--- In norse_course@egroups.com, Deep Stream <DeepStream@...> wrote:

>
> 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".

[snip]

> "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?

Yes, that's what I meant. I guess I didn't explain that both because
I hadn't thought that far and because I didn't want to over-
complicate anyway. It's good that you mention it.

> Related to that, the verb seems to be the first
> or second *non-conjunction* in the sentence.
> Conjunctions (or phrases acting as conjunctions
> like "því 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 Eiríkr is not a thief."

Well, I kind of expressed this in my monologue; conjunctions often
connect sentences, like "but" there, in which case they aren't really
part of the sentence and thus don't count.

> ? 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.

Wouldn't that word order make it a question? That's how it works in
Icelandic, English, Scandinavian, or just every modern Germanic
language, I presume.

Anyway, thank you for noting this. The point is that people shouldn't
take literally that the verb must be the second "word". The truth is
that there can't be more than one *phrase* (noun phrase or adverbial
phrase) before the main verb of the verb phrase. This usually means
that the order is "noun phrase > verb phrase > ...", unless an
adverbial phrase is added (usually to indicate time), in which case
the order becomes "adverbial phrase > main verb > noun phrase > rest
of verb phrase".

Óskar