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L O W L A N D S - L - 03 May 2011 - Volume 02<br>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font size="2">From: <span><span style="color: rgb(91, 16, 148);"></span></span></font><span class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color:#009486">Alfred Brothers</span> <span class="go"><a href="mailto:alfredb@erols.com">alfredb@erols.com</a></span></span></p>
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</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font size="2">Subject: <span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span></font><span class="gI">LL-L "Grammar" 2011.05.02 (06) [EN]</span></p>
<font size="2"><br></font>Reinhard/Ron wrote:
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<div>At first thought I
assumed that this
and what I call
"narrative
construction" are
separate. At
second thought,
however, I wonder
if they are in
fact related.
"Setting the
stage," so to
speak, the VS
construction makes
the listener
expect a result or
at least
continuation. See
what I'm driving
at? So, if in
German you say <i>Ein
Mann geht zum
Arzt</i> (A man
goes to a/his
doctor) it could
be the end of the
story. However, if
you say <i>Geht
ein Mann zum
Arzt</i> ("Goes
a man to a/his
doctor") you
definitely expect
more.<br>
<br>
What do you think,
Lowlanders?<br>
<br>
Furthermore, I
have a feeling
that this VS
construction used
to be used in
earlier varieties
of English, though
I can't come up
with concrete
examples at this
very moment.
Perhaps they are
not directly
linked, but you
find VS in certain
types of clauses,
such as "'Enough!'
say I (~ says I)."
I assume that
these are
archaisms hailing
back to greater
syntactic
flexibility in
English.<br>
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</blockquote>
<br>
Hi, Ron,<br>
<br>
Interesting topic -- enough to get me out of "lurk-mode" after a
long silence.<br>
<br>
I can't think of any instance where, in modern American English, we
use VS except in the well known situations: 1) Questions: "Can you
help me?" 2) After direct quotes, "'No,' replied the man angrily."
3) Following restrictive adverbs, "Never did I...", "Hardly had he
opened the door...", "Seldom does she visit on Sundays...." 4) After
"There/Here" initially in a sentence. "Here comes Jack Jones." I'm
at a loss to find an occasion where we use VS <i>initially </i>in
the sentence (except in questions).<br>
<br>
However, we do seem to have a convention similar in many ways to the
other Germanic languages described in this thread. In jokes,
narratives, etc., we will often start the first sentence with SV,
but we'll turn the second sentence around somewhat into an
unconventional VS format. For example, "The man is sitting at the
bar. In walks his next-door neighbor...."; "The woman is sitting
upstairs in the living room. Up the stairs comes her daughter in a
big rush...." As in the German example you gave (<i>Geht ein Mann
zum Arzt</i>...), these second sentences also give the idea that
something else is coming. If not, we would say "His next-door
neighbor walks in" and "Her daughter came running up the stairs..."
Starting the sentence with the adverbial/prepositional phrase makes
you wonder what happened next.<br>
<br>
It's interesting, too, that these VS examples cannot be used if the
subject is a personal pronoun. Other pronouns are okay. ("In he
walks...", but "In walks someone I don't recognize...") This is also
the case in sentences starting with "There/Here..." ("Here comes
Jack Jones" but not "Here comes he.")<br>
<br>
I feel the use of this second-sentence VS form is the same thing as
in the other languages discussed, but English has to treat it a
little differently because of stricter word order rules.<br>
<br>
Something related, but not so easy to recognize in English because
of our use of the progressive tenses: "Sitting at the counter is a
man dressed in black, when in comes a co-worker he's trying to avoid
..." Is "sitting" a present participle modifying the man, or is it
part of a VS construction for "A man dressed in black <i>is sitting</i>
at the counter,..."?<br>
<br>
I'm going to dig out my Middle/Old English books when I get a chance
to see whether there are better examples from an earlier stage of
the language.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Alfred Brothers<br>
Falls Church, VA<br>
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