Re: Latin a loglang? (was Re: Unambiguous languages (was: EU allumettes))

Philippe Caquant said:
> Now this one is really GREAT ! I tried to draw the
> scheme of the sentence, and to translate it into
> French, but I had to work on it for a while...
I bet. Kudos -- you're more ambitious than I!


> - the position of the word "sich" is absolutely
> fantastic, if it's really  in relation with "gezeigt
> hätte", as I believe (he showed himself, he appeared)
Absolutely. Putting heavy constituents inside periphrastic verbs is one of
the markers of "Kleistian" German. Another one (the prototypical one, in
fact), is putting enormously heavy constituents on either side of
"... dergestalt, dass ...". I'll try to get around to finding an example
of that.


> - to me, it seems that two "hatten" are lacking, but
> maybe it's considered as OK in German grammar: after
> "gehalten" and after "mitgefochten"
Yep, leaving out the finite verb after a past participle is a common (but
probably antequated) usage in literary German.


> - it seems that the "gewesen wäre" is in relation,
> both with "verlassen" and with "umringt", which would
> be a Delikatesse for connoisseurs
I don't think you can elide forms like "gewesen waere" like you would
"hatten" in the examples above, so I think it does have to apply to both
"verlassen" and "umringt". It certainly makes sense that way, since the
two clauses are in fact conjoined.



> - the sequence "hätten geschlagen werden müssen" is
> certainly another Delikatesse for connoisseurs
That's pretty common even in colloquial spoken German (standard and
dialectal). Many dialects rearrange the pieces a bit more linearly,
though.

Rhein-Franconian: "die haedde misse geschlah genn"


> It looks somehow clearer in French,
Your translation is excellent, and you're right.

But I think just about any translation would look clearer than the
original. Obfuscish, for instance...


> Anyway: fabelhaft !
Indeed!


-- Mark

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