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English ,the less Germanic of the ... ? | ||
Tags: Germanic Languages | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4030 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 41 of 52 04 February 2014 at 1:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't care about cases, languages can be very straight forward yet highly inflecting such as Turkish or they can be near isolating yet full of difficult grammatical "specifications" and pronunciation rules such as Burmese whilst something like Mandarin is both uninflecting and nearly dead. But you could have something that is highly inflecting, full of specification, and extremely difficult to pronounce like Chechen (50 vowels/diphthongs!) even! I wouldn't expect English to be like Chechen, many languages undergo admixture and foreign influence. But even what is happening is too much for English, many other widely spoken languages manage to hold on to features or create ones to replace disappeared ones and keep things at a decent level. English is simplifying and losing even more features, yet even creoles are gaining complexities, a strange paradox. Mind you, English has the smallest amount of vowels compared to the other standardized varieties of Germanic language. American English with only 10 has the least. Maybe English is already as far gone as Mandarin. Edited by Stolan on 04 February 2014 at 3:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4288 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 42 of 52 04 February 2014 at 2:37am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think that "sicker" or "sikker" is the Old English equivalent for "zeker" in Dutch and
"säker" in Swedish, i.e. "I shall sikker prepare dinner soon". English started to use "certaintly", which sounds quite similar to French "certainement". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4842 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 43 of 52 04 February 2014 at 11:58am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm afraid you misunderstood the point. The discussion was not about creating a passive for "to get". It was about using "to get" as a modal verb for constructing a passive sentence like in: "He gets corrected a lot". Sentences like this one cannot be formed with "erhalten", "bekommen", or "kriegen". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 44 of 52 04 February 2014 at 11:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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No, nor in Dutch. You'd just use a passive. Edited by tarvos on 04 February 2014 at 12:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4030 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 45 of 52 04 February 2014 at 4:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Is there a bekommen construction then?
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| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4842 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 46 of 52 04 February 2014 at 4:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
The "bekommen" (or "kriegen"/"erhalten") construction is confined to a few fixed expressions: Etwas geschenkt bekommen Etwas geschickt bekommen Etwas erklärt bekommen I really can't think of more examples. However, these aren't really passive constructions, as the affected person is always the subject in these sentences. In contrast, the affected person would be the dative object in a passive construction. Compare: "Ich bekomme einen Schal geschenkt" vs. "Mir wird ein Schal geschenkt". Edited by Josquin on 04 February 2014 at 5:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4030 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 47 of 52 04 February 2014 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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English allows indirect objects to become subjects, this could just be an exception in German:
There are some strange sentences in English that can't always be translated directly. I want it fixed. I saw it passed around. (Most would say "I saw it get passed around" the other version is disappearing, another failure again to maintain this technique) I was given a book. This bed has been slept in. Dogs are said to be smarter than cats. etc. Edited by Stolan on 04 February 2014 at 11:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4842 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 48 of 52 04 February 2014 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
No, these are definitely no passive sentences. German does not allow for dative objects to become subjects the way English does. I know that not all English constructions can be translated directly into German and vice versa. What's your point? Edited by Josquin on 04 February 2014 at 6:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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