Re: NAT: Scandinavian word order

At 19:42 10/01/00 +0100, you wrote:
>> Date:         Mon, 10 Jan 2000 18:03:23 +0100
>> From: BP Jonsson <bpj@...>
>
>> Early Medieval Scandinavian was sometimes V1 in consecutive sentences,
>> especially in legal texts -- "Drepr maðr mann blah blah blah" --, but that
>> seems to have died out even in Icelandic.  Probably it arose from sentences
>> beginning with a temporal adverb.
>
>Actually, there's an if-then construction in Danish that is similar,
>but I don't know if it's a carryover from this mediaeval usage.
>
>Instead of saying 'Hvis S1 V1 [O1 ...], [så] V2 S2 [O2 ...]' you can
>just say 'V1 S1 [O1 ...], [så] V2 S2 [O2 ...].' This is somewhat
>marked, and suitable for dramatic pronouncements, sports journalism
>and song texts. Examples:
>
        Isn't that a construction that exists also in German and English, where
"if" (and "wenn" for German) can disappear, in which case the order in the
subordinate clause must be VSO? As German is V2, it leads for German to the
construction 'V1 S1 [O1...], V2 S2 [O2...].'

>
>Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)
>
>
                                                        Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"Reality is just another point of view."

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