Re: French and German (jara: An introduction)

Hi!

Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> writes:
> Quoting Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>:
...
> > So what's the worst thing for you then?
>
> Hm, plurals probably.
Ok.  Hmm.  Yeah, they are probably part of the lexicon, which is a bad
thing.

> No, wait, those abominable verbal agglomerations at the
> end of sentences! Half the time I'm so into those dastardly infinitives I
> forget to inflect the last one when it should be inflected, and the other half
> I'm so scared to do this that I inflect it despite the presence of an
> inflected verb earlier in the sentence - half an hour back or so!
HAHAHA! :-)

I think in spoken language, you can sometimes hear sentences that lack
verbs in German, when the sentences get too long.  For that very
reason. :-)

But Dutch is great here, too.  It can do one more in normal speech as
I tested in the Netherlands (I'm talking about normal street
performance here, not the theoretical maximum).  I judged that three
verbs at the end are enough for the typical sentence in German,
e.g.

   Er sagte, daß ich das hätte fragen müssen.

Dutch has also three here, but different order (without the inconsistency
with 'hätte':

   Hij zei, dat ik dat had moeten vragen.

But you can also say (translating the subjunctive mood more closely):

   Hij zei, dat ik dat zou hadden moeten vragen.

People said they did not feel strange about that (or maybe a very
similar example).  But in German, another verb starts to get
incomprehensible:

'Ich dachte eigentlich, daß ich das hätte übersetzen können müssen.'
Hmmm....  Now that I see it, it seems quite ok to me, though. :-)
(No really, I think it's too long. :-))

Dutch with five verbs:
   Ik dacht eigenlijk, dat ik dat zou hadden moeten kunnen vertalen.

Is that ok?? :-)

**Henrik

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