Re: deeply embedded VSO nightmare
| From: | Roger Mills <romilly@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, October 23, 2001, 4:06 |
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Matt Pearson wrote:
>This kind of operation is called 'Heavy-NP Shift', and many languages have
it, including English. In English, for example, direct objects are usually
immediately adjacent to the verb.
Aha. I'd forgotten, or never knew, that term. Kash has it. The sentence
"[The man who came by after lunch] gave us the news" would require the
entire subject phrase to move to the end., so V-IO-O-S. (it could also be
rephrased, 'the man came by.... and gave us the news.' I'm not sure how i'll
handle a Heavy IO; a Heavy O is not problem because O comes last anyway--
but a fronted Heavy O or IO will cause problems.