Re: Comparatives (Difficult?!)

Hi!

Douglas Koller writes:
> From: Carsten Becker <carbeck@...>
>...
> > German does it this way:
>
> >   Es hat fünf Tage länger gedauert als es hätte dauern  sollen.
> >   It has five days longer endured  as  it had   endured should.
>
> Not a native speaker, but why not:
>
> ...als es dauern sollen hätte.?
The German verb phrase is a bit more complicated: the auxiliaries
'sein', 'haben' and 'werden' come first in an SOV clause if they are
the head verb and if there are at least three verbs.  (Hmm, I hope
this is really the condition triggering the shift...)

Another strange thing in verb phrases is that sometimes the perfect
participle is replaced by the infinitive in longer verb phrases.  I
don't know the exact trigger for this, though.

1:  ... daß  Du  gehst.
    ... that you go.
                 1

2:  ... daß  Du  gehen darfst.
    ... that you go    are-allowed-to.
                 2     1

3a: ... daß  Du  gegangen sein  darfst.            <-- regular order
    ... that you gone     be    are-allowed-to
                 3        2     1

3b: ... daß  Du  wirst gehen dürfen.               <-- shifted order
    ... that you will  go    be-allowed-to.
                 1     3     2

3c: ... daß  Du  hast gehen dürfen.                <-- not *gedurft
    ... that you have go    been-allowed-to.           (part > inf)
                 1    3     2

HTH

**Henrik