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

Henrik Theiling wrote:

> > I don't see a clause in the English sample above: only a complex object.
>
> Yes, sorry.
I'd love to add that there are no "complex objects" like Infinitivus cum
Accusativo in Russian. Only when we were students of Linguistic Department,
we sometimes joked like this:

*Я видел тебя сидеть на подоконике. - |Ya videl tebya
sidet' na podokonnike|
'I saw you sit on the window-sill'.

But it's: 1) completely ungrammatical; 2) still cannot be used with хотеть
|khotet'| 'to want'.

> 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.
Nah, that's impossible (in Russian and Ukrainian).

> 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).
There is no personal verb "to seem" in Russian that would control the
infinitive. Still, you can use a modal word ~ "it seems" in the same two
ways:

Пётр, похоже, читает. - |Pyotr, pokhozhe, chitayet|
Похоже, что Пётр читает. - |Pokhozhe, chto Pyotr chitayet|

> 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. :-)))
It seems so.

-- Ицик