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Re: OT: German "Satz"

From:Harald Stoiber <stoiberh@...>
Date:Monday, September 29, 2003, 16:48
On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 17:33:28 +0200, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:

>A li'l question on German terminology for the lists linguistically enlightened >germanophones: The word _Satz_ can mean both "sentence" and "clause"; how do >you differentiate when necessary? I asked the teacher of my so-called
"Satz" alone is not precise since it can refer to an entire utterance AND it can also refer to a particular clause of an utterance. "Hauptsatz" would be the main clause where there is also a relative clause (which whould be named "Relativsatz", sometimes also "Gliedsatz" since it refers to a syntactical position [Satzglied] of its parent clause). "Nebensatz" is the most general term for whatever subordinate clause or inserted clause between hyphens. I hope this helps a little bit. :-)) Have a nice day and a cheerful study of the language which made Mark Twain despair... *lol* Harald