Re: Save of the dative, the genitive's is already dead!

Hi!

Jean-François Colson <fa597525@...> writes:
> On Sunday, June 12, 2005 12:40 AM CEST, Carsten Becker wrote:
>
> > Another question (my question) is, why the conjunction "weil"
> > ("because", also governing genitive case!) developed towards triggering
> > SVO in the following undoubtly subordinate clause, although the standard
> > word order in subordinate clauses is SOV.
>
> Perhaps because "weil" is a CO-ORDINATING conjunction like und, aber, oder,
> etc.
> In Dutch there're two words to translate "because": "want" and "omdat".
> "Want" is a co-ordinating conjunction ==> SVO
> whereas "omdat", which is a pronominal adverb, is used as a subordinating
> conjunction ==> SOV.
> Is there something similar in German?
Yes, that's the strange thing:

   weil ~ omdat -> SOV (normal, unmarked word order typical for subordinate
                       clauses)

   denn ~ want  -> V2  (not SVO, but verb second order, just as in a normal
                       propositional clause)

Now the trend is that colloquially, 'weil' also moves towards V2 order.

**Henrik