Re: Verb specificity (Was: Re: Natural Order of Events)

2009/1/28 Eugene Oh <un.doing@...>

> Oh yes, of course, the verb-complement method. Japanese and to a lesser
> extent Korean do the same, while Chinese uses the English way. Probably a
> divide common to all language areas. But no, I wasn't taught it in French
> class, because I never took a French class :p
> I presume sentences like "He laughed that she was dressed funny" would come
> out as "Il a dit en riant qu'elle etc."? How would you say "She was dressed
> funny", or "she looks weird" etc.?
>
>
"She was dressed funny" would be "Elle était habillée bizarrement", while
"She looks weird" is "Elle a l'air bizarre".

You are correct about "Il a dit en riant...". Note however that here French
does use verbs of manner for some manners of speaking. For instance, "to
mutter" is "murmurer", and can be used the same way as "dire": "Il a murmuré
qu'elle...". However, it's only done when we want to emphasise the manner of
speech.
-- 
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.

http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/