Zu einigen theoretischen und praktischen Problemen der grammatischen Konfrontation

The article discusses general problems of contrastive linguistics. The need of detailed descriptions of the compared languages is pointed out, although this is only a necessary but insufficient condition for successful contrastive analysis. The same linguistic theory, methodology and terminology should be applied to the compared languages. The communicative function of language assumes great importance in contrastive studies. A review is made of several theoretical models. The need of stratification is pointed out. Discussed are also the problems of the choice of topic, comparability, field theory, connections with foreign language teaching. Material from various languages is used by way of illustration.