Re: Sketch of Germanech 4/4: Syntax
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Thursday, December 6, 2001, 7:50 |
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En réponse à Almaran Dungeonmaster <dungeonmaster@...>:
>
> In normal Dutch, when due to V2 rules the word order changes to SVO it
> is
> very clear which is subject and which is object, since th subject
> comes
> before the object.
Wrong. The example I gave: "het boek heeft Anna niet gelezen" is perfectly
correct Dutch (in fact, we have quite often sentences of this kind in the texts
we learn for the Dutch class), completely unambiguous, and yet the object
preceeds the subject. And those kinds of sentences are quite frequent in
everyday life (think: "dat weet ik niet": "this, I don't know", a sentence I
use quite often :))) . Of course, here the form of the personal pronoun makes
it clear what is the subject).
This can happen in questions:
>
> "Waarom heeft Anna het boek niet gelezen?"
> (Why has Anna the book not read-PART)
>
True too.
> Or in subordinate clauses:
>
> "Hij zegt dat Anna het boek niet gelezen heeft" or "Hij zegt dat Anna
> het
> boek niet heeft gelezen."
> (He says that Anna the book not read-PART has) or ( He says that Anna
> the
> book not has read-PART)
>
But that's examples of V-final position, not V-second requirement. V2 exists
only in main clauses.
> It becomes somewhat more difficult with summations:
>
> "Waarom hebben Jan, Willem en Piet Kees, Guido en Klaas geslagen?"
> (Why have Jan, Willem and Piet Kees, Guido and Klaas hit-PART).
>
> But a native dutch speaker will have no trouble parsing it.
>
I don't see the difficulty, nor what it proves about the V2 order requirement,
since in questions Dutch and English parallel nearly exactly! The presence of
the interrogative word makes it absolutely unambiguous. The ambiguity Jörg was
refering to is the one that appears in non-interrogative main clauses, when the
object is put in first position, and because of the V2 requirement, the subject
moves after the verb. I just showed that though without case marking, Dutch
could handle that without a problem.
Christophe.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.
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