PIE syntax and word-order

[Eduard Selleslagh]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Xavier Delamarre" <xavier.delamarre at free.fr>
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2001 10:07 PM

> le 5/06/01 10:09, Eduard Selleslagh à edsel at glo.be a écrit :

>>> 1/ Hier j'ai achete une maison tres grande a Vaucresson

>>> 2/ Hier j'ai achete une tres grande maison a Vaucresson

>>> Absolutely no difference in meaning, style or emphasis. I am sorry.

>> Yes, but consider:
>> 1) De Gaulle était un très grand homme.
>> 2) De Gaulle était un homme très grand.

>> The meaning is completely different.

>     Of course, classical example of handbooks. You have (semantic) freedom
> with the substantive maison but not with homme.
>     What is in question here is that when there is the possibility of free
> word order, it does not induce _systematically_ a difference in meaning,
> style, emphasis etc.
>     But there again it is not PIE, where these possibilities were much more
> extended than in Modern french.
>     And to reduce PIE syntax to word-order (Lehmann, Friedrich) is simply
> nonsense.

>     XD

[Ed]

Just a last note, not meant to be facetious: It seems to me that even in your
example there is a slight difference that (slightly) echoes the one in mine.
That difference is IMHO that the regular order (noun-determiner/adjective in
Romance languages) is more neutral, matter-of-fact-like, while the inverse
order implies something, usually a more symbolic or figurative sense, whence
sometimes poetic. This is quite general: unusual word order often implies
something beyond the literal meaning.

To me, 'une très grande maison' implies a (very light) shade of grandeur,
while 'une maison très grande' is simply a big house.

Ed.