Re: Circumfixes?

>Christophe Gandsire wrote:
>[snip]
>>Still, I agree that SVO, and specially VSO orders are more _practical_ than
>>SOV
>>orders, because in SOV the last slot has to be taken by the verb, and
>>obliges
>>the sentence to go to an end quite fast, so that you don't forget the
>>beginning.
>
>Ever read German? Tho' SVO in normal clauses, it's SOV in relative clauses,
>and those can get quite long.
>
>                                                  Andreas
But even in SVO normal clauses, if it's a compound tense, the past
participle gets booted to the end of the clause, so you have to wait
to round out the thought, and that kind of feels like SOV. This is
the pattern Géarthnuns was modelled after, where the Géarthnuns
auxiliary "verb" hangs out around second position (though not
strictly so -- fronting other elements would push it further into the
sentence; it generally follows the nominative, wherever it may be)
and the "real" verb is at the very end of the clause (strictly, à la
japonaise). The only difference between the German and Géarthnuns
patterns is that, where German will move the pp. forward if there's a
subordinate clause, Géarthnuns does not (unless the embedded clause
is *quite* unusually long, like an "...all in the house that Jack
built" type sentence). i.e.:

German: Er hat mir gesagt, daß...

Géarthnuns: Söb lé sík, gü.....sho, ngamal.

This can obviously make for rather involved utterances, but that's
what I so love about SOV; you are teased to wait and/or have to hone
your intuitive skills on what the speaker is going to say.

Kou

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