V2 (plus Géarthnuns serendipity)

From: "Nik Taylor"

> Mine too.  Of course, rarely do I front such words.  :-)
Cute, cute.:)  Ah, and then there's "rarely". ("Hardly" and "scarcely" seem
to work as well. While these are used in affirmative sentences in English,
there is a negative tinge to them as well [enough so that Géarthnuns employs
its negative forms with such adverbs]).

> You've got one up there, "So do I".  Also forms like "So quickly did he
> run out the door that he tripped over the step".  "So" appears to be one
> of the words that triggers that V2 structure.
Ah yes, that works! It seemed, though, that there were some more
conversational examples that were a little less literary and sounded a
little less forced. Gee, and I took my shower today, too.

> > (for want of a better term -- it's not an auxiliary verb; it
> > has no real semantic meaning on its own)
>
> That can still be an auxilliary verb.  "Will" is considered an
> auxilliary verb, yet has no real semantic meaning of its own (well,
> there is the free verb "will", but the auxilliary has only the meaning
> "future")
But isn't "will" intimately tied to the notion of "want" (to wit, the German
verb "wollen" {whence, I assume, our auxiliary derives}-- "ich will" means
"I want", not "I will" [a faux ami])? (Chinese often forms a future
statement this way, BTW) There are moments in English where I can't really
distinguish between the "futureness" and the "wantness". Again, better
examples aren't forthcoming just now, but something along the lines of "Will
you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?" "I will." (a little
more "wantness" than "futureness" here, but I hope you get my point)

> > called a shléts (indicating tense and voice) which hangs V2 position
> > in ordinary utterances.
>
> Interesting.  If I'm not mistaken, doesn't German tend to place the
> nonfinite part of the verb at the end as well?
Yes, with modals and compound verbs and the like.

Ich will Bücher *kaufen*. (_all_the_time_!)

Er ist nach Frankreich *gegangen*. (okay, so this a past participle)

> > It now almost always follows the nominative of the sentence
> So that Géarthnuns could be called SAOV, where A means "auxilliary"?
Much as I'm tempted to call it an auxiliary and call it a day, when I began
groping for terms to explain the shléts, I trudged through bazillions of
dictionaries in various languages and the term "auxiliary" seemed
inextricably tied to verb-ness (aren't they often called "helping *verbs*"
in English?). The shléts is too weak to stand on its own, and doesn't derive
from a verb which had a meaning at one point.

Do you want to go?   Yes, I *do*.

Öçek la ba kadiz höhüraf?
you-nom present-shléts ba go want-interrogative.mood

*Shau, sí la (not possible).
Yes, I do.

Shau, hereçkeveçö (üraf).
Yes, thus [what you just said] (want). Yes, I do.

The shléts can occasionaly hang out on its own in interrogative tags, but
usage is extremely limited:

Öçek la ba kadiz höhüraf?
Do you want to go?

Shau, kfö Émars la hö?
Yes. And what about Mary (does she want to go?)?

Actually, now that I think about it, this is more a case where "höhüraf" has
been truncated to the essential interrogative prefix, "hö-".

So I usually cop out and call it a "shléts" once it's been introduced. There
are a couple of other words like "höi", "ba", and "sho" which I also can't
compartmentalize so neatly, but I'll hit the list up for suggestions in
another posting. :)

Kou