Re: Language Replacement (Re: French and US high school language instruction)

On 28 May 02, at 18:58, Thomas R. Wier wrote:

> What was I to make of that "bekam" + zu construction?  I am not
> a native German speaker, but this looked suspiciously like the
> equivalent construction "got to" in the English translation provided
> above.  If this is in fact an "Anglicismus", then it shows that
> the hegemony (not: conquest) of English is spreading quickly apace.
It doesn't feel like an anglicism to this native German speaker. I'll
agree that the pattern appears similar.

It can sometimes be handy since that kind of construction allows you to
topicalise either the direct or the indirect object of a transitive
verb:

    Man hat es uns gesagt
    ---> Es ist uns gesagt worden (topicalising DO)
    or
    ---> Wir haben es gesagt bekommen (topicalising IO)

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>