Heill Oskar!

I don't know about Norse, but the "verb as first
or second word" rule would mislead people to in
German if they took the term *word* too
"literally".

In German the *conjugated* verb seems to be the
first or second *phrase* mentioned in the
sentence. That is, the first words in the
sentence can also build a *whole phrase* that
functions in the sentence effectively as a single
noun. Such phrases can be as simple as a compound
phrase:

"Eric and Olaf [see] dragons"

or a complex phrase like:

"To sail from Norway to Newfoundland in the
wintertime [was] difficult"

could both be translated into German with the
[verbs] in the second-to-last position with no
problem. I can still see what you mean in a more
extended sense, as the phrase before the [verb]
in both cases basically functions as the subject
of each sentence. Is that what you meant?

Related to that, the verb seems to be the first
or second *non-conjunction* in the sentence.
Conjunctions (or phrases acting as conjunctions
like "�v� at") don't seem to 'count' in the V2
rule in German. In Lesson two, the sentence two
before the one you named in you V2 discussion was


"But Eir�kr is not a thief."

The verb would be the third word of a correct
possible German translation:

"Aber Erik ist nicht einen Dieb."

(ignoring the fact that sentences cannot formally
begin with "but/aber" in either English or German
- that's a rule that's not really observed).

So I translated it:

"En Eir�kr er eigi �j�lfr"

Does the conjunction "en" not 'count' in the V2
rule, or does the Norse sentence have to be

"En er Eir�kr eigi �j�lfr"

? The German sentence

"Aber ist Erik nicht einen Dieb"

sounds like the word order has actually changed
the meaning of the sentence (I'd read it "but
(if) Eric is not a thief [then Olaf must have
stolen the horse]". You'd need a phrase like the
one in [brackets] to finish off the sentence.

How to translate "But Eric is not a thief"??




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Kindest Regards,
- DeepStream
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