Viva SOV! (was: Re: Circumfixes?)

Heinrik schrieb:

>  > Géarthnuns: Söb lé sík, gü.....sho, ngamal.
>
>Oh, nice, I like that! :-)
>
>Yes, German only allows some kind of split with infinitives and other
>types of sub-ordinate clauses:
>
>     Er hat mir,   bevor  wir gestern  ins      Kino   gingen,
>     he has me.DAT before we yesterday into-the cinema went,
>
>     die Karte  zu kaufen versprochen.
>     the ticket to buy    promised.
>
>I suppose Géarthnuns does this too?
Yes. There's some flexibility about where "me" and "the ticket" could
go, but (since the lexicon's at home, some words escape me):

Söb lé, puskeshtanö trízh lé che hereçkedalthsev chü içdimtelímarangíksüv
he-nom aux-past, before we-dual/nom past the yesterday-locative the cinema-loc

kadiz sho, sík chöi "ticketsöit" ba vazh promise.
go SHO, I-dat the ticket-acc BA buy promise.

>Does it allow things like:
>
>     Er hat mir    die Karte  versprochen zu kaufen.
>     he has me.DAT the ticket promised    to buy.
>
>I mean instead of
>
>     Er hat mir    versprochen, die Karte zu kaufen.
>     he has me.DAT promised     the ticket to buy.
As the main verb must go last, it'd retain the same order as above:

Söb lé sík chöi "ticketsöit" ba vazh promise.

>(This makes nice garden path sentences:
>
>     Er hat mir    die Karte versprochen (.) ... zu verstecken.
>     he has me.DAT the ticket promised           to hide.
I'm not sure what the exact meaning of the German is here (and what
are garden path sentences again?). If it's: "He promised me that he
would hide the ticket (...)". Then it would be:

Söb lé sík chöi "ticketsöit" che töthsev (OR: che töthseb bö)
he-nom past I-dat the ticket-acc the car-loc (OR: the car-postpositonal in)

bí hide promise.
BA-future hide promise.

"Ba" acts basically like "zu" or "to" but can inflect for tense, like
an auxiliary, in indirect discourse statements.

The other way to do that would be:

Söb lé sík, gü söb lí chöi "ticketsöit" che töthsev "höihide"
he-nom past I-dat, that he future the ticket-acc the car-loc hide-discoursive

sho, promise.
SHO, promise.

"Sho" marks the end of embedded subordinate clauses so that there
isn't a verb pile-up at the end of the sentence.

Moving the verb further up in the sentence is only allowed in direct discourse:

Söb lé sík (hengeveçö) promise, "Sí lí chöi ticketsöit vazh."
he past me (thus) promise, "I fut the ticket buy."

>You really need the last word here. :-)))
Cute.

Kou

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