"Hätte, Wäre, Wenn ": A Pseudo-Longitudinal Study of Subjunctives in The Corpus of Learner German (CLEG)

“Hätte, wäre, wenn…”
A pseudo-longitudinal study of subjunctives

in the Corpus of Learner German (CLEG)
Ursula Maden-Weinberger
Lancaster University, UK
The German subjunctive mood (‘Konjunktiv’) is a grammatical feature that

attests to the freedom of human beings to step out of the boundaries of their
immediate situation and explore new possibilities in hypothetical scenarios. It
therefore plays a pivotal role in advanced learner argumentative writing, but due
to its highly complex nature regarding both form and usage, the ‘Konjunktiv’
challenges learners on virtually all levels of linguistic knowledge. This paper
presents the first learner corpus-based study of this phenomenon with a two-
pronged Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis approach: comparing learner data
to native-speaker data and learner data at different levels of proficiency using the
Corpus of Learner German (CLEG). The investigation seeks to explain the de-
tected patterns of over-, under- and misuse and developmental paths by drawing
on cognitive theories of second language acquisition.
Keywords: subjunctive mood, ‘Konjunktiv’, German, pseudo-longitudinal,

argumentative writing
1. Introduction
The phrase “Hätte, wäre, wenn…” in the title of this paper is often used in German
— usually with an air of exasperation — as a response to an interlocutor’s con-
tinued musing on the “what ifs” of life. The pop-song “Coulda, woulda, shoulda”
by Beverley Knight expresses the same sentiment in English. As part of the rep-
ertoire of modality, the subjunctive mood expresses non-factuality and as such
attests to a unique characteristic of the human mind: the ability to step out of the
boundaries of the immediate situation and explore new and different possibilities
in hypothetical scenarios. It therefore plays a pivotal role in all forms of discourse
that discuss practical and theoretical problems or contentious issues and examine
International Journal of Learner Corpus Research 1:1 (2015), 25–57. doi 10.1075/ijlcr.1.1.02mad
issn 2215–1478 / e-issn 2215–1486 © John Benjamins Publishing Company
26 Ursula Maden-Weinberger
possible solutions. Where language learning is concerned, argumentative essays

and discussions of controversial topics of current interest are a staple of the written
assessment catalogue for advanced learners of foreign languages — which foreign
language student has not, at some point in their ‘career’, had to write an essay that
starts with a contentious statement, such as ‘Assisted suicide should be made legal’,
followed by the brief instruction ‘Discuss’?
Unlike English, however, where subjunctive verb forms have become uncom-
mon in all but certain fixed expressions and their functions are largely covered by
modal verbs, the German subjunctive (henceforth referred to as ‘Konjunktiv’) is
a high frequency phenomenon in utterances that refer to hypothetical situations.
The fact that the two verbs referred to in the title, hätte (‘would have’) and wäre
(‘would be’) occur with a frequency of approximately 542 and 520 per million
words, respectively, in the Deutsches Referenzkorpus (‘German Reference Corpus’;
Institut für Deutsche Sprache 2013b), may serve as an indicator of the prolific
nature of subjunctive verb forms in German.1 Knowledge of form, meaning and
usage of the ‘Konjunktiv’ is therefore paramount for learners of German as a for-
eign/second language (L2), at advanced stages in particular, in order to be able to
engage in discussions of a hypothetical nature.
This article seeks to provide empirical evidence of ‘Konjunktiv’ use in
German learner language by reporting on a pseudo-longitudinal learner cor-
pus study. Section 2 situates the study within a framework of cognitive theories
of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Section 3 provides an overview of the
subject under investigation, i.e. functions, forms and use of the ‘Konjunktiv’ in
present-day German and previous research on ‘Konjunktiv’ in SLA research. The
German language actually has two subjunctive mood paradigms (‘Konjunktiv
I’ and ‘Konjunktiv II’). For space restrictions, however, and due to the fact that
‘Konjunktiv II’ is more relevant for the argumentative writing of language learners,
the investigation focuses on ‘Konjunktiv II’. Section 4 details the methodology for
the study involving a Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (CIA) approach, compar-
ing 1) non-native speaker (NNS) data from the Corpus of Learner German (CLEG)
and native speaker (NS) data and 2) learner data at different levels of proficiency.
This approach allows for an in-depth investigation of four aspects of the use of the
‘Konjunktiv II’ which are presented in Section 5: The learner-NS comparison helps
to map out patterns of over- and underuse and differences in functional usage con-
texts, while the pseudo-longitudinal investigation helps to chart the development
of patterns of misuse as well as the lexical distributions of ‘Konjunktiv’ verb forms
1. As a point of reference, the most frequent modal verb können (‘can’) has a frequency of ap-
prox. 2668 per million words and the least frequent modal verb dürfen (‘may’, ‘be allowed to’)
approx. 357 per million words.
A pseudo-longitudinal study of subjunctives in the Corpus of Learner German 27
across proficiency levels. Finally, in Section 6, the emergent patterns in these four
aspects are discussed and explained in the light of the theoretical framework laid
out in Section 2.
2. Connectionist theories of SLA
It is proposed here that connectionist theories of SLA can help understand the
developmental patterns and particular difficulties of the ‘Konjunktiv’ for language
learners. In connectionist approaches, learning is “assumed to take place by grad-
ual strengthening of the association between co-occurring elements of the lan-
guage” (Kempe & MacWhinney 1998: 545). In this view, the importance of rule
learning in language acquisition is minimised in favour of associative learning.
This establishes a central role for language input, as learners perceive regularities
in the input and extract probabilistic patterns on this basis. Learning then occurs
as these patterns become strengthened by repeated activation (Ellis & Schmidt
1997: 153).
Ellis (2008: 372) establishes four factors that influence associative learning:
frequency, salience, contingency (cue reliability) and cue competition. Frequency
encompasses type-token frequency, Zipfian distribution and recency; salience is
defined as the perceived strength of a stimulus due to its phonological properties.
Cue contingency refers to the reliability of a linguistic form as a predictor of an in-
terpretation, while cue competition captures the notion of multiple cues triggering
different interpretations and thus competing with each other. According to Ellis,
these factors affect both first and second language acquisition; what sets the two
types of learning apart, however, is the aspect of “learned attention” (2008: 373),
where SLA is hindered by prior acquisition of the L1 (so-called “L1 entrench-
ment”) due to cognitive processing factors such as cue competition, salience, in-
terference, blocking or perceptual learning. In other words, these factors influ-
ence which aspects of language can or cannot be attended to. The importance of
attention within connectionist frameworks is encapsulated in Schmidt’s (1990)
“Noticing Hypothesis”. This suggests that in order to turn input into intake (the
subset of the input that the learner appropriates to build their interlanguage) and
make it available for further processing, relevant input features have to be noticed.
‘Noticed’ in this context means that they have to be registered under attention, or
detected under awareness (see also e.g. Robinson et al. 2012 and Schmidt 2012).
These cognitive constraints on language learning can lead to difficulties in
language acquisition, which DeKeyser (2005) divides into three categories: prob-
lems of meaning, form and form-meaning mapping. The meaning of a linguistic
structure can constitute a “source of difficulty, because of novelty, abstractness,
or a combination of both” (DeKeyser 2005: 5). Problems of form can arise from

a choice of different morphemes and allomorphs to express a certain meaning,
which presents a most complex issue in richly inflected languages. Finally, there
are three factors that can obstruct correct form-meaning mapping: redundancy,
optionality and opacity. Firstly, redundant forms are those that are semantically
unnecessary, because their meaning is also expressed by other elements in the
same sentence. Secondly, optionality refers to the “alternating presence or absence
of a linguistic form in the presence of the same meaning, except for subtle aspects
of pragmatics” (DeKeyser 2005: 8). Thirdly, form-meaning mappings are consid-
ered opaque when “a morpheme has different allomorphs, and at the same time
it is homophonous with other grammatical morphemes” (ibid.). This ties in with
Ellis’ (2008) notion of low cue reliability. Generally, instances of morphological ir-
regularity are considered to be highly opaque and therefore pose considerable dif-
ficulties for their acquisition. Section 3 below will demonstrate that most of these
cognitive factors outlined as potential sources of difficulty apply to the function,
form and usage of the ‘Konjunktiv II’ in present-day German.
Keeping these factors in mind, the explorative study presented here investi-
gates if and how learners’ use of ‘Konjunktiv II’ forms differs from that of native
speakers, and if and how these usage patterns change with increasing proficiency.
More specifically, it addresses the following research questions:
1. Do learners over- or underuse ‘Konjunktiv II’ forms compared to NSs and do
frequency patterns change with increasing proficiency?
2. What kind of misuse patterns occur in learners’ use of ‘Konjunktiv II’ and do
misuse patterns change with increasing proficiency?
3. How do ‘Konjunktiv II’ forms distribute over different verb categories in
learner language compared to native German and do these distributional pat-
terns change with increasing proficiency?
4. How do ‘Konjunktiv II’ forms distribute over different usage contexts in learn-
er language compared to native German and do these patterns in usage con-
texts change with increasing proficiency?
3. The German ‘Konjunktiv’- function, form and usage
As mentioned before, the German ‘Konjunktiv’ is a difficult area for learners, es-
pecially for those with English as their L1, as it encompasses highly complex verb
morphology that is in stark contrast to the reduced inflectional system of English.
The German subjunctive mood consists of two fully-fledged, (in parts) morpho-
logically distinct, verb paradigms (‘Konjunktiv I’ and ‘Konjunktiv II’) as well as
a periphrastic subjunctive form with würde (‘would’) + infinitive. On top of this,

the rules for the usage of the different ‘Konjunktiv’ forms are complex and highly
dependent on register, medium and contextual factors.
3.1 Basic functions of the ‘Konjunktiv’2
As a marker of modality, the use of the ‘Konjunktiv’ overtly marks an utterance as

non-factual. It is important to stress here that whether an utterance is presented in
the indicative or ‘Konjunktiv’ is not a matter of objective truth or reality, but rather
that of the speaker’s “Horizont” (‘horizon’) (Brinkmann 1971: 730). A speaker’s
horizon is what they perceive as valid and given in ‘their world’, i.e. the ‘real world’
for this one person in a particular situation, which is not necessarily congruent
with other people’s horizons or even the same person’s horizon in a different situ-
ation. As mentioned before, the indicative is the default mode for everything that
falls within a speaker’s horizon. This can include a goal that is yet to be achieved or
a condition that does not yet exist in the actual world, as long as the speaker wishes
to encode the proposition as unmarked for the characteristic ‘outside my horizon’.
‘Konjunktiv I’ and ‘Konjunktiv II’, then, offer the possibility to mark explic-
itly this notion of ‘outside my horizon’ in two different ways, or as Zifonun et al.
(1997: 1785) put it:
“Der Konjunktiv zeigt eine Brechung oder Aufhebung der Unmittelbarkeit der
interpretativen Bezugnahme auf die beiden primären Koordinaten aktualer
Sprecher oder aktuale Welt an”. (‘The subjunctive indicates a break or annulment
of the immediacy in the interpretative reference with respect to the two primary
coordinates of present speaker and factual world’; my translation, emphasis in
original).
In present-day German, ‘Konjunktiv I’ is almost exclusively relevant for indirect

speech, as it enables the speaker to explicitly mark an utterance as that of some-
body who is not present in the current communicative situation. While this con-
stitutes a further source of difficulty for the learners — mostly due to morphologi-
cal distinctions — this paper focuses solely on ‘Konjunktiv II’.
2. In this paper, the two synthetic ‘Konjunktiv’ verb forms are referred to as ‘Konjunktiv I’
and ‘Konjunktiv II’. Many publications, grammar books and teaching materials use the terms
‘Konjunktiv Präsens’ (‘present subjunctive’) and ‘Konjunktiv Perfekt’ (‘past subjunctive’), re-
spectively. These terms are used because the two types are formed on the basis of the present
and past tense verb stem. This is misleading, however, as the two subjunctives differ with respect
to modality, not tense (e.g. Brinkmann 1971: 362; Öhlschläger 1984: 239).
‘Konjunktiv II’ marks a proposition as situated outside the given horizon. It

can express, for example, wishes that, from the perspective of the speaker, are un-
attainable (beyond the given horizon):
(1) Wäre ich doch noch einmal jung!
be.sbjvII.1sg I but still again young
‘If only I was young again!’
This use is closely linked to hypothetical argumentation and conditionals (as dem-
onstrated by the English translation with if). The use in conditional clauses is the
most prominent operational sphere of the ‘Konjunktiv II’. It stands in marked op-
position to the indicative, but it is only the speaker’s horizon, and that is the deci-
sive factor for indicative or ‘Konjunktiv II’. Consider the following two sentences:
(2) a. Wenn ich Zeit habe, komme ich dich besuchen.
if I time have.ind.prs.1sg come.ind.prs.1sg I you visit
‘If I have time, I’ll come to visit you.’
b. Wenn ich Zeit hätte, käme ich dich besuchen.
if I time have.sbjvII.1sg come.sbjvII.1sg I you visit.
‘If I had time, I would come to visit you.’
In both sentences (2a) and (2b), the condition (protasis) is a state that does not
exist in reality — it is hypothetical in both cases. Nevertheless, this hypothetical
supposition can be realised in the indicative or the ‘Konjunktiv II’. The difference
is that in (2a) the supposition is declared as within the speaker’s horizon (i.e. it is
in accordance with the speaker’s knowledge that the condition can be fulfilled). In
(2b), however, the ‘Konjunktiv II’ explicitly indicates that the possibility that the
condition can be fulfilled lies outside the speaker’s horizon. Indeed, the fact that
the condition is unattainable is probably the motivation for the utterance.
The use of ‘Konjunktiv II’ is, however, not restricted to conditionals. Another
common modality context is non-factual argumentation, where possible cir-
cumstances are set up under which a non-factual proposition can be viewed.
Syntactically this is achieved by noun phrases, participle/infinitive constructions
or adverbials which create hypothetical scenarios by either referring to something
as existing just as a thought or depicting situations that are not given in the here
and now.
(3) Von einer höheren Tabaksteuer wären nur bestimmte Leute betroffen.
by a higher tobacco tax be.sbjvII.3pl only certain people affected.
‘Only certain people would be affected by a higher tax on tobacco.’
Other, albeit rare, contexts for ‘Konjunktiv II’ are counterfactual comparative, con-
secutive and relative clauses. In addition to that, ‘Konjunktiv II’ signals politeness
strategies in attitude statements or discourse structuring statements and as such,

often occurs in sales situations by reducing interactional immediacy. ‘Konjunktiv
II’ is also used in indirect speech contexts, especially in spoken German.
So far, this account gives the impression of relatively straightforward form-
function relationships for the two ‘Konjunktiv’ forms. The reality, however, is far
more complex due to two issues: extensive morphological syncretism between
‘Konjunktiv’ and indicative verb forms, including the ‘replacement’ system with
the periphrastic ‘würde-Konjunktiv’, and a limited range of contexts where the
‘Konjunktiv’ is grammatically compulsory.
3.2 Morphological syncretism between ‘Konjunktiv II’ and indicative
Due to space restrictions, the problem of morphological syncretism between

‘Konjunktiv II’ and indicative forms is laid out here along only the most basic
lines; for a comprehensive account see Zifonun et al. (1997: 1739). ‘Konjunktiv
II’ is formed by adding the morphemes (-e, -est, -e, -en, -et, -en) to preterite verb
stems. Strong verbs undergo stem vowel change in the preterite and have umlauts
where appropriate in the ‘Konjunktiv II’, e.g. for the verb kommen (‘come’), preter-
ite indicative is ich kam (‘I came’) and ‘Konjunktiv II’ is ich käme (‘I would come’).
Syncretism exists, however, for all weak verbs in all persons, so in example (4), the
verb could be either preterite indicative or ‘Konjunktiv II’:
(4) Wenn die Studenten mehr lernten,
if/when the students more study.ind.pst.3pl/sbjvII.3pl
erhielten sie bessere Noten.
receive.ind.pst.3pl/sbjvII.3pl they better marks
‘When the students worked harder, they received better marks.’ OR
‘If the students worked harder, they would receive better marks.’
Note that the interpretation of the mode as either indicative or ‘Konjunktiv II’, and
therefore of the utterance as either temporal (factual) or conditional (non-factual),
is purely context dependent. In order to avoid this ambivalence, there is another
option to form ‘Konjunktiv II’ periphrastically by using the — always distinct —
‘Konjunktiv’ form of werden (‘become’), i.e. würde + infinitive. If example (4) were
to be unambiguously marked for ‘Konjunktiv II’, it would read:
(5) Wenn die Studenten mehr lernen würden,
if the students more study.inf will.sbjvII.3pl,
würden sie bessere Noten erhalten.
will.sbjvII.3pl they better marks receive.inf
‘If the students studied more, they would receive better marks.’
3.3 Use of ‘Konjunktiv II’
Zifonun et al. (1997: 1783) summarise the actual use of synthetic and periphras-
tic ‘Konjunktiv’ in present-day German, based on several corpus investigations.
‘Konjunktiv II’ is used in spoken and written language, but differences exist with
respect to which verbs are used in the ‘Konjunktiv II’. In spoken language, only
haben (‘have’) and sein (‘be’) and the modal verbs are used almost exclusively with
the synthetic ‘Konjunktiv II’. Most other verbs (with the exception of some very
common ones such as kommen (‘come’), gehen (‘go’), wissen (‘know’), geben (‘give’),
tun (‘do’), brauchen (‘need’)) are usually used with the periphrastic ‘würde-Kon-
junktiv’, even if a distinct ‘Konjunktiv II’ form is available. In written language, the
range of verbs that occur with synthetic ‘Konjunktiv II’ is slightly wider, but there
is also a tendency, just as in spoken language, to restrict its use to certain common
verbs and use the ‘würde-Konjunktiv’ in all other cases (see Witton 2000). In the
light of these findings, Zifonun et al. (1997: 1785) suggest that while in terms of
the morphological paradigm the ‘würde-Konjunktiv’ is considered the ‘replace-
ment Konjunktiv’, in terms of its frequency of use in spoken and written language
it actually occupies the central position.
As indicated before, a further complication in the use of the German
‘Konjunktiv’ arises from the fact that there is a large degree of choice in whether
or not to use it. Unlike, for example, in French, where a number of verbs automati-
cally trigger the use of the ‘subjonctif ’, the use of the German ‘Konjunktiv’ is only
grammatically compulsory in a small number of contexts, most notably retrospec-
tive counter-factual conditional clauses (unfulfilled conditions in the past):
(6) Wenn die Studenten mehr gearbeitet hätten,
if the students more work.pst.ptcp have.sbjvII.3pl
hätten sie bessere Noten erhalten.
have.sbjvII.3pl they better marks receive.pst.ptcp
‘If the students had worked harder, they would have received better marks.’
The use of ‘Konjunktiv II’ is not grammatically compulsory in the other modality
contexts discussed in Section 3.1, i.e. other types of conditional clauses, non-fac-
tual argumentation, counterfactual consecutive, comparative and relative clauses
and indirect speech.
In summary, it is important to remember that the ‘Konjunktiv’ in German is
merely the marked mode for non-factuality (and in most cases not grammatically
compulsory). This, however, does not mean that the use of the indicative indicates
factuality, but rather that a proposition in the indicative is simply unmarked for
this feature. The choices between ‘Konjunktiv’ and indicative mood on the one
hand and between the synthetic and periphrastic forms on the other are only to
a very small degree subject to grammatical rules and are primarily dependent on
context, medium, register, genre, text-type and personal stylistic choices.
From the perspective of language learning, then, the ‘Konjunktiv’ is a linguistic
feature that is high in frequency but poses multiple difficulties for learners due to
its relatively abstract meaning, highly complex form and the fact that it is optional,
highly opaque and low in salience, which are all factors that affect form-meaning
mapping (DeKeyser 2005), as explained in Section 2. It is this complex system of
form and contextual usage that makes the ‘Konjunktiv’ an intriguing phenomenon
to explore in learner language.
3.4 Previous research on the ‘Konjunktiv’ in L2
Considering that the ‘Konjunktiv’ challenges learners far into the advanced stages
of proficiency, it has not received the attention it deserves from the SLA research,
language pedagogy or Learner Corpus Research (LCR) communities. Dittmar &
Ahrenholz (1995) make a passing note about the ‘Konjunktiv’ in their study of
an Italian learner of German, but only insofar as the learner in their longitudinal
study is at an early stage in language acquisition and does not use it at all. Leirbukt
(1992) and Normann (1992) offer pedagogical considerations on the ‘Konjunktiv’
in the context of Norwegian university students of German. Both of these articles
are constituted mainly of accounts of their authors’ experiences in teaching the
‘Konjunktiv’ to their Norwegian students. Fabricius-Hansen (1997: 32) is, to my
knowledge, the only publication that provides general and detailed suggestions on
how the ‘Konjunktiv’ could be taught at different stages to help learners cope with
the multiple demands of this structure. What none of these publications offer is a
systematic analysis of learner production. If, however, the ‘Konjunktiv’ is such a
difficult phenomenon for L2 learners of German to acquire — and all of the above
contributions attest to that — then surely it is crucial to examine exactly where and
why problems arise for the learners in order to make helpful suggestions on how
to facilitate its acquisition.
4. Methodology: CLEG, KEDS and the CIA
In order to redress the paucity of empirical evidence and answer the research ques-
tions laid out in Section 2, the present study employs Contrastive Interlanguage
Analysis (CIA; Gilquin 2001, Granger 2002), relying on authentic data in the form
of computerised learner corpora. CIA involves two types of comparison (Granger
2002: 12–13): NS vs. NNS language in order to establish non-native features of
learner language and NNS vs. NNS language in order to investigate developmental
or L1-induced interlanguage phenomena. The latter type of comparison most

typically involves NNS data with differing L1-backgrounds. For L2 German, CIA
studies have so far mainly focused on this type of CIA (e.g. Breckle & Zinsmeister
2012, 2013, Hirschmann et al. 2013, Lüdeling & Walter 2009). The present study,
however, adopts the CIA approach to compare NNS data from one L1-background
(British English) at different levels of proficiency in order to discover develop-
mental trends. Despite not being the prototypical form of CIA, longitudinal and
pseudo-longitudinal corpus data are increasingly being used in LCR investigat-
ing interlanguage development (see e.g. Abe & Tono 2005, Granger 1998, and the
overviews in Hasko 2013 and Park 2014). The present study uses a pseudo-longi-
tudinal corpus in the form of the Corpus of Lerner German (CLEG) and a compa-
rable NS-corpus called Korpus Erörterungen deutscher Schüler (KEDS, ‘Corpus of
argumentative essays by German pupils’). The term ‘pseudo-longitudinal’ is used
here for a repeated cross-sectional research design in accordance with Jarvis &
Pavlenko (2008: 36) who note that pseudo-longitudinal designs “include language
users at successive levels of language ability […] though not within the same lan-
guage users, as would be the case in a true longitudinal study” (see also Hasko
2013). The analysis of ‘Konjunktiv II’ forms uses both quantitative and qualitative
methods in a complementary approach. Frequency counts were conducted for the
overall category of ‘Konjunktiv II’ forms as well as for the different subcategories
under investigation (i.e. errors, lexical distribution and usage contexts). The statis-
tical significance of differences between NS and NNS frequency counts was tested
with log-likelihood calculations (Rayson & Garside 2000). In addition, individual
concordances and their contexts were scrutinised in order to understand better
the nature of errors and other qualitative differences.
4.1 CLEG — a Corpus of Learner German
CLEG is a publicly available3 corpus of argumentative writing by British students of

German as an L2 at Lancaster University, UK, compiled between 2003 and 2005.4
Free compositions in the form of critical commentaries, critical summaries and
argumentative essays were collected throughout the academic years from three
3. The corpus is accessible within a collection of German learner corpora hosted by the
Department of German Studies and Linguistics at Humboldt-University of Berlin, Germany:
https://korpling.german.hu-berlin.de/falko-suche/ (accessed 05 July 2014).The corpus hosted
(and searchable with ANNIS) on this platform is CLEG13, which is an extended version of
CLEG (entailing CLEG plus two further years of data). CLEG is also available as .txt files with
accompanying meta-data by contacting the author at u.weinberger@lancaster.ac.uk.
4. For detailed documentation on CLEG and KEDS see: http://korpling.german.hu-berlin.de/

public/CLEG13/CLEG13_documentation.pdf (accessed 05 July 2014).
groups (Year A, B and C) of post-A-level students aged between 18 and 24 (hav-

ing had between five and seven years of German tuition at secondary school) with
British English as their L1. The texts were either written under timed conditions in
class with no access to reference materials or at home. Four texts were collected in
Year A, three in Year B and six in Year C. All students in the final year (Year C) had
spent between six and twelve months in a German-speaking country as a com-
pulsory part of their degree scheme. In accordance with the guidelines issued by
the Department for Education and Skills, achieving an A-level in a modern for-
eign language is equivalent to level B1/B2 in the Common European Framework
of References for Languages (Council of Europe 2001). During their university
course, students are expected to have acquired language skills at levels B1/B2 and
B2 in Years A and B, respectively, and at level C1 in Year C, after the year abroad.
4.2 KEDS (Korpus Erörterungen deutscher Schüler)
In order to follow the CIA approach, a native-speaker corpus comparable to CLEG

was required. As no such corpus existed at the time, KEDS was compiled in prepa-
ration for this study to complement CLEG.5 KEDS contains 62 texts (47 different
topics), all by different authors, totalling 82,084 tokens. The main priority here was
to achieve comparability in terms of text type. While modality is a central feature
of argumentative writing, it will almost certainly play a different or less signifi-
cant role in other text types such as descriptive or narrative texts. Matching text
type was therefore a crucial characteristic for a comparable corpus to CLEG. An
exact match for the argumentative texts in CLEG is the ‘Problemerörterung’ (‘ar-
gumentative essay’),6 which is a specific writing assignment in German secondary
school curricula. This format is introduced in year 9 and practiced and developed
during the following years up until the ‘Abitur’ (secondary school degree equiva-
lent to UK A-levels). All texts were collected from open-access internet resources
(homework7 and advice forums8) that do not require membership. Although the
5. In the meantime, an L1 German corpus of argumentative writing has since become available
within the FALKO corpus collection. See https://www.linguistik.hu-berlin.de/institut/profes-
suren/korpuslinguistik/forschung/falko (accessed 05 July 2014). However, while this corpus is
publicly available for searches, it is not possible to annotate the data with user-specified tags.
6. As opposed to e.g. the “literarische Erörterung” (a critical discussion based on a work of
literature).
7. http://www.hausarbeiten.de (accessed 05 July 2014).
8. http://www.teachsam.de (accessed 05 July 2014); http://www6.digitale-schule-bayern.de/

ds.py (accessed 05 July 2014).
background information on authors and text production circumstances is sparser

for these texts, all texts included in KEDS have information on the sex of the au-
thor, school year, topic and, in most cases, grade received. By selecting texts from
the upper years of secondary school (school years 10–13) for KEDS, it is even
possible to achieve close comparability in terms of age group. In fact, Kazubski
(1998: 25) argues, with the support of corpus-based results, that
it may be psycholinguistically more appropriate to compare EFL learner corpora
not with ideal ‘expert performances’ in the target language but (more realistically)
with the attainable performances of native learners of a comparable, preferably
slightly lower, age and experience.
Sampling data from pupils in secondary school also, therefore, provides compa-
rability in another aspect: For both NS pupils and foreign language students these
texts are produced in the context of writing for assessment in an instructional
setting. This specific production setting also marks CLEG and KEDS as corpora
of novice writers. One variable that distinguishes the two corpora, however, is av-
erage text length, which is higher for KEDS than the CLEG subcorpora due to
different assessment requirements. An investigation into relative frequencies of
‘Konjunktiv II’ forms within KEDS has shown, however, that these are insensitive
to text length. Furthermore, investigations into dispersion across authors in KEDS
and CLEG have shown no considerable effects of the limited number of authors
on frequencies of ‘Konjunktiv II’ forms. Table 1 provides details of the structure
of both corpora.
Table 1. Make-up of CLEG and KEDS

Year group Learners Texts Tokens different topics
Year A 54 181 46 139 12
Year B 38 94 65 865 10
Year C 34 176 87 610 14
KEDS 62 62 82 084 47
4.3 Annotation of the data
As shown in Section 3.2, ‘Konjunktiv II’ is either manifest in a specific morpholog-

ical paradigm on the main verb (synthetic variant) or as a combination of würde
and an infinitive main verb (periphrastic variant). Due to the extensive syncretism
between indicative and ‘Konjunktiv II’ synthetic verb forms, only those instances
were analysed where the ‘Konjunktiv II’ form is morphologically distinct from
the indicative. All periphrastic instances of the ‘Konjunktiv II’ could be retrieved
automatically through a lemma search for würden (‘become’) using WordSmith

Tools (Scott 2008). In the same way, it was possible to automatically retrieve all
the instances of the ‘Konjunktiv’ that involve modal verbs and the auxiliary verbs
(AUX) haben (‘have’), sein (‘be’) and werden (‘become’), as all of these have distinct
‘Konjunktiv II’ paradigms. As expected, these last two types make up the major-
ity of ‘Konjunktiv’ occurrences in all investigated corpora. Further instances of
‘Konjunktiv’ verb forms were identified by performing word searches that signal
the specific usage contexts of the ‘Konjunktiv’ as laid out in 2.3, e.g. wenn/falls
(‘if ’) for conditional clauses, als ob (‘as if ’) for counterfactual comparative clauses
etc. Manual checks were conducted on concordances for main verbs as identi-
fied by POS-tagging using TreeTagger9 (see Appendix 1 for search paradigms). A
recall test was carried out by comparing the automatically identified occurrences
of ‘Konjunktiv II’ to the first 100 manually identified ‘Konjunktiv II’ forms. This
reported a recall rate of 100%.
Each of these instances was then annotated within the .txt file for type of
‘Konjunktiv’ on the verb form itself, including errors10 (see Appendix 2), and then
categorised for the different usage contexts (see Appendix 3) with WordSmith
Tools. For conditional clauses, the combination of indicative and ‘Konjunktiv’ verb
forms in the sentence, i.e. the protasis (if-clause) and apodosis (main clause) of a
conditional, was also annotated in WordSmith Tools (see Appendix 4). Annotation
was carried out solely by the author. Intra-rater reliability was tested on the first
100 occurrences of ‘Konjunktiv II’ and reported as 98%.
5. Results
5.1 Patterns of over- and underuse
The search procedure laid out in the previous section yielded 2,084 ‘Konjunktiv
II’ forms overall in CLEG and KEDS for annotation. In order to address the first
research question, Table 2 shows how they are distributed across the subcorpora.
Table 2 shows highly significant underuse of ‘Konjunktiv II’ forms in Years A
and B, but highly significant overuse in Year C. Between-group differences are not
9. http://www.cis.uni-muenchen.de/~schmid/tools/TreeTagger/ (accessed 05 July 2014).
10. It had become obvious during the digitisation process of the texts that many errors concern-
ing the subjunctive involve morphological confusion between past tense and ‘Konjunktiv’ form
— where past tense is formed by stem vowel change and ‘Konjunktiv II’ with the corresponding
umlaut. These errors were captured by scanning the concordances for searches on the past tense
forms of auxiliary and modal verbs.
statistically significant for Year A vs. Year B, but highly significant for Year A and B
vs. Year C (see Appendix 5). This is an indication that the time spent in a German
speaking country (between Year B and Year C) has a profound impact on the fre-
quency of use of this grammatical feature.
Table 2. ‘Konjunktiv II’ frequencies across CLEG subcorpora and KEDS (* = difference
to KEDS statistically significant at p < .001)11
Year A Year B Year C KEDS
Kon II (raw freq.) 239* 301* 988* 556
Kon II per 10,000 w. 51.8 45.7 112.8 67.7
Overall frequencies can only serve as a first indication and starting point for any
corpus investigation. A more detailed discussion of this aspect will therefore fol-
low in Section 6, once all results have been presented. In order to gain a more com-
prehensive picture of the ‘Konjunktiv II’ in learner writing, we turn our attention
to the next aspect of investigation: misuse.
5.2 Patterns of misuse
Short of manually looking at every individual verb form in its context (ca. 24,000
in CLEG), it is impossible to determine all errors where an indicative verb form
is used in a context where a ‘Konjunktiv’ form is compulsory. Additionally, as was
shown in the theoretical outline, the ‘Konjunktiv’ is only compulsory in a very
limited set of contexts, mainly involving conditional clauses. In most circumstanc-
es, it is a matter of stylistic choice whether or not to use a ‘Konjunktiv’. Due to
the much smaller numbers and the fact that all identified ‘Konjunktiv’ verb forms
were manually annotated, it was, however, possible to determine those instances
of misuse where a ‘Konjunktiv’ verb form is used instead of an indicative verb
form. Additionally, indicative instead of ‘Konjunktiv’ misuse could be identified
in conditional clauses, as these were also annotated individually. Thirdly, as modal
verbs were also individually annotated for a different study (Maden-Weinberger
2009), misuse involving modal verbs also includes instances where an indicative
verb form is supplied in contexts that grammatically or semantically require a
‘Konjunktiv’ (see Appendix 2). In order to address the second research question,
error frequencies were established (see Table 3) preceding an in-depth qualitative
investigation.
As can be seen from Table 3, ‘Konjunktiv II’ forms harbour tremendous po-
tential for errors. Statistically, the differences in error rates between Year A vs. C
11. Exact log-likelihood values and p-values for Tables 2, 3, 4 and 7 are reported in Appendix 5.
Table 3. Errors involving ‘Konjunktiv II’ verb forms

Year A Year B Year C
Kon II errors (raw freq.) 151 177 262
Kon II (raw freq.) 239 301 988
errors as % of all Kon II forms 63.2% 58.8% 26.5%
and Year B vs. C are highly significant at p < .001 (see Appendix 5). Closer qualita-
tive analysis reveals that errors pertain mainly to modal and auxiliary verbs. For
both of these verb categories, the problem is the learners’ inability to distinguish
morphologically between ‘Konjunktiv II’, present indicative and preterite indica-
tive forms. This leads to a large number of errors, especially on the modal verbs
können (‘can’) and sollen (‘should’).
With können, the ‘Konjunktiv II’ könnte is confused with the present indica-
tive können, see (7), or the preterite indicative konnte as in example (8), or vice
versa, see (9). This confusion is exacerbated by the fact that in English the same
form (could) represents these two different forms.
(7) Die meisten Studenten, die ich interviewiert haben, hatten ziemlich ähnlich
vorgefasste Meinungen über den Lebensstil der Engländer bevor sie nach
Lancaster gekommen sind, damit sie hier studieren und wohnen *könnten
(target: können).
‘Most of the students who I interviewed had similar preconceptions about
the way English people live before they came to Lancaster so they could live
and study here.’ [b1043_02]12
(8) In jeder Besatungzone war die Regierung verantwortlich für diese Zeitungen.
Aus diesem Grund *könnten (target: konnten) sie veröffentlichen, was sie
wollten.
‘In every occupied zone the government was responsible for these
newspapers. For this reason they could publish whatever they wanted.’
[b1031_01]
(9) Auf der anderen Seite aber *konnte (target: könnte) man sagen, dass solche
Leute mehr Steuer bezahlen werden, und warum sollten sie auch vorher für
diese Nachteil bezahlen?
‘But on the other hand, you could say that these people will pay more
tax, and why should they pay for this disadvantage beforehand as well?’
[c1057_06]
12. An attempt is made in the English translation to approximate the error in the German origi-
nal.
For sollen, the complication is linked to the meaning of this particular modal verb.
Sollen in its non-epistemic sense denotes an obligation that carries the same modal
force as müssen, but sollen indicates an external authoritative source that directs
the obligation imposed on the subject (Brinkmann 1971: 386). The ‘Konjunktiv
II’ form sollte, on the other hand, is roughly equivalent to the English modal
should and denotes a suggestion or recommendation. However, in all three learner
groups, sollen is used extensively for suggestions, where sollte would be correct, as
examples (10) and (11) demonstrate.
(10) Sie *sollen (target: sollten) nicht zu viel trinken, hauptsächlich für ihre Gesund
aber auch wenn sie oft mit anderer Leute kämpfen, *sollen (target: sollten) sie
nicht trinken.
‘They shall not drink too much, mainly for their health but also if they often
fight with other people, they shall not drink?’ [a2026_02]
(11) Das Tragen eines Kopftuches ist eine Ausübung, was niemandem schadet. Wir
*sollen (target: sollten) diese Frauen in Ruhe lassen.
‘Wearing a headscarf is an act that does not hurt anyone. We shall leave these
women in peace.’ [c1046_02]
Curiously, the difference between German sollen and sollte is, in principle, the
same as between English shall and should. This, however, does not seem salient
enough for the learners to incorporate the distinction between the indicative
and ‘Konjunktiv II’ meaning of this modal verb into their L2 system. The infre-
quency of shall in present-day English might be another factor (Collins 2009).
The fact that for sollen (unlike können) the preterite indicative and ‘Konjunktiv
II’ forms are identical — sollte — adds further complication for the learners.
The third largest group of errors involves confusions over the morphology of
the auxiliary verbs haben, sein and especially werden, as shown in examples (12)
and (13).
(12) Aktive Sterbehilfe ist wie eine Einstellung zum Leben gesehen, und wenn viele
Patienten darüber sprechen, haben sehr viele diese Menschen Angst, dass sie
getötet werden *wurden (target: würden).
‘Active euthanasia is seen as an attitude to life and if many patients talk
about it, many of these people are afraid that they will were put to death.’
[c2029_05]
(13) Ich bin der Meinung, dass die britische Bevölkerung sehr faul mit
Fremdsprachen im Vergleich zu den anderen Ländern sind, und wenn
Werbungen auf Deutsch *waren (target: wären), *wurden (target: würden) sie
sie nicht verstehen.
‘My opinion is that the British public are very lazy with foreign language
compared to the other countries, and if advertising were in German, they
did not understand them.’ [a2012_02]
Overall, the analysis of misuse patterns in ‘Konjunktiv II’ occurrences in the

learner data shows that misuse is largely due to the learners’ difficulty in acquiring
and handling the complex morphological requirements of the ‘Konjunktiv’ verb
paradigms, especially of modal and auxiliary verbs. Their prolific occurrence is,
of course, due to the fact that these constitute the majority of verb forms in the
corpora, as we shall see in Section 5.3.
5.3 Lexical distribution of ‘Konjunktiv’ verb forms
Frequencies were counted across the categories lexical verbs, auxiliary verbs haben
and sein, modal verbs and würden (periphrastic ‘Konjunktiv II’), and are presented
as frequencies (Table 4) and percentages (Table 5).
We can see that in all learner groups, as well as in the native speaker group,
lexical verbs, as expected, are least common in the ‘Konjunktiv II’, with modal
verbs being the most common group. A look at the occurrence of each of these
Table 4. ‘Konjunktiv II’ distribution across verb categories (* = difference to KEDS statis-
tically significant at p < .05)
raw per raw per raw per raw per
freq. 10,000 w. freq. 10,000 w. freq. 10,000 w. freq. 10,000 w.
modal verbs 127 27.5 128* 19.4 517* 59.0 266 32.4
würde 71 15.4 105 15.9 144 16.4 143 17.4
AUX verbs 38* 8.2 58* 8.8 297* 33.9 121 14.7
Lexical verbs 3* 0.7 10* 1.5 30 3.4 26 3.2
Total 239 51.8 301 45.7 988 112.8 556 67.7
Table 5. ‘Konjunktiv II’ verb categories as % of overall ‘Konjunktiv II’ frequencies

modal verbs 53.1 42.5 52.3 47.8
würde 29.7 34.9 14.6 25.7
AUX verbs 15.9 19.3 30.1 21.8
lexicalverbs 1.3 3.3 3.0 4.7
Total 100% 100% 100% 100%
types of verb as a percentage of overall ‘Konjunktiv II’ frequencies (Table 5) re-

veals that the native speakers use the largest proportion of lexical verbs in the
‘Konjunktiv II’. The proportion of würde (periphrastic ‘Konjunktiv II’) is highest
in Years A and B. In Year C, it is considerably lower than in KEDS, with larger
proportions taken up by auxiliary and modal verbs.
The proportions of ‘Konjunktiv II’ in the different verb categories in KEDS
conforms largely with an older investigation by Jäger (1971) which determined
that, in professionally written texts of various genres, 8% of all ‘Konjunktiv II’
forms were lexical verbs, 25% würde and 66% auxiliary verbs and modal verbs.
The lower figure for lexical verbs in KEDS can either be attributed to a gener-
al decline in synthetic ‘Konjunktiv II’ in contemporary German (see Fabricius-
Hansen 1997: 17) or to the writing style of pupils, which might not be considered
as accomplished as some of the professionally written texts in Jäger’s study. In the
learner data, it is evident that there is progression from Year A to Year C in terms
of the use of lexical verb ‘Konjunktiv II’ forms, although proportionally this stag-
nates at a level that is below that of the native speaker group. The following lexical
verbs in the ‘Konjunktiv II’ occur in the individual subcorpora.
Table 6. ‘Konjunktiv II’ lexical verb types and raw frequency figures (* = errors; verbs
that occur in CLEG and KEDS in bold)
gäbe 2 gäbe 1 anschaute 1 anböte 1
*gabe 1 bekäme 2 benähme 1
käme 1 erreichte 1 bestünde 1
kotzte 1 gäbe 15 bliebe 1
*taugte 1 ginge 2 ergäbe 1
*tränkte 1 handelte 1 gäbe 4
träumte 1 hieße 1 ginge 1
*verständen 1 klonte 1 hieße 1
wüsste 2 läge 1 käme 4
litte 1 läge 2
sähe 1 ließe 4
stünde 1 redete 1
*verstände 1 schaffte 1
wüsste 1 stünde 1
unterschiede 1
wüsste 1
Total 2 10 30 26
This table indicates that the range of lexical verbs that are used in their
‘Konjunktiv II’ form from Year A to Year C gradually increases. This progression
can be summed up as follows: In Year A, ‘Konjunktiv II’ with lexical verbs hardly
occurs at all; in Year B, more lexical verbs in ‘Konjunktiv II’ occur, but with that
comes a considerable number of errors (40%); in Year C, the learners use a range
of verbs close to that of the native speakers and manage to avoid errors.
5.4 Usage contexts for ‘Konjunktiv II’
Table 7 gives an overview of how ‘Konjunktiv II’ occurrences are distributed

across the different usage contexts identified in Section 3.3 (see Appendix 3 for
examples).
The frequency ranking of ‘Konjunktiv II’ usage context types is very similar
between all learner groups and the native speakers, i.e. ‘Konjunktiv II’ occurs
most frequently in non-factual argumentation, then in conditional clauses, then
in indirect speech contexts. Politeness contexts are rare and other ‘Konjunktiv II’
contexts, such as counterfactual comparative, purpose, counterfactual relative
and counterfactual consecutive clauses only occur extremely sporadically in both
learner and native speaker data. We can see that the underuse of ‘Konjunktiv II’
in Years A and B, which was established on the basis of the overall frequencies
(Table 2), stems from its highly significant underuse in non-factual argumenta-
tion. Conversely, the highly significant overuse of ‘Konjunktiv II’ overall in Year C
stems from its overuse in non-factual argumentation and conditionals.
The most notable result from Table 8 is that the proportion of non-factual ar-
gumentation is considerably smaller for all learner groups compared to KEDS. At
Table 7. Frequencies of ‘Konjunktiv II’ across usage contexts (*= difference to KEDS
statistically significant at p < .01)
raw per raw per raw per raw per
freq. 10,000 w. freq. 10,000 w. freq. 10,000 w. freq. 10,000 w.
non-factual 134* 29.0 137* 20.8 614* 70.1 431 52.5
argumentation
conditionals 49 10.6 63 9.6 263* 30.0 63 7.7
indirect speech 34 7.4 35 5.3 57 6.5 54 6.6
politeness 0 0.0 9 1.4 5 0.6 6 0.7
others 1 0.2 6* 0.9 7* 0.8 2 0.2
errors 21* 4.6 51* 7.7 42* 4.8 0 0.0
Total 239 51.8 301 45.7 988 112.8 556 67.7
Table 8. Proportional distribution of ‘Konjunktiv II’ usage contexts

non-factual argumentation 56.1 45.5 62.1 77.5
conditionals 20.5 20.9 26.6 11.3
indirect speech 14.2 11.6 5.8 9.7
politeness 0.0 3.0 0.5 1.1
others 0.4 2.0 0.7 0.4
errors (indicative required) 8.8 16.9 4.3 0.0
Total 100% 100% 100% 100%
the same time, the proportion of ‘Konjunktiv II’ occurrences in conditional claus-
es is roughly twice as high in all three learner groups compared to the proportional
distribution in KEDS. It therefore seems worthwhile to investigate ‘Konjunktiv II’
use in conditional clauses in more detail.
Overall, 942 conditionals were detected and analysed in CLEG, as compared
to 279 in KEDS. As discussed in Section 2.3, ‘Konjunktiv II’ is not compulsory in
most conditional contexts but is rather a device for explicitly marking non-factu-
ality, which means that the sequencing of indicative and ‘Konjunktiv’ verb forms
in German conditionals is much less restrictive than in English. German condi-
tionals can display a mixture of ‘Konjunktiv II’ and indicative verb forms in differ-
ent tenses (depending on the desired time reference). The resulting four possible
indicative-‘Konjunktiv II’ patterns are exemplified in Appendix 4. Table 9 gives an
overview of the proportions of these four clause pattern types in the subcorpora.
By far the majority of conditionals in all subcorpora are of the type P(i) —
A(i), containing indicatives in both main and subordinate clauses. These are
not our main concern, as the interest here lies mainly with the types containing
‘Konjunktiv II’, but it is noteworthy that the proportion of this type for all learner
Table 9. Frequency of conditional clause patterns (raw frequencies and as % of overall

frequencies of conditionals
raw freq. % raw freq. % raw freq. % raw freq. %
P(i) — A(i) 158 77.8 168 75.0 320 62.1 236 84.6
P(KII) — A(KII) 28 13.8 34 15.2 99 19.2 15 5.4
P(i) — A (KII) 15 7.4 21 9.4 84 16.3 20 7.2
P(KII) — A(i) 2 1.0 1 0.4 12 2.3 8 2.9
Total 203 100% 224 100% 515 100% 279 100%
groups is below that for KEDS. In contrast, two patterns containing ‘Konjunktiv II’
(P(KII) — A(KII) and P(i) — A (KII)) are used in considerably higher proportions
in all the learner groups. This suggests that the learners exhibit a greater tendency
to explicitly mark non-factuality in conditionals than do native speakers.
From a cross-linguistic perspective, one might expect difficulties to arise with
‘Konjunktiv II’ in conditionals, as English marks non-factuality by tense shift rath-
er than subjunctive. A look at Table 10 reveals that errors are, indeed, frequent in
conditionals with ‘Konjunktiv II’.
Table 10. Error rates for conditional clause patterns with ‘Konjunktiv II’
frequency of conditional clauses with Kon II 45 56 195
errors 21 23 37
errors as % 46.7% 41.1% 19.7%
A qualitative analysis of these errors, however, has shown no systematic errors

that point towards specific L1-induced problems with conditional clauses (i.e. past
tense in protasis), but rather confirms the already much discussed general dif-
ficulties with verb morphology on modal and auxiliary verbs. Incidentally, this
observation runs contrary to Kufner’s (1962: 77) statement that “most of the dif-
ficulties which our English-speaking students encounter are of a semantic nature,
i.e. they have more trouble determining when and why to use a subjunctive than
how to use it.”
6. Discussion
Collating the information from the different aspects under investigation here, two
main results can be summarised as follows. Firstly, learners in all year groups ex-
hibit great difficulties with the morphology of ‘Konjunktiv II’ verb forms. Due to
their high frequencies, this is most notable on modal and auxiliary verbs. These
problems pertain to the correct formation of ‘Konjunktiv II’ verbs and, at least in
parts, to their semantic distinction from the indicative verb forms.
Secondly, the developmental investigations tracing ‘Konjunktiv II’ use across
the three year groups have shown that its use can serve as an indicator for learner
proficiency.13 ‘Konjunktiv II’ use is limited both in terms of frequency and lexical
diversity in the first two years and only expands to its full use in the final year.
13. It is not claimed here that ‘Konjunktiv II’ use is a critical factor to distinguish reliably between
proficiency levels.
However, even in Year C, the proportion of ‘Konjunktiv II’ uses in ‘set’ contexts, i.e.
conditional clauses, which are typically used to teach the ‘Konjunktiv II’, is mark-
edly higher than in the NS data.
6.1 Morphological difficulties
It has become clear that the morphological make-up of the German ‘Konjunktiv’
creates a two-fold problem for learners. Firstly, many more morphological forms
have to be distinguished in German than in English. Secondly, these morphologi-
cal distinctions are often based on phonological differentiations (involving um-
lauts) that are often not salient for the British learners.
In terms of morphological distinctions, English verbs have one indicative form
(present tense) and one form — the past tense verb form — that serves as a con-
ceptual indicator of three types of remoteness, relating to time (past tense), speak-
er (backshift in indirect speech) and factuality (indicating non-factuality in con-
ditional clauses) (see Huddleston & Pullum 2008: 85). As discussed in Section 3,
sometimes in German ‘Konjunktiv’ and indicative verb forms are morphologically
distinct, but sometimes they are not. For modal verbs, for example, the preterite
and ‘Konjunktiv II’ forms of können, müssen, mögen, dürfen are morphologically
distinct, while they are identical for sollen and wollen. In DeKeyser’s (2005) termi-
nology, this presents learners with form-meaning mappings that are highly opaque
or, in Ellis’ (2008) terms, of low cue reliability. In addition, learners have to choose
between different morphological forms for past-time reference and ‘Konjunktiv
II’ modal meanings in the target language (but only for some modal verbs), where
these are all represented by the same morphological verb form in their L1. This
kind of difference between the L1 and the L2, where the native language has one
form and the target language has more than one (called ‘differentiation’ or ‘split’)
has been identified as one of the most difficult concept to grasp for learners (Gass
& Selinker 2008: 100). In addition, the differentiation that is involved here can be
said to be of a relatively abstract nature, involving cognitive concepts of factuality
and time reference. The results from this study clearly indicate that this causes a
major problem in the acquisition of the German ‘Konjunktiv II’. As learners are
unsure about the different morphological forms of ‘Konjunktiv’ in contrast to in-
dicative forms, it is only a logical consequence that they also have difficulties in
the semantic distinctions between e.g. present indicative tense and ‘Konjunktiv II’
forms. For example, if learners use sollen instead of sollte in contexts of advice/sug-
gestion, the issue seems to be their underlying failure to differentiate between the
two forms and only as a consequence of that, then, to map the two distinct forms
onto different semantic meanings. A further complication might be the fact that
the ‘Konjunktiv’ is optional in most cases. It could be speculated that the learners
might not even be aware of the fact that the verb forms mentioned above (sollte,
wollte) are ‘Konjunktiv II’ forms of the modal verbs.
The way in which the different forms are commonly presented in textbooks
and learner grammars does its part to obscure further these distinctions and ac-
tually makes it harder for learners to even notice them. In the reference gram-
mar recommended to the students during their university studies, Hammer’s
German Grammar and Usage (Durrell 2002), for example, the different uses of
the ‘Konjunktiv II’ modal verb dürfte are subsumed under the heading “Dürfen”,
where the introductory text mentions that dürfte is the ‘Konjunktiv II’ form, but
in the subsequent examples, no clear indication of this is given. Under the head-
ing “Können”, numerous examples of könnte are given, without even mentioning
that this is the ‘Konjunktiv II’ form. No examples of or differentiations from the
preterite forms durfte or konnte are given.14
The other factor that makes the differentiation between the various mor-
phological forms problematic for learners is the fact that the phonological (and
graphical) make-up of these forms also entails forms that exist in the learners’
L2 but not in their L1. Two of the umlauts that are involved in the ‘Konjunktiv II’
forms of the modal verbs and auxiliary verbs — 〈ü〉 and 〈ö〉 — are phonemes in
German: [y] and [œ], but not in English. They do not even exist as vowel sounds.
As a result, British learners very often fail to perceive the difference, in particu-
lar, between [u] and [y]. Ellis (2008: 392) documents that “a sound difference that
crosses the boundary between phonemes in a language is more discriminable to
speakers of that language than to speakers of a language in which the sound dif-
ference does not cross a phonemic boundary”. This means that if the learners per-
ceive no difference between the two sounds, the two sounds cannot function as
separate stimuli that trigger different interpretation outcomes. “Numerous […]
studies have shown that L2 learners’ perception of second language phonetic seg-
ments often does not match that of native speakers, particularly when it comes
to segments or contrasts not found in the learners’ L1” (Solt et al. 2004: 555). In
turn, if learners exhibit a perceptual deficit with respect to the two sounds that
are central to the morphological distinction between indicative and ‘Konjunktiv’,
this might also increase the difficulty to map these forms onto different mean-
ings and impact on production (Solt et al. 2004: 562). In other words, the failure
to notice phonological differences might lead to a failure to differentiate seman-
tically and thus inhibit learning. The central role of “noticing” (Schmidt 2012)
for L2 acquisition has already been discussed in Section 2. With respect to mor-
phology, DeKeyser (2005: 6) posits, “nobody doubts that L2 students need to have
14. The latest edition of Hammer’s German Grammar and Usage (Durrell 2011) addresses these
issues more explicitly.
their attention drawn to morphology while processing input, because otherwise

they tend to ignore the morphological cues to sentence meaning”. It is generally
recognised that this can only be achieved by making them salient to the learners
with the help of selected input and focus on form (see e.g. Doughty & Williams
1998, Sharwood Smith 1981, Terrel 1991). With specific reference to the present
study, learners would most likely benefit from any measures that help improve
their grasp of the particular phonological differences between vowels and um-
lauted vowels and their impact on morphological forms as this has consequences
for a wide range of lexical and grammatical structures.
6.2 Developmental trends
The analysis of the CLEG data has shown that the ‘Konjunktiv II’ can serve as an
indicator of learner proficiency, as a marked progression can be observed in terms
of overall frequency of the ‘Konjunktiv II’, in the diversity of lexical verbs used in
the ‘Konjunktiv II’ and in the reduction of errors. Learners significantly under-
use ‘Konjunktiv II’ in the first two years (Year A and B). In the advanced group
(Year C), it is significantly overused when compared to the native speaker group
in KEDS. At the same time, errors involving the ‘Konjunktiv II’ are greatly reduced
in Year C. This is mainly due to an improved grasp of the difference between the
morphology and meaning of indicative and ‘Konjunktiv II’ verb forms, especially
könnte and würde, which are used to form the periphrastic ‘Konjunktiv II’. Together
with the underuse/overuse pattern between the year groups, this indicates that the
learners only start using the ‘Konjunktiv II’ extensively once they feel confident
that they have acquired the necessary morphological and grammatical means.
One factor in this might be the impact of the extended time spent in an input-rich
environment during their ‘year abroad’ (see e.g. Isabelli & Nishida 2005). When
this stage is reached, learners appear keen to demonstrate their abilities, which
adds to the impression that learners have a propensity to express modal meanings
explicitly. The tendency for greater explicitness seems to be a general characteristic
of learner language that has been observed for several learner groups and several
lexical and grammatical features. There seems to be mounting evidence that this
is a universal trait of learner language (e.g. Lorenz 1998, Maden-Weinberger 2009,
McEnery & Kifle 2002).
Another factor that makes ‘Konjunktiv II’ a useful indicator for learner pro-
ficiency is the lexical development involved in this grammatical category. In the
lower proficiency groups (Years A and B) the use of ‘Konjunktiv II’ is almost exclu-
sively restricted to modal verbs and the periphrastic ‘Konjunktiv’ (including the
typical errors associated with these). ‘Konjunktiv II’ of auxiliary verbs is rare, and
lexical verbs hardly occur at all in the ‘Konjunktiv II’. Despite being the smallest
group, it is in this set of lexical verbs where gains in proficiency are most visible.15
It has been discussed in Section 3.3 that the use of synthetic ‘Konjunktiv II’ forms
in spoken language is usually restricted to a very small set of very common verbs.
These are kommen, gehen, wissen, geben, tun, brauchen (‘come’, ‘go’, ‘know’, ‘give’,
‘do’, ‘need’). In Year A, the only lexical verb in ‘Konjunktiv II’ form is geben. In Year
B, eight different lexical verbs are attempted in the ‘Konjunktiv II’, but only five of
these are successful (wissen, geben, kommen, kotzen, träumen (‘know’, ‘give’, ‘come’,
‘puke’, ‘dream’). With only two exceptions, all the lexical verbs that occur in the
two lower proficiency groups are part of the typical ‘spoken register’ set. In Year C,
the group expands the use of the ‘Konjunktiv II’ to fourteen different lexical verb
types, which include several that, in the synthetic ‘Konjunktiv II’ form, are indica-
tive of the written register, e.g. liegen, heißen, verstehen, handeln (‘lie’, ‘mean’, ‘un-
derstand’, ‘act’). This shows a marked progression from the lower proficiency years
(where a writing style that is more akin to the spoken register has been noted also
in other areas of modality, see Maden-Weinberger 2009) to the more advanced
group, where learners show improved mastering of grammatical structures as one
factor of a more accomplished writing style.
There is, however, one area where not much progression is to be observed, even
in the advanced year group, and that is ‘Konjunktiv II’ usage contexts. Learners
in the lower years generally underuse ‘Konjunktiv II’ and when they do use it, it
is proportionally more frequently employed in ‘learned contexts’, i.e. condition-
als, than is found in KEDS. Whilst the overall ‘Konjunktiv II’ frequency increases
dramatically towards Year C, the proportional distribution in terms of context
types shows that learners still have a greater tendency to employ ‘Konjunktiv II’
forms in the contexts that are typically used to teach the ‘Konjunktiv II’, i.e. con-
ditional clauses. This phenomenon could be materials- or teaching-induced, as
the most salient form in which the learners encounter the ‘Konjunktiv II’ is in
conditional clauses. Indeed, in the school textbooks that the learners reported to
have used in their A-level courses, the ‘Konjunktiv II’ is actually called “the condi-
tional” (Brennpunkt, Sundry et al. 2000) or even “the conditional tense” (Zeitgeist,
Hermann et al. 2001). It seems plausible, then, that the learners associate the
‘Konjunktiv’ strongly just with conditionals, but not with any of the other possible
contexts. These slightly inaccurate linguistic descriptions (together with mislead-
ing terminology like ‘Konjunktiv Präsens/Perfekt’) might also contribute further
to morphological and semantic discrimination issues.
15. Note that references to developing proficiency here refer to the average proficiency of the
group. The extended lexical range cannot serve as a proficiency measure for individual learners.
7. Conclusion
This study has demonstrated how a corpus-based CIA approach can help to draw
a comprehensive picture of ‘Konjunktiv II’ use in learner German. The analysis
of four contrastive and developmental aspects has shown that the ‘Konjunktiv’ in
German causes a multitude of problems for learners that seem to span across most
areas of linguistic knowledge — phonological, morphological, lexical and seman-
tic. This finding stresses the need for teaching and learning materials that address
and take into account these difficulties. For example, the ability to discriminate
phonologically between vowels and umlauted vowels might not be the first issue
that springs to mind when considering how to teach the ‘Konjunktiv’. This study
has indicated, however, that this might be a fundamental issue that inhibits learn-
ers’ acquisition of the ‘Konjunktiv’, so a teaching approach that focuses on form
could address this issue. Furthermore, more accurate linguistic descriptions and
explanations of the use of the ‘Konjunktiv’ based on cognitive linguistics concepts,
such as factuality, might be more helpful to enhance learners’ understanding of the
wide variety of usages of the ‘Konjunktiv’ mood in German. However, while LCR
can help identify major problems in producing ‘Konjunktiv II’, complementary
research involving psycholinguistic experiments or introspective learner data is
necessary (see e.g. Gilquin & Gries 2009) in order to understand better the exact
nature and impact of the difficulties that learners face in the acquisition of com-
plex grammatical features such as the ‘Konjunktiv II’ in German.
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Author’s address
Ursula Maden-Weinberger
Lancaster University International Study Centre
B Floor, George Fox Building
Lancaster University
LA1 4YX
United Kingdom
u.weinberger@lancaster.ac.uk
Appendix 1. Search patterns for ‘Konjunktiv II’ verb form
modal verbs auxiliary verbs lexical verbs

könnt* hätt* manual check on *_VVFIN (finite full verb
müsst* wär* in the TreeTagger tagset) concordances for
‘Konjunktiv II’ on lexical verbs.
dürft* würd*
möcht*
sollt*
wollt*
A tag of _KII was inserted in the .txt file after the verb to indicate ‘Konjunktiv II’.
Ohne Propaganda wäre_KII das dritte Reich nicht möglich gewesen.
‘Without propaganda the Third Reich would not have been possible.’ [b1014_07]
Appendix 2. Patterns of misuse included in error analysis
The target hypothesis is inserted after the verb between ‘&’ and ‘#’ signs.
Error types Example
‘Konjunktiv II’ instead of Es würde & wird_IND# auch gedacht, dass Gentechnik schon
indicative einen Schritt zu weit wegen der kunstlichen Befruchtung gegan-
gen ist.
‘It is also thought that genetic engineering has already gone a
step to far because of IVF.’ [c2037_01]
errors in conditionalclauses Wenn es keine Kontrolle des Internets gab_IND & gäbe_KII#,
dann würden Eltern viele Probleme haben.
‘If there were no controls on the internet, parents would have
a lot of problems.’ [a2020_02]
errors involving modal verbs Beim arbeit war es Stressig, aber zu hause könnte_KII &
konnte_IND# ich entspannen.
‘At work it was stressful, but at home I could relax.’ [a1016_01]
Aber das Computer konnte_IND & könnte_KII# auch gut sein,
weil ein Kind mit ihren Freunde Computer spielen kann.
‘But the computer could also be good, because a child can play
on the computer with their friends.’ [a1002_03]
Appendix 3. Annotation of ‘Konjunktiv II’ sentence patterns
Label Definition Search term Example

cond conditional wenn; falls; Wenn er krank wäre, könnte er die Prüfung nicht ablegen.
clause dann ‘If he were ill, he couldn’t sit the exam.’
nonf non-factual Von einer höheren Tabaksteuer wären nur bestimmte
argumentation Leute betroffen.
‘Only certain people would be affected by a higher tax
on tobacco.’
comp counterfactual als ob Die Unterschrift kam mir keineswegs so vor als ob sie
comparative gefälscht wäre.
clause ‘The signature didn’t seem to me at all as if it were fake.’
Label Definition Search term Example

consec counterfactual als dass Das Wasser ist viel zu kalt, als dass man darin baden
consecutive könnte.
clause ‘The water is much too cold to be able to swim in it.’
rel counterfactual Es war niemand auf der Party, der sie verstanden hätte.
relative clause ‘There was nobody at the party who would have under-
stood her.’
ind indirect Er behauptet, sie wäre um 10 Uhr zu Hause gewesen.
speech ‘He claims that she had been home by 10 o’clock.’
pol politeness Wären Sie so nett, mir die ein Glas Wasser zu bringen?
contexts ‘Would you be so kind as to bring me a glass of water?’
Appendix 4. Annotation of conditional clause types
P = protasis (condition, if-clause)

A = apodosis (consequence, main clause)
(i) = indicative
(KII) = ‘Konjunktiv II’
The sequence in the label is irrespective of which clause (P or A) occurs first in the actual sen-
tence.
Label Example
P(i) — A(i) Das Internet ist nützlich, wenn es in der richtigen Art benutzt wird aber es soll
das einzige Hobby für Kinder nicht sein.
‘The internet is useful if it is used in the right way but it should not be the
only hobby for children.’ [a2016_03]
P(KII) — A(KII) Wenn Benimm-Kursen eingefüht würden, gäbe es nicht so viel Zeit auf den
Stundenplan für akademische Klassen wie Fremdsprachen oder Wissenschaft.
‘If good manners courses were introduced, there wouldn’t be much space
in the timetable for academic classes like foreign languages or science.’
[c1058_02]
P(i) — A(KII) Auch wenn der Staat auf eine spezielle Besteuerung in der Art der Tabak-
und der Alkoholsteuern verzichtet, würde der Handel in jedem Fall von der
Umsatzsteuer erfaßt.
‘Even if the government refrains from imposing a special kind of tax like
the one on tobacco or alcohol, the trade would in any case be liable to VAT.’
[keds_011]
P(KII) — A(i) Wenn eine Krankheit früher diagnostiziert werden könnte, gibt es für den
Patient weniger Belastung.
‘If an illness could be diagnosed earlier, there is less strain for the patient.’
[c2044_01]
Appendix 5. Log-likelihood values and p-values for Tables 2, 3, 4 and 7
The following Log-likelihood (LL) values mark the cut-off points for different degrees of sig-
nificance:
LL-value ≥ 3.84: The probability of differences being due to chance is p < .05 (indicated by *)
LL-value ≥ 6.63: The probability of differences being due to chance is p < .01 (indicated by **)
LL- value ≥ 10.83: The probability of differences being due to chance is p < .001 (indicated by ***)
Table 2. ‘Konjunktiv II’ frequencies across CLEG subcorpora and KEDS

Kon II (raw freq.) 239 301 988 556
LL-value compared to KEDS 12.43*** 31.26*** 95.99***
LL-value compared to Year C 134.69*** 215.97***
Table 3. Errors involving ‘Konjunktiv II’ verb forms

Kon II errors (raw freq.) 151 177 262
Kon II (raw freq.) 239 301 988
LL-value compared to Year C 189.45*** 172.04***
Table 4. ‘Konjunktiv II’ distribution across verb categories

raw freq. LL raw freq. LL raw freq. LL raw freq.
modal verbs 127 2.33 128 23.76*** 517 66.38*** 266
würde 71 0.74 105 0.48 144 0.24 143
AUX verbs 38 10.75** 58 10.95*** 297 65.44*** 121
lexical verbs 3 10.04** 10 4.28* 30 0.08 26
Table 7. Frequencies of ‘Konjunktiv II’ across usage contexts

raw freq. LL raw freq. LL raw freq. LL raw freq.
non-factual 134*** 39.40 137 101.97*** 614 21.40*** 431
argumentation
conditionals 49 2.86 63 1.52 263 119.18*** 63
indirect speech 34 0.27 35 0.98 57 0.00 54
politeness 0* 5.35 9 1.45 5 0.17 6
others 1 2.03 6 6.64** 7 6.63** 2
errors 21 42.93*** 51 82.54*** 42 55.53*** 0

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“Hätte, wäre, wenn…”

A pseudo-longitudinal study of subjunctives

The German subjunctive mood (‘Konjunktiv’) is a grammatical feature that

Keywords: subjunctive mood, ‘Konjunktiv’, German, pseudo-longitudinal,

possible solutions. Where language learning is concerned, argumentative essays

2. Connectionist theories of SLA

or a combination of both” (DeKeyser 2005: 5). Problems of form can arise from

3. The German ‘Konjunktiv’- function, form and usage

a periphrastic subjunctive form with würde (‘would’) + infinitive. On top of this,

3.1 Basic functions of the ‘Konjunktiv’2

As a marker of modality, the use of the ‘Konjunktiv’ overtly marks an utterance as

In present-day German, ‘Konjunktiv I’ is almost exclusively relevant for indirect

‘Konjunktiv II’ marks a proposition as situated outside the given horizon. It

strategies in attitude statements or discourse structuring statements and as such,

3.2 Morphological syncretism between ‘Konjunktiv II’ and indicative

Due to space restrictions, the problem of morphological syncretism between

3.3 Use of ‘Konjunktiv II’

3.4 Previous research on the ‘Konjunktiv’ in L2

4. Methodology: CLEG, KEDS and the CIA

or L1-induced interlanguage phenomena. The latter type of comparison most

4.1 CLEG — a Corpus of Learner German

CLEG is a publicly available3 corpus of argumentative writing by British students of

4. For detailed documentation on CLEG and KEDS see: http://korpling.german.hu-berlin.de/

groups (Year A, B and C) of post-A-level students aged between 18 and 24 (hav-

4.2 KEDS (Korpus Erörterungen deutscher Schüler)

In order to follow the CIA approach, a native-speaker corpus comparable to CLEG

7. http://www.hausarbeiten.de (accessed 05 July 2014).

8. http://www.teachsam.de (accessed 05 July 2014); http://www6.digitale-schule-bayern.de/

background information on authors and text production circumstances is sparser

Table 1. Make-up of CLEG and KEDS

4.3 Annotation of the data

As shown in Section 3.2, ‘Konjunktiv II’ is either manifest in a specific morpholog-

automatically through a lemma search for würden (‘become’) using WordSmith

5.1 Patterns of over- and underuse

9. http://www.cis.uni-muenchen.de/~schmid/tools/TreeTagger/ (accessed 05 July 2014).

5.2 Patterns of misuse

Table 3. Errors involving ‘Konjunktiv II’ verb forms

Overall, the analysis of misuse patterns in ‘Konjunktiv II’ occurrences in the

5.3 Lexical distribution of ‘Konjunktiv’ verb forms

Table 5. ‘Konjunktiv II’ verb categories as % of overall ‘Konjunktiv II’ frequencies

types of verb as a percentage of overall ‘Konjunktiv II’ frequencies (Table 5) re-

5.4 Usage contexts for ‘Konjunktiv II’

Table 7 gives an overview of how ‘Konjunktiv II’ occurrences are distributed

Table 8. Proportional distribution of ‘Konjunktiv II’ usage contexts

Table 9. Frequency of conditional clause patterns (raw frequencies and as % of overall

A qualitative analysis of these errors, however, has shown no systematic errors

6.1 Morphological difficulties

their attention drawn to morphology while processing input, because otherwise

6.2 Developmental trends

Appendix 1. Search patterns for ‘Konjunktiv II’ verb form

modal verbs auxiliary verbs lexical verbs

Appendix 2. Patterns of misuse included in error analysis

Appendix 3. Annotation of ‘Konjunktiv II’ sentence patterns

Label Definition Search term Example

Label Definition Search term Example

Appendix 4. Annotation of conditional clause types

P = protasis (condition, if-clause)

Appendix 5. Log-likelihood values and p-values for Tables 2, 3, 4 and 7

Table 2. ‘Konjunktiv II’ frequencies across CLEG subcorpora and KEDS

Table 3. Errors involving ‘Konjunktiv II’ verb forms

Table 4. ‘Konjunktiv II’ distribution across verb categories

Table 7. Frequencies of ‘Konjunktiv II’ across usage contexts

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Table 1. Make-up of CLEG and KEDS

As shown in Section 3.2, ‘Konjunktiv II’ is either manifest in a specific morpholog-

Table 3. Errors involving ‘Konjunktiv II’ verb forms

Table 5. ‘Konjunktiv II’ verb categories as % of overall ‘Konjunktiv II’ frequencies

types of verb as a percentage of overall ‘Konjunktiv II’ frequencies (Table 5) re-

Table 7 gives an overview of how ‘Konjunktiv II’ occurrences are distributed

Table 8. Proportional distribution of ‘Konjunktiv II’ usage contexts

Table 9. Frequency of conditional clause patterns (raw frequencies and as % of overall

Appendix 1. Search patterns for ‘Konjunktiv II’ verb form

Appendix 2. Patterns of misuse included in error analysis

Appendix 3. Annotation of ‘Konjunktiv II’ sentence patterns

Appendix 4. Annotation of conditional clause types

Appendix 5. Log-likelihood values and p-values for Tables 2, 3, 4 and 7

Table 2. ‘Konjunktiv II’ frequencies across CLEG subcorpora and KEDS

Table 3. Errors involving ‘Konjunktiv II’ verb forms

Table 4. ‘Konjunktiv II’ distribution across verb categories

Table 7. Frequencies of ‘Konjunktiv II’ across usage contexts