Talk:V2 word order

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In the final examples of Dutch word order, I'm quite sure there is an inconsistency. Dutch is my mother language.

It ought to be:

CP-V2, SOV

ex. German, Dutch I read the book yesterday. Yesterday did I read the book. <--- "Gisteren las ik het boek", Not "Gisteren ik het boek las." You know that I the book yesterday read. You know that yesterday I the book read.

However, I didn't change it because I don't know the situation in German. So someone who is fluent in German could clear this up.

It's exactly the same in German. The original writer appearently let the English construction with the auxiliary "did" slip in. I assume that Dutch also has ik zei dat ik gisteren dit boek las rather than ik zei dat gisteren ik dit boek las.
The other schemes need to be checked by someone who knows Swedish, Yiddish, Icelandic. I've remove the English auxiliary, but I'm not sure whether they're okay now. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 13:35, 20 September 2005 (UTC)


> The CP-V2 languages such as Swedish and German only allow the movement in main clauses. On the other hand, the IP-V2 languages such as Icelandic and Yiddish require movement in subclauses too.

Unless I've overlooked something, the examples of Swedish and Yiddish at the end of the article have exactly the same word order as each other. Maybe a different adverb would make things clearer? I haven't studied Yiddish at all, so I don't know if this would work, but I think the difference between main and subordinate clauses in the Scandinavian languages, at least, could be brought out with the negative, Swedish inte, Icelandic ekki, thus:

Swedish:

Jag läste inte den här boken. "I didn't read this book."

...att jag inte läste den här boken. "...that I didn't read this book."

Icelandic:

Ég las ekki þessa bók. "I didn't read this book."

...að ég las ekki þessa bók. "...that I didn't read this book."

What is the correct word order in a Swedish sentence if it has an auxiliary? If its base word order is SAuxVO and V2 is applied like German, it should be either SAuxVO or OAuxSV. Am I right? - TAKASUGI Shinji 02:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Jag har läst den här boken (I have read this book), jag borde läsa den här boken (I should read this book), SAuxVO; Den här boken har jag läst (This book I have read), Den här boken borde jag läsa (This book I should read) OauxSV. It seems you're right. 惑乱 分からん 13:08, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Inconsistency

There is an inconsistency between the V2 word order page and the Subject Object Verb page. The V2 word order page (this page) states, "in otherwise SOV languages, such as German and Dutch, the verb is placed after the object." The Subject Object Verb page states, "German is basically SVO, but employs SOV in subordinate clauses." Considering only main clauses, is German an SOV or SVO language?

I have placed a copy of this comment on the Subject Object Verb page.

SVO, unless the sentence contains a modal auxiliary verb, thus: "I drink beer" translates as "Ich trinke Bier" (SVO), while "I have drunk beer" translates as "Ich habe Bier getrunken" (SAuxOV). 惑乱 分からん 12:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reasons

Would it be possible to say anything about the reasons for this word order? Why is it necessary/practical? And why did English and French had this word order once but gave it up?

Case is the key. If you can't distinguish the subject and the object, the word order must be fixed. Transition seems like: SOVAux > SOVAux-V2 (ex. German) > SOAuxV-V2 (ex. Dutch) > SAuxVO-V2 (ex. Swedish) > SAuxVO (ex. English). Is it true that French had V2 word order? - TAKASUGI Shinji 02:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Sure but why the V2 order? I understand that languages like German allow a more flexible word order than e.g. English but IMHO they would allow an even more flexible word order so why that restriction to put the verb at the second positon? -- Mudd1 09:15, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
This is the great mystery of language. German has certainly lost much of the syntheticness that would allow it to be free-word order (like Latin), this loss of syntheticness likely gave rise to the development of the V2 word order. (Or potentially, the othe way around. I suppose in truth, one can only say that they correlate.) --Puellanivis 22:26, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English

I removed:

As with all verb movement in Modern English, only modal verbs can move, and so the dummy do is added when necessary.

Things like here comes another one, up jumped the swagman, out popped the genie show this isn't true. They aren't *here does another one come, *up did the swagman jump, *out did the genie pop. --Ptcamn 02:53, 22 April 2006 (UTC)


They are different constructions. Subject-auxiliary inversion must occur when:

  1. a question is formed,
  2. or a negative expression is moved to the beginning,
  3. or so is moved to the beginning,
  4. or should/were/had is moved to the beginning for a conditional clause.

ex.

  1. What did the dog bark at?
  2. At no time in my life have I been busier than I am today.
  3. So fiercely did the dog bark that it kept everyone away.
  4. Were I younger, I would exert every effort toward finding another more profitable job.

The sentences above are remnants of V2 word order.

On the other hand, Subject-verb inversion may occur when:

  1. a movement verb is used,
  2. and the phrase for the goal, the source, the direction, or the passing point of the movement is moved to the beginning,
  3. and the subject is not a pronoun,
  4. and the subject is a new information.

ex.

  1. Into the woods ran the rabbit.
  2. Out of the house stepped Norman.
  3. Toward the beach ran the children.
  4. By the grocery store passed the car.
  5. *Away ran they! (wrong) cf. Away they ran! (OK)

If you go to Norman's house and he comes out from the door, you can't say the second sentence, because Norman is not a new information.

Source: 英文法 Q&A (an English grammar site for Japanese) - TAKASUGI Shinji 12:15, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Swedish

The fourth example from Swedish (my mother language) sounds very unnatural, and I 'm not sure it could be considered correct, at least not in written language. You know that I read this book yesterday as well as You know that yesterday I read this book both are best translated Du vet att jag läste den här boken igår (You+know+that+I+read+this+book+yesterday). The only possible word order alternation, I think, would be Att jag läste den här boken igår vet du (That+I+read+this+book+yesterday+know+you - main clause after subordinate clause) for changing the focus a little, making it mean That I read this book yesterday (is something that) you know).

Some of the German translations sounds quite unusual also. German is fairly strict about TMP (time manner place) order for it's auxillaries. While English allows somewhat free motion of one of the TMP auxillaries to a position in the front, this is done for intonation, and stress upon that word. Meanwhile, the same function is performed by moving that auxillary to the start of a V2 sentence. Basically, valid German word-orders expanding TMP are, SVOTMP, OVSTMP, TVSOMP, MVSOTP, PVSOTM. Note that the ordering of each of the S-O-T-M-P is always maintained after the marked and highlighted element is moved forward. A similar system follows in Swedish.
Meanwhile, in English, the ordering is typically PMT (place manner time), with the subject just proceeding the verb. Thus the most common orderings are SVOPMT, SVPOMT, SVMOPT, SVTOPM, with also PSVOMT, MSVOPT, TSVOPM. So, while it may seem alright for an Anglophone to jiggle with some of the auxillaries after the verb, in a V2 language, that is a strict no-no. --Puellanivis 22:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kashmiri

I added some data from Kashmiri to round out the survey of kinds of V2 word order. The "IP/CP" designation may not pass muster on theoretical grounds. But it does get at the idea that Kashmiri's V2 word order is somewhat like German/Dutch and also somewhat like Yiddish. --Peh6n 00:23, 29 June 2006 (UTC) 29/June/2006

[edit] CPs and IPs

I do know what an IP is, but I'm not sure at all that it helps the exposition that it is used in the classification in the article. Same for CPs. The terms are only useful to people who already know what they are supposed to hint at, which would probably mean they wouldn't look up V2 on Wiki anyway. I'm also not sure what to replace them with. One might think that the more traditional "mittelfeld V2" and "vorfeld V2" would be better, but I'm not sure. Neither 05:47, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary to understand what a CP and an IP are: those are used as the names for the two kinds of V2 even by people who don't subscribe to the phrase-structure theory that that names suggest, right? So we should use the names merely because they're the mainstream names. It would help, of course, to describe the theory the names are based on more clearly, anyway. AJD 16:10, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
This is not true for two reasons. (i) People not working in the generative framework would not necessarily put the difference in these terms, as many of those theories wouldn't postulate IPs and CPs to begin with. It is certainly not the case that the IP and CP label are the usual labels to refer to the distinction between Dutch and Icelandic. (ii) Even people that in principle subscribe to a theory that adopts the notions IP and CP (say, people working in the generative field) would not use the labels to refer to the contrast. The reason is that casting the distinction in these terms refers to one approach of the problem of how to describe the difference (namely the one proposed by Diesing 1990 and Santorini 1992, articles in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory) and this is not at all a generally accepted theory. There is a way of referring to the intended contrast in a theory-neutral way, however, namely through the notion root phenomenon. This is what I would propose as a change. In Dutch and German V2 is a root phenomenon (meaning that it only takes place in root clauses) whereas in Yiddish and Icelandic it also takes place in non-root (or embedded) clauses. Put differently, Dutch displays a root/non-root asymmetry with respect to V2, Yiddish doesn't. By the way, this distinction has been challenged empirically, as people have pointed out that Yiddish and especially Icelandic does not allow V2 in embedded clauses quite so freely as was previously thought. Recent articles by Bentzen et al in Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics is a reference here. onc70 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onc70 (talk • contribs) 15:59, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Glosses

Would it be possible to put in glosses of all of the examples? As is, it's presumed that people are already familiar with the languages presented. If one is well familiarized with Germanic words, and their variations in the first place, then the structure of the sentences can be easily obtained, but if you aren't familiar with them, you will just stare at them and say, "sure... I can totally see where things moved around." --Puellanivis 22:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm a ditz, the glosses were already there, just not clearly marked. Glosses should normally be given all caps, or in other way clearly distinguished to prevent them from being viewed as possibly normal speech. They should also be word for word, even if that wording sounds awful in English: "I KNOW AT YOU READ THAT HERE BOOK." "att" != "THAT", and "den här" != "THIS". If there are two words, each should be translated seperately in a gloss, unless it's compound word, like "Butterfly". --Puellanivis 22:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Better Examples?

Do you think it would be possible to pick a verb for the examples in this article that are not strong? It's difficult at a glance to see the difference between "read" (past tense) and "read" (present tense) in English.

If we picked a weak verb, then at least it would be clear in English/German/Dutch/Swedish/etc what is past tense and what is not. --Puellanivis 00:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent Reverts to the Glosses

The Swedish word "den" => "that", "här" => "here". I realize that "den här" => "this". Also, yes, "att" is used the same as English "that", but it means "to". This is not a translation, it is a GLOSS.

When glossing Sign Language, I don't gloss "THINK THINK" => "thinking", I gloss it to "THINK THINK", because the reduplication is a part of the language. The same situation would apply if I were glossing German: "Er hat mir um Hilfe gebietet" => "He has me-DAT about help pleaded." Not "He has me for help pleaded." The German word "um" does not gloss to "for", neither does Swedish "att" gloss to "that", nor Swedish "den här" gloss to "this".

I don't understand the point of glossing, myself. Even when literally translated, it makes the sentences seem unnecessarily weird. Also, since the this/that distinction in Swedish is made with the here/there words (den/det reflects gender), I don't see why the words "that here" would make a better choice than "the here" or "this here". ("That" has a connotation of something already referred, a connotation den/det in itself, lacks.) It just seems an arbitrary choice, trying to push one language's system into another. 惑乱 分からん 13:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
The purpose of Glossing is to give a word-for-word and even sometimes lexeme-for-lexeme/morpheme-for-morpheme translation in position that gives a good indication of the grammatical usage of the language, not the meaning of that sentence. As such, you run into problems, where a language would translate "this" with "den/det här", and you can't just say "det här" => "this", because there are two words there. "That" actually is a demonstrative pronoun, in a gloss the non-linguistic usages of a word are not as important as their linguistic uses. As such, giving a gloss of "den/det" => "the" would be incorrect, as "the" is the definitive article, where as in Swedish the definitiveness of a word is indicated by a suffix "boket" => "book-DEF". Thus, "the" is certainly the wrong choice, "this here" is just an arbitrary choice, and may be more linguistically appropriate, as in English they both agree in location (near the Speaker, as opposed to the two other possibilities, near the Listener, and far from both, since you use Japanese in your signature, "kore" vs "sore" vs "are"). However, "this" is just as much a demonstrative pronoun and is the same as the use of the word "that" in this sentence (where as in English "that" serves the double purpose of "sore" and "are".) So, switching "that here" for "this here" may have merits since they agree better, but they are functionally the same linguistic elements.
trying to push one language's system into another. This is pretty darn close to exactly what a gloss's purpose is. Rather than "pushing" one language's system into another, it's rather representing one language including grammatical usage in the language system of another. I will note that you're not complaining about the word ordering of the German above, although that is just as much a "pushing one language's system into another" as your complaints about Swedish "det här" => "that here". --Puellanivis 19:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Besides, wouldn't glossing need describers when the words contain grammatical information lost in a direct English translation, anyway? For instance, THE-(non neuter gender) BOOK-(non neuter gender, definite tense). 惑乱 分からん 14:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Typically that information is required, but the goal of this gloss is not to actually describe the usage of "den här ___-en / det här ___-et" usage of Swedish but to show the word order of Swedish in order to demonstrate the V2 word order. I briefly considered just changing the sentence to English translation "the book", in order to avoid this whole two word gloss problem that so many people seem to take issue with, but then, we run into the problem of having to provide a gloss of BOOK-definite, which would then cause confusion about why we're not glossing it as "THE BOOK" as this is what the sentence really means, then I'm stuck explaining the opposite problem, and avoiding a one word to two word gloss, instead of a two word to one word gloss. I suppose the best solution would be to just make the entire thing indefinite and go with "et bok" and then give a gloss of A BOOK, which would then avoid people coming in every few weeks and attempting to "fix" the gloss. --Puellanivis 19:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted edits

I reverted again, I have a hard time to see how German and Dutch could be considered SOV, especially in sub-clauses compared to main clauses (as is described here), but if you give a good linguistic explanation of the reasoning, I probably would admit my mistake. The other problem, glossing of "att" as "to"/"at" seems more problematic, since both sources I checked up on Elof Hellman's etymological dictionary and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok considered the two meanings of "att" as distinct words with different etymological origin, the etymology of both words were actually quite close to the English evolution, att (to)=åt (towards), att (that), probably related to words like that or it. 惑乱 分からん 23:50, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

From the article itself

The usual analysis of the Dutch (and German) V2 phenomenon is that the "normal" position of the verb is at the end of the clause (SOV) and that in main clauses, the inflected verb moves to the second position. This is supported by the fact that in sentences with verb clusters, only the auxiliary appears in the second position:

Ik heb dit boek gelezen.
I have this book read
"I've read this book."
Ik heb dit boek willen lezen.
I have this book want read
"I've wanted to read this book."
Ik heb dit boek willen kunnen lezen.
I have this book want can read
"I've wanted to be able to read this book."

In German these phrases have different word order for the auxiliaries, that closely resemble the SOV word order (auxiliaries following the main verb.) Presented below for contrast with the Dutch above.

Ich habe dieses Buch gelesen.
I have this book read
"I've read this book."
Ich habe dieses Buch lesen wollen.
I have this book read want
"I've wanted to read this book."
Ich habe dieses Buch lesen können wollen.
I have this book read can want
"I've wanted to be able to read this book."

Also from the original verson of the paragraph in question, the article says:

in otherwise SOV languages, such as German and Dutch, the verb is placed after the object.

Now, if one were to take a minute and examine that sentence, it would say that if German and Dutch were not V2 languages, then they would be SOV, and in fact, examining their placement of auxillary verbs, and the position of the negation adverb (at the end of the sentence, but before any verbs) you would see that they are in fact SOV languages, except that they take the inflected verb and then move them to the second position of the clause.

Thank you, then. It still seems strange to me, that simpler sentences are considered the exception and more complex sentences the norm... 惑乱 分からん 01:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

As for the issue of "att" glossing to "that", the assertion you make, is in fact reasonable, and I will no longer be reverting that change. If you take a quick look above this secton, you'll note that the first time that I reverted that change, I posted in the Talk page for discussion abot it:

Also, yes, "att" is used the same as English "that", but it means "to". This is not a translation, it is a GLOSS.

I was expecting a response regarding that revert, and a defense of their positon, not simply a revert war, where you try and assert your position without evidence or support.

Alright, sorry, then. But at least it's fixed, now... 惑乱 分からん 01:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I continued (and continue in the case of the SOV change) to assert these reverts because no validation of their verifiability had been made, and in the case of the SOV change, in fact make the article self-contradictory. --Puellanivis 01:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I know. The self-contradiction was my bad... My instincts tell me that German and Dutch should be considered SVO languages "in general", since that's the word order in the simplest sentences, but I'm willing to accept a mainstream linguist analysis on why that assumption is wrong... 惑乱 分からん 01:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
It's kind of hard, many different languages do stuff "in general" even though there is linguistic evidence to show that the most common case is actually the exception. Most people do consider German and Dutch SVO, since their simple sentence structure indicates as such, but as this article is intended to point out, they are V2 languages, that do not actually correspond well into the SVO, SOV, etc ordering. But as completely off-topic for this discussion, but a demonstration about how the exception can actually be the most common form, German's current regular plural is "-s", just "-s". (This is indicated by asking native speakers to plralize something that has no established plural. Such, as a last name, "The Schmidts" -> "Die Schmidts") Now, as anyone who actually speaks German will tell you, this is actually the most uncommon plural ending of all, being used only for new words. This means that "in general" one might assume that the regular plural is which ever is the most common one, but as with physics, common sense can often get you in trouble.  ;)
Oh, and I'd like to thank you for giving evidence to support the gloss of "att" => "that", I am already quite aware of how two words can look the same, but come from COMPLETELY different etymological backgrounds. heh. --Puellanivis 06:28, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Very weird, in that case -s should quite possibly be the most common plural form in Swedish as well, although it's not even considered a native plural...
And, just wondering, how come you thought "at" was the best choice in this case, "att"(to) and "at" is plausibly cognates, but it still seems a strange choice for a gloss?... 惑乱 分からん 14:49, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
http://lexin.nada.kth.se/swe-eng.shtml <-- reports that "att" translates to "to". Also, while speaking Swedish, my understanding has been that "att" means "to", and in the case of occurring before an infinitive word, the gloss would be "to". A bit confusing sometimes for me, because I typically don't like to gloss things with more than one word, when depending on their situation. I was also unaware that "åt" is the preposition, and not "att" *shrug* learn new stuff everyday. --Puellanivis 15:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
What? Lexin gives both translations, correctly... In none of the examples given here, "att" is followed by a verb. 惑乱 分からん 16:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I did say that it gives the two meanings. But in my mind, collapsing words together, "att"=>"to", not "att"=>"that", and phrases were internally understood to use "att" to start a dependent clause. It's basically a difference in learning a language. You learned that "att" translates to two different words in English, depending on where it occurs. I learned that Swedish has one word for both, and through natural collapse and genericization, I ended up with only one word, neglecting the fact that the two words map to one word. It's a difference of perspective. --Puellanivis 02:00, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Standardizing the Glosses

From the wikipedia page regarding Glosses, there's a link to the Leipzig Glossing Rules. I intend to change the glosses, which do not match with these rules to match with these rules, which will include the Swedish section. Hopefully, once each morpheme is vertically alligned with each other, people won't attempt to change the "that here" into "this".

Also, no such note explaining the Swedish construction "this" => "den här" is necessary. Many languages treat demonstratives different from English, this is a natural variation of language. Just because it "sounds weird" when glossed, is... look at the German gloss: "I SAID THAT I THIS BOOK YESTERDAY READ"... do you think that doesn't sound weird in English? These complaints about a 1-to-1 morpheme gloss from Swedish to English is fairly frustrating as it is standardized linguistic doctrine, under which this article certainly fits! --Puellanivis 18:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I think if it's meant to be glossing, it's insufficient since a lot of grammatical information is left out. If it's only meant to show word order, it's unnecessary and confusing. Even your Leipzig Glossing Rules gives out examples of glossing with grammatical function markers (or whatever they're called) included. Also, I found at least one example of a linguist using "this here" [1], he is also using "this there", though. 惑乱 分からん 13:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
I believe that I have stated that I don't have a problem with the particular words used, but rather only that there needs to be two words. Yes, we are dismissing a lot of grammatical information, but when showing word order, it's important to give a gloss for each individual word. As an example from an arbitrary language that you are quite unlikely to know, if I were glossing the phrase "I EnDonGabaKapKi" ("I cannot be understood") as "I understood can't." You would have no idea what the individual morphemes of the sentence mean, and be unable to assess really anything about the word order, as I've arbitrary divided a five-lexeme group into two words. How can you distinguish between the possible interpretations: "En" (understand) "DonGabaKapKi" (can't), "EnDon" (understood) "GabaKapKi" (can't), "EnDonGaba" (understood) "KapKi" (can't), or even "EnDonGabaKap" (undstood) "Ki" (can't). There's no way to tell where the proper division is supposed to take place, unless you already have special knowledge of the language.
This is the reason why I'm enforcing a 1:1 correspondance of words to words in the gloss. So that people, who don't know the languages can pick up which words correspond to which words by simple ordering, rather than requiring the special knowledge that "det här" means "this". --Puellanivis 18:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Puellanivis about the glosses: the basic principle is the one-to-one mapping. But the most important thing is choosing a good example in the first place, that avoids interesting but irrelevant details that will draw attention away from the issue at hand. So why not change the Swedish examples to "your book"? Or "two books"? Something that would have the same structure as in English. And remove this totally off-topic footnote about "den här". CapnPrep 21:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, it's suitable to me, I just think that the translation was just a half-hearted mix between glossing and translating, ending up as neither. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 17:56, 20 April 2007 (UTC)