Re: Liking German

Quoting David Peterson <DigitalScream@...>:

>     Yes, this was sent to you only because you have the wrong settings.
> It
> was dicussed not to long ago how to change them; I myself don't know.
>
> In a message dated 9/30/01 12:55:03 PM, cinga@gmx.net writes:
>
> << Also, all
> of the above rules can be broken in lyrical language. >>
>
>     As they can in English.
Yes... but poetry before, say, the 20th century is highly
artificial.  This is especially true of the 19th century,
but you can find weird sentences in Shakespeare too:

JUDGE: "What heard you him say else?" (_Much Ado about Nothing_)

(Adjusting for Shakespeare's lack of do-support, the "else"
should still go after "what")

>     But you don't even need literary language to change the order of
> English; just some extra morphology:
>
>     I saw a dog in the cinema.
>     It was in the cinema I saw a dog.
>     It was a dog I saw in the cinema.
>     In the cinema it was a dog I saw.  (There'd h ave to be a strange
> situation to make this plausible.)
I wouldn't call this extra morphology, so much as extra
phrasal structure -- there are no extra bound morphemes
here.

> It was a bone I gave to the dog yesterday.  (or yesterday to the dog)
> It was to the dog I gave a bone yesterday.
Christian's point was that you don't have to add extra
phrases in German to make the same basic message. In
English, you do have to do that.

==============================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...>

"If a man demands justice, not merely as an abstract concept,
but in setting up the life of a society, and if he holds, further,
that within that society (however defined) all men have equal rights,
then the odds are that his views, sooner rather than later, are going
to set something or someone on fire." Peter Green, in _From Alexander
to Actium_, on Spartan king Cleomenes III

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