corpus of Contemporary American English

(COCA) and the Corpus del Español will be employed in the analysis of real syntactic

constructions present in contemporary written texts.

2. Literary Texts: English as well as Spanish literature will be used to give information

concerning syntactical material in written language.

3. Spoken Data: Scans of the spoken language in the media clips of news castings and

interviews will be made to deliberate on the colloquial syntactic constructive patterns.

3.3 Analytical Framework

The analysis will focus on the following aspects:

SVO Order: Several examples of cases with SVO, SOV and OSV sentence structures

will be described and compared in both languages. The variations of the construction will be

looked at in terms of how often they occur and in what contexts to assess their syntactic

consequences.

Null Subjects: Null subjects in Spanish sentences will be examined in the context of

the differences from the explicit subject in English sentences. The study will classify null

subjects by the environments in which they are allowed and the impact on the structure.
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Tense and Aspect Markers: The main features of tense and aspect in both languages

will be considered to identify how different aspects, such as continuative, perfective, and

others, are used. Focus will be made on the auxiliary verbs and the common verb

conjugations.

3.4 Data Analysis

The data that would be collected will be analysed by calculating percentages to

determine the relative occurrence of the syntactic structures in both the languages and

statistical assistants such as SPSS will be used in analysing the data. It will also compare and

contrast the syntactic tags in terms of their function and use, based on the empirical analysis

from the context: NVivo will assist in the pragmatic and use analysis – function and

functionality of the syntactic tags in given contexts.

3.5 Ethical Considerations

This study will adhere to ethical standards for linguistic research with proper citation

of all the sources of data used. Suppose a copyrighted material is to be used. In that case,

proper permission to do so shall be sought to ensure legal compliance regarding the use of

intellectual properties and passing of the legitimate tests of a research work (Schembri &

Jahić Jašić, 2022).

3.6 Limitations

The accessibility and generality of the data sources employed, as well as the

challenges associated with equating the precise syntactic structures of languages with varying

morphology and syntax, are among the potential limitations of this study.
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