LL-L "Grammar" 2005.11.17 (09) [E]

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17 November 2005 * Volume 09
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From: Jacqueline Bungenberg de Jong <Dutchmatters at comcast.net>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.11.17 (06) [E]

Re the difference in syntax between Dutch and English.

Hi Paul, I think The main one is the difference in syntax when there are two
verbs in the sentence and when we work with conjunctions.
          I.e. J'ai mis la pomme sur le plat
         I have put the apple on the plate
               Ik heb de appel op het bord gelegd
   In French and English the action verb immediately follows
the     helper verb. In Dutch ( and in German ) the action verb
moves
         to the end of the sentence

         I saw the boy kissing the girl
               Ik heb de jongen het meisje zien kussen
               not only a difference in syntax but even in tense, plus we do
not have a "grammatical" progressive mode but that is not
from French. In French you would have to say, J'ai vu que le
garcon a embrasse la fille. ( sorry I cannot add the
character accents in this format )

                Il ne peut pas ouvrir la porte
                He cannot open the door
                Hij kan de deur niet openen
               In French and English the action verb follows immediately
after the modal
               In Dutch the action verb moves to the end of the sentence

            Je n'etais pas a l'ecole, parceque j'ai du aller chez le docteur
I was not in school because I had to go to the doctor
            Ik was niet op school omdat ik naar de dokter moest (gaan)
                In French and English the subjugating conjuntion does not
change the syntax of the subjugated sentence. In Dutch both
verbs move to the end of the sentence.

De groeten, Jacqueline

From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.11.16 (06) [E]

From: Jacqueline Bungenberg de Jong
Subject: LL-L "Morphology" 2005.11.16 (03) [E]

"Hey Guys, (Heather, Ron, Jonny) re: speaking the words of one language and
using the syntax of another: Is this a case of not being able to see the
trees for the forest? Just look at English. How much French syntax got
adopted and words too, but everything on an old Germanic base. It may not be
a perfect change-over. But talk to my English speaking students about how
much trouble it causes them!"
Jacqueline

I'm not so sure there *is* that much French syntax in English, despite the
heavy vocabulary borrowing.

For example the loss of a lot of Low German word order is often said to be
French, but that can be explained by Norse influence as easily, especi! ally

as we kept the Germanic adjective-noun order rather than the Romance
noun-adjective.  Some of the earliest Middle English not long after the
Conquest, such as the later entries in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, show the
change in word order even though they hadn't yet borrowed many French words.

This suggests that the process was underway before French speakers arrived.

We dropped most case endings, but that has happened throughout the Germanic
speaking world, except for German and Icelandic, so we can't blame the
French for that.

Possessives ending in "s" are as likely Norse as French too.  The dominant
"s" plural does seem to be French though.

Paul 

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