Re: Grammar - Can
| From: | J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_wust@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, January 13, 2005, 9:49 |
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On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 15:33:02 -0500, Elyse M. Grasso
<emgrasso@...> wrote:
>I think the first few sentences in McGuffey's and similar readers need to be
>treated as a special condensed dialect used in the initial teaching of
>literacy.
>
>"See the dog run" (or the even more condensed "See Spot Run") is a special
>dialectal version of "Look at [the picture of] the dog [running]".
These forms may be dialectal in English, but they're not a special dialectal
condension, since this construction is common in many indoeuropean
languages. It's known as accusatiuum cum infinitiuum, e.g. in Latin "video
canem currere", or in German "ich sehe den Hund rennen".
gry@s:
j. 'mach' wust