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Pronominal Adverbs in English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 15 16 May 2014 at 12:45am | IP Logged | ||
The normal word order would be "with something". When can "with" then be the last word in a sentence? Only in two cases: when the regimen is missing, or when it comes earlier in the sentence. I know I have heard the expression "be with": "Are you with?", "Yes, I'm with". And also constructions like "this is the person I'm here with". And even a native speaker wouldn't be able to convince me that these expressions aren't good English - I would start wondering where the hidden camera was. Similarly I know that "therewith" is distinctly oldfashioned and rare - though it could be used in jest: "I grabbed the stick and beat the old man therewith". But in normal language it would always be "I grabbed the stick and beat the old man with it". And it would take an awful lot of genuine examples from native speakers to change my ideas about the relative frequency of these two constructions. Edited by Iversen on 16 May 2014 at 12:46am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5321 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 10 of 15 16 May 2014 at 10:30am | IP Logged | ||
IMHO, it's usually a bad idea to adopt syntactic features of a foreign language, even if it's a (somewhat) related language. IMHO, German and Dutch are even closer than English and Dutch, but it has never crossed my mind to consciously adopt Dutch syntactic features that Standard German is lacking. For example, Dutch has the pattern: zijn + aan het + infinitive Ik ben aan het lezen. = I'm reading. In some regions of Germany you might hear a very similar pattern, which is still considered non-standard German: *Ich bin am lesen. = Ich lese gerade. = I'm reading. ("am" is a contraction of the German equivalent of aan (an) and the definite article "dem") In spite of these similarities, I can't simply adopt the Dutch pattern. IMHO, pretty much the only place where you could legitimately use your non-standard split adverb translations would be a hyperliteral translation in a textbook. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4623 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 11 of 15 16 May 2014 at 11:50am | IP Logged | ||
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What about "outwith"?
Used frequently in Scotland but struggles to find a place in English dictionaries. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5321 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 12 of 15 16 May 2014 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Do UK lawyers still use forthwith (=ASAP) in legalese?
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| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4291 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 13 of 15 17 May 2014 at 4:53am | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting about the Dutch to German, perhaps the split is unique to Dutch then. But I
know that I have replaced [preposition + pronoun] with pronomial adverbs in reports, I think that I used at least ten in a long report last time, i.e., This separation is accomplished via a main column followed by two more after it. changed to: This separation is accomplished via a main column followed by two more thereafter. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5321 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 14 of 15 17 May 2014 at 10:01am | IP Logged | ||
I don't think it's unique to Dutch. In Low Saxon (Plattdeutsch) dialects, splitting of pronominal adverbs is still common, but generally frowned upon in Standard German. *Da kann ich nichts für. = Dafür kann ich nichts./Ich kann nichts dafür. = Ik kan er niets aan doen = It's not my fault. (dafür ≈ ervoor) *Da freue ich mich schon drauf. = Darauf freue ich mich schon./Ich freue mich schon darauf. = Ik verheug me al erop. = I'm looking forward to it. (darauf ≈ daarop) Disclaimer: My Dutch has become quite rusty, but the German and English examples should be OK. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 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 15 of 15 18 May 2014 at 10:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Dutch examples are good (correct) but the second is more commonly rendered as "ik verheug
me er al op" or even "Daar verheug ik me al op" (similarly, "ik kan er niets aan doen" compared to "daar kan ik niets aan doen") The er here implies a more neutral thing "I can't do anything about it" as opposed to daar implying something very specific "I can't do anything about THAT". Edited by tarvos on 18 May 2014 at 10:02am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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