Re: "Free" word order (was Re: Greek definite article (was Re: Addendum: a holy spirit))

Hi!

Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...> writes:
> Henrik Theiling wrote:
>
> > Well, subject raising is quite common: 'I want you to buy a pizza',
> > for example.
>
> I don't see a clause in the English sample above: only a complex object.
Yes, sorry.  The sentence structure without raising would be exactly the
one you gave in English, too, with an auxiliary clause:

   I want that you buy a pizza.

My point was that it is possible to transform the sentence so that the
subject of the subordinate clause is moved into the matrix clause.
When you do this in English, you also have to modify the syntactic
structure of the subordinate clause to become a complex infinitive.
However, these are still two clauses.  And my point is that 'you' is
in a clause where it logically does not belong, namely 'I want you ...',
so the semantical and the syntactical structure are a bit off.  Note
that the sentence is not about wanting *you*, but wanting some action
in which 'you' are the actor, so the 'you' is clearly not originally
in 'want''s argument structure.  It's a movement.

Another type, subject-to-subject raising, is also very common:

   Peter seems to read.  <  It seems that Peter reads.

This is possible to German, too (and very common).

So in my original post, I
   a) wanted to point out that Qthen|gai has no means of doing this (yet),
   b) was searching for an example of object raising.

Since you say Russian cannot do this kind of transformation for
objects of subordinate clauses, then my unknown sources (that's a weak
reputation...) are bad. :-)))

**Henrik

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