Contrastive Analysis of Prenominal Modifiers in English and Albanian Noun Phrases

Abstract

The objective of this study is to identify English and Albanian noun phrases, aiming a contrastive analysis of their premodifying elements. A qualitative approach has been used to highlight the similarities and differences between premodifying elements of English and Albanian noun phrases. Specific examples from Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway and its corresponding translation into Albanian were carefully selected and analyzed. The empirical approach consisted of conducting a two-part test to thirty 8th grade students who were selected randomly. It aimed at investigating their ability to identify prenominal modifiers in given English and Albanian sentences, while observing the most common errors they made whilst translating noun phrases from English to Albanian and vice versa. The results revealed that participants achieved a reasonable degree of accuracy in identifying premodifiers in both English and Albanian noun phrases. Yet, the most common errors made by them were the use of post- modification with preposition in English noun phrases and omission of some premodifying elements.