Re: CHAT: Introduction

Henrik Theiling scripsit:

> Funny that 'shake' works, but 'nod' doesn't. :-)
It's the same in English:  "He nodded", intransitive, means "he nodded his
head", but "he shook" would mean a whole-body kind of shaking, as in fear;
indeed, "he shook with fear" is a cliche.

> So there are several ways to find the possessor, depending on the
> actual construction.
My mother (native German, _Germanist_, teacher of German here in the U.S.,
among other things) always used the example "He put his hands in his
pockets", which (she said) sounds weirdly over-specific to the German ear,
as if he habitually put his hands in someone else's pockets, or habitually
put someone else's hands in his pockets, or ....

--
John Cowan  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com  jcowan@reutershealth.com
There are books that are at once excellent and boring.  Those that at
once leap to the mind are Thoreau's Walden, Emerson's Essays, George
Eliot's Adam Bede, and Landor's Dialogues.  --Somerset Maugham