LL-L "Grammar" 2005.11.18 (01) [E]
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Fri Nov 18 16:00:22 UTC 2005
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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18 November 2005 * Volume 01
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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.11.17 (09) [E]
Lowlands-L <lowlands-l at LOWLANDS-L.NET> wrote:
From: Jacqueline Bungenberg de Jong
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
Hi Jaqueline,
I agree that the difference is there, and that the Dutch model is much
closer to Old English. My point is that it wasn't necessarily French that
brought the change! about, despite the obvious similarities, as you point
out. A similar positioning of verbs can be seen in Norse, and as there were
far more Danes than French/Normans in England, it makes sense to see this as
a possible source. Plus, as I say, the change seems to appear very early in
the Middle English period, when French and English were still very much
keeping their distance, so to speak. French usage would certainly have
reinforced this trend, but it need not have intitiated it, or not entirely.
When I was in South Africa, and first getting to grips with Afrikaans, one
member of our class, referring to the verb position in the past tense,
commented "you don't know what's happening till the end of the sentence!"
Maybe the English, and the French, and the Danes, were just too impatient to
put up with that!
Paul
----------
From: Isaac M. Davis <isaacmacdonalddavis at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.11.17 (09) [E]
Paul Finlow-Bates wrote:
> Possessives ending in "s" are as likely Norse as French too. The
> dominant "s" plural does seem to be French though.
Here's what the sci.lang FAQ (http://www.zompist.com/langfaq.html) has to
say:
"Despite what one might think, these are independent developments.
"The English s-plural comes from the PIE o-stem nominative plural ending
*-o:s, apparently extended in Germanic to *-o:s-es by addition of the PIE
plural suffix *-es (*-o:s itself comes from *-o-es). This *-o:ses became
Proto-Germanic *-o:ziz or *-o:siz, depending on the accent, which gave the
attested forms-- Gothic -o:s, Old English -as, Old Saxon -os, and Old
Norse -ar (with the change *z --> r). Already in Old English there was a
tendency to extend this plural in -s to words that were not a-stems, a
tendency which has since become nearly universal.
"The n-plural of German is generalized from the PIE n-stems
(*-on-es --> -en). It was still present in Old English n-stems, and survives
today in a few words like 'oxen'.
"The Romance s-plurals (-as, -os, -es) are derived from the accusative (PIE
*-a:ns, *-ons, *-ens). Old French still had separate nominative and oblique
(accusative/ablative) forms, but in the end, grammatical cases were dropped
completely, and usually only the oblique forms were retained.
"In Italian and Romanian, final -s was phonetically lost, and the plurals
are based on the nominative. The Latin nominative plural, at least in the o-
and a:-stems, was based on PIE *-i, of pronominal origin, not *-es as in
most other IE languages."
Fair faw,
Isaac M. Davis
--
Westron wynd, when wilt thou blow
The smalle rain down can rain
Christ yf my love were in my arms
And I yn my bed again
----------
From: heather rendall <HeatherRendall at compuserve.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.11.17 (09) [E]
Message text written by INTERNET:lowlands-l at LOWLANDS-L.NET
>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 )<
You could also say J'ai vu le garçon embrasser la fille which exactly
parallels the English Eng infinitve = to kiss or kissing
H
----------
From: David Barrow <davidab at telefonica.net.pe>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.11.17 (04) [E]
> From: heather rendall <HeatherRendall at compuserve.com>
> Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.11.16 (06) [E]
>
> Message text written by INTERNET:lowlands-l at LOWLANDS-L.NET
>
>> How much French syntax got
>
> adopted and words too, but everything on an old Germanic base. <
>
> Not everything! We use ( in the main - when not being hyper-correct)
> French emphatic pronouns It's me! It's them! It's him!
But is it of French origin? I think SVO word order becoming fixed even
for state verbs is as likely an explanation for the above:
I see him
It is him
> When using a sentence to describe an idea with a direct and an indirect
> object we can choose to follow French structure
>
> I gave the book TO him
>
> or German
>
> I gave him the book
Both these structures were present in Old English
David Barrow
----------
From: David Barrow <davidab at telefonica.net.pe>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.11.17 (09) [E]
> 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
Both the possessive 's' and the plural 's' are of Old English origin
eg
masc nom/acc sing 'stán' 'stone'
masc gen sing 'stánes' 'stone's'
nom/acc plural stánas 'stones'
David Barrow
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