LANGOWSKI@FREMBL51.BITNET (Joerg Langowski / EMBL Grenoble) (08/24/89)
To expand on Nick's explanation in somewhat more practical terms: Garfield steals the lasagna out of the pan. Garfield klaut die Lasagna aus dem Topf. -- which is exactly the same syntactical arrangement; however Jon notices that Garfield steals the lasagna out of the pan. Jon bemerkt, dass Garfield ----- die Lasagna aus dem Topf klaut. This is where the object/predicate order is inverted with respect to English. Same holds for the infinitive construction: Jon watches Garfield steal the lasagna out of the pan. Jon sieht Garfield ------- die Lasagna aus dem Topf klauen. I would not really call German an RPN language for that small difference, vitch opfiouslee in menni kartuhns ent usser funni storries ixploitet iss. I didn't get the beginning of this thread, that's why I didn't make this remark before. Some other examples of word order inversion: in three days only -- in nur drei Tagen this won't happen before Sunday -- das wird nicht vor Sonntag passieren (so verb/adverb order is changed, too). Otherwise, English and German syntax are amazingly similar. Ansonsten sind sich englische und deutsche Syntax erstaunlich aehnlich. (here the auxiliary verb is moved towards the beginning of the phrase wrt the English construction). +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Joerg Langowski Bitnet/EARN: LANGOWSKI@FREMBL51 | | European Molecular Biology Lab GEnie: J.Langowski | | Grenoble Outstation BIX: jlangowski | | c/o ILL, 156X Calvacom: JL10 | | F-38042 Grenobyl Cedex Applelink: c/o d0435 (MacTutor) | | France analog: +33-76487306 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | : disclaimer begin ." This is MY B.S. not EMBL's" cr again ; | | disclaimer | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+