Re: Pro-drop was RE: Conlang collaboration

Joe wrote:
> Why, though, isn't germanic pro-drop? 'kills him' would be impossible with any
> other pronoun apart from 'he', and German is even less ambiguous.  All you'd
> need pronouns for would be 'wir' and 'sie'(3rd pl/2nd sing, not 3rd sing).
> Why aren't they pro drop?
German is and historically English has been V2 languages, and John has
said that V2 langs aren't likely to be prodrop. This means that the verb
has to be in the second position. 'Cwele him' has the verb in the first
position. Why couldn't it have been 'Him killim', using A Hypothetical
Conlang? Well... I have no real answer to that, except that 'John kills
him' would become 'him kills', which may be too big a jump, and it'd
make 'him' be the focus I do believe.

Tristan.