Quoting "Mark P. Line" <mark@...>:
> > - 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's common in written Swedish, and also occurs in speech. I've been called on
using it in English on this list a couple of times ...
> > - 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"
Swedish: _hade måst bli slagna_. But you'd probably express it some other way if
you were writing in Swedish to begin with.
Andreas