Re: V2 languages

At 09:24 -0700 29.5.1999, Sally Caves wrote:
>  The verb is initial in Welsh.  In "normal"
>sentences, the verb comes first, often the copula in the periphrastic
>construction, and in formal W. with a preverbal particle:  Y mai'r
>cath wedi scrapo Johnny Bach.   "Is the cat after scratching
>little Johnny," i.e., "the cat scratched Johnny bach."  What
>you have above is an alternative construction in Welsh where the verb
>is conjugated instead of having the cop. + subj. + verbal noun.
>Notice that it still precedes the subject.
>>
>> If you want to front something else than the verb (i.e. use it as
>> focus), *then* you need something to resume it, such as the relarive
>> pronoun:
>>
>>    Dafydd  a  ennillodd  y  goron
>>    Dafydd REL won       the crown
>>    "It was Dafydd who won the crown"
>
>Yes.  But this is considered an "abnormal" sentence, hence the relative.
This is interesting, since verb-first declarative sentences keep cropping
up in Old Norse: "Tok n'u Th'orr Mj'olni...", "Ferr konungr til Erlends".
They are certainly marked -- almost always the verb is followed immediately
by an adverbial consistuent, and always the use of this WO signals the
beginning of a new phase in the narrative, and hence it alternates with
equally marked "N'u VERB SUBJECT..." sentences.  But in East Scandinavian
(Swedish and Danish) this kind of sentence is even in the oldest material
confined to verse, while in the West it is frequent in prose.  It hasn't
even died out wholly in modern Icelandic.  I wonder if the construction was
reinforced by Celtic influence.  I believe I remember a similar
construction in Old Irish.

/BP

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  B.Philip Jonsson  <bpj@...> <melroch@...>

        Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
                                            (Tacitus)