Re: Sketch of Germanech 4/4: Syntax

En réponse à Steve Kramer <scooter@...>:

>
> The novice strikes again...what is meant by "V2" here?  And would
> something like this be possible with Simafira (which is rather
> strictly
> VOS and essentially caseless)?
>
V2, or verb-second, is a word order feature of some Germanic languages (I know
only about German and Dutch, and I think Old English had some remnants of it)
in main clauses. It simply means that in main clauses, the verb is in the
second position (i.e. only one "entity" - whether a noun phrase, an adverbial
phrase or a subclause - can precede the verb), and must mandatorily stay in
this position. The word order in those languages is usually SVO, but if you
want to focus on a certain part of the sentence by putting it in front of the
verb, you are obliged, since the verb has to stay in second position, to move
the subject after the verb. In the example I gave, the usual word order is:

Anna heeft het boek niet gelezen: Anna has not read the book.

But if you want to emphasize that it's the book that Anna didn't read (but she
read something else, like in Irina's example), you can put the phrase "het
boek" in front of the verb. But since the verb must stay in second position,
you have to move the subject just after the verb. Thus:

Het boek heeft Anna niet gelezen; de krant wel: Anna has not read *the book*,
but the newspaper.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.