Two Types of Coordination in Clasue Combining - Essay Example

German is considered an SVO language (Fagan 146), which means that the underlying word order is Subject – Verb – Object in a phrase that is complete and can stand alone. Verb final position is an older form, inherited from Indo-European, and Fagan explains that “Verb second or middle position is an innovation in OHG as in the other Germanic languages and is the norm in declarative sentences” (Fagan, p. 193). Fagan calls this the “verb-second constraint” because strictly speaking the norm in German does not necessarily include the subject in the first position. Many other items can take the first place, so long as the verb remains second, for example:

• Seinem Sohn hat er das Elternhaus geschenkt.

[poss. dative to his] [indir. obj son] [verb has] [sub, he] [def art acc the] [obj house] [verb inf given]

• Sehr oft haben sie Sommersprossen.

[adv very often] [verb have] [subj they] [obj freckles]

• Fußball spielen wollte er. [obj football] [verb inf to play] [verb wanted] [subj he]

(From Fagan p. 131)

In these sentences an indirect object (to his son), an adjectival phrase (very often) and an object (football) are moved to first position in order to create emphasis on these items. The subject is moved back to a position later in the sentence, but the verb stays in the second position. Because German is an inflected language, which gives indication of subject, object, indirect object, etc, in the words themselves,  word order does not need to indicate the function of each item in the sentence, and this allows more ordering flexibility in noun phrases and adjectival phrases.

If two independent or main clauses are joined with a conjunction the word order remains as SVO in both clauses. Sentence 4 is an example of two independent clauses joined with a conjunction.

4)Wir wollten ins Kino, aber wir hatten kein Geld

[subj-we] [verb-wanted] [indir. obj- to cinema [conj-but] [ subj-we] [verb-had] [direct obj-no money]

            In subordinate or dependent clauses however, the word order changes to SOV and the verb follows the object, as in

5)Ich            benutzte   das Werkzeug das         ich dir Vgab

[subj-I] [verb-used] [obj-the tool] [com-that][sub-I] [obj-you] [verb-gave]

I used the tool that I gave you.                            (Monaghan, Gonitzke & Chater 816)

In sentence 5, the first or main clause follows the subject-verb-object order but because the second clause cannot stand alone and is dependent on the main clause the word order changes to subject-object-verb (Monaghan, Gonitzke & Chater 816). If however, the subordinate or dependent clause comes before the main or independent clause the word order is different again. For example:

6)Wahrend er          den reflex punkt          beruhrt,       stellt          er

[while] [subj-he] [obj-the reflex point] [verb-touch] [verb-ask] [sub-he]

die entsprechende frage.

     [object-the corresponding question]                                                  (Verstraete 616)

     While he touches the reflex point, he asks the corresponding question.

Sentence 6 begins with a dependent clause and because this subordinate clause is in first position it is considered to be the first part of the main clause and the word order is SVO. The verb in the main clause follows the verb in the subordinate clause because it is considered the second position in the sentence (Verstraete 616).

When using an infinitive verb in German the infinitive verb goes after the object, as in

• Er hat            seine Meinung       geändert.

[subj-he] [verb-has] [obj-his opinion] [verb inf-change]

He has changed his opinion. (Monaghan, Gonitzke & Chater 816)

The infinite verb in sentence 7 is ‘changed’ and has moved to the final position after the object but the finite verb ‘has’ stays in the second position after the subject in main or independent clauses, which is different from English as can be seen in the translation.

Word ordering is more complicated when using an infinite verb in dependent or subordinate clauses. The finite verb moves and follows the infinite verb after the object, as in:

8)Er   kauft  den Teppich da sie die alte

[subj-he] [verb-buys] [obj-carpet] [comp-since] [subj-they]   [obj-the old one]     

zerstort haben.

[verb inf-destroy] [verb-have]   (Monaghan, Gonitzke & Chater 816)

He buys the carpet since they have destroyed the old one.

Sentence 8 illustrates how instead of the finite verb being in the second position and the infinite verb being in the last position as seen in sentence 6, both verbs move and follow the object but the infinite verb precedes the finite verb (Monaghan, Gonitzke & Chater 816).