Re: Danish enigma

From: tgpedersen
Message: 36238
Date: 2005-02-11

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "hfroelandshagen" <gr-tegle@...>
wrote:
>
>
> There is one strange thing about Swedish that I haven't found in
> Danish or Norwegian. For mysterious reasons Swedish sometimes have
> three finite tenses in subordinate clauses. The auxiliary is
dropped
> leaving the participle alone, more often with passive than the
active
> I think.
>
> "...den entydigt visar at 16-åringen med uppsåt dödat 14-åringen"
> from
> http://svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=22620&a=331963
>
> "Michael Englund kallar beskedet om att spelarna hämtats till
förhör
> för "chockartat och omtumlande"
> from
> http://svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=19785&a=332267

I don't see the three finite tenses? In dependent clauses, the finite
forms of 'ha(va)' "have" can be dropped in Swedish. Elegant, isn't
it? I think German marginally uses a similar construction in
dependent clauses.


>
> Another Enigmatic issue in Scandinavian is the jungle of rules for
> promotion of sentence parts to initial position. In this Norw
sentence
> the subject of the subordinate clause is promoted to the initial
> position of the main clause (trigging inversion), thus the
> subjunction "at" takes a sentence without a subject.
>
> "Det var ikke det jeg hadde håpet at skulle skje"
> "That was not what I had hoped that would happen"
>
That's no jungle, unless you stick to your latin grammar. Basically
any NP can be promoted to first place out of any depth of nested
sentences.

> This kind of manipulations are amazingly frequent in spoken
Norwegian
> (at least in my dialect), and I think it is an acceptable
> construction in other Scandinavian languages as well.
>
Very much in Danish.


> A near analogic construction is the double-participle passives. But
> it exists primarily in formal written language. In this
construction
> an object of the subordinate verb is promoted to grammatical
subject
> of the main verb in the passive.
>
> "Tårnet ble vedtatt restaurert for åtte år siden"
> "The tower was decided restored eight years ago"
>
> I think this kind of sentences are ok in Danish
It doesn't sound quite right.

>but I am not sure
> with Swedish. I wonder if it is acceptable in German, this example
is
> actually taken from a discussion on wether it is found in German
and
> I was told by many that it wasn't.


Torsten