Xref: utzoo comp.ai:1250 sci.lang:1776 sci.lang.japan:24
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!botter!klipper!biep
From: biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.lang,sci.lang.japan
Subject: Re: words order in English and Japanese
Message-ID: <975@klipper.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 19 Jan 88 12:58:16 GMT
References: <1671@russell.STANFORD.EDU> <275@draken.nada.kth.se>
Reply-To: biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 47

In article <1671@russell.STANFORD.EDU>,
	nakashim@russell.stanford.edu (Hideyuki Nakashima) writes:
>I came up with a theory to explain the difference in word orders
>between English and Japanese.  This is a very naive theory.  Any
>comments are welcome.
>
>In English, verbs come very early in the sentence.  Second position in
>declarative and the first position in imperative.  In Japanese, verbs
>come at the end of sentences.
> [goes on to hypothesize that this might be the result of a hunters/farmers
>  difference: (English) hunters need to be understood quickly.]

[Others mention:
	- Farming appeared much earlier in Britain than in Japan
	- Latin has verbs at the end too, French hasn't.
		]

In article <275@draken.nada.kth.se>,
	d85-kai@nada.kth.se (Kai-Mikael J{{-Aro) writes:
>Verbs usually come at the end of sentences in German as well and I'm
>not convinced that the Germans are more of a farming people than the
>English. (In fact, English *is* a Germanic language.)

German (and Dutch) seem to form something like an intermediary form between
English/French and Latin: in top-level sentences verbs come in the second
position, and in lower-level ones they come at the end:

Dutch examples:
Ik *zie* hem  (I *see* him)
Morgen *zal* ik hem zien  (Tomorrow *shall* I him see -- note the inversion,
	necessary to keep the verb at the second place!)
Ik *geloof*, dat ik hem *zie* (I *believe*, that I him *see* -- in the
	second-level sentence, the verb appears at the end.)

This feature makes, that one cannot just call a parser recursively on
sub-sentences, like in English: the first level has other rules than the
rest.

A specialty of Dutch is furthermore, that the form of the verb can depend on
whether the subject comes before or after it:

Jij *loopt* daar (You walk there)
Daar *loop* jij (There walk you -- note the missing "t"!)
-- 
						Biep.  (biep@cs.vu.nl via mcvax)
	"Law" is the name given to a collection of rules describing
	how to act with people that do not follow the law.