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Ersatzinfinitiv in German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| sbelskie Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4798 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Serbian, French | Message 1 of 11 28 October 2011 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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In cases where you have embedded infinitives such as with "Ich dachte, dass er das haette machen sollen" is this what most people would say? I was having a discussion with my linguistics professor about the oddity of the word order and what in generative grammar might be able to account for it and he said just based on the oddity his guess was that it was prescriptive. That is to say something that isn't naturally part of the language, but instead is taught by grammarians as part of the language, like who/whom or preposition not coming at the end of sentences in English. If that were true we would expect people to say things like "Ich dachte, dass er das machen sollen haette." Just like people in Englsih say "Who are you going with? even though it is a "mistake".
My impression was that this doesn't happen in the German example, but I have too limited exposure to be sure. I was wondering if any native speaker could comment on whether a native speaker would ever say the second German sentence. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5600 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes  | Message 2 of 11 28 October 2011 at 11:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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A native speaker would never ever say "Ich dachte, daß er das machen sollen hätte."
"Ich dachte, daß er das hätte machen sollen" is quite normal speech. As a native speaker, I don't feel the oddity of embedded infinitives and I could not quote any rule for the word order, but Germans are used to this crowd of verbal forms at the end of sentences. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sbelskie Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4798 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Serbian, French | Message 3 of 11 29 October 2011 at 12:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks that was basically my impression I just wanted to get the opinion of a native speaker
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| csidler Diglot Pro Member Australia chadsidler.com Joined 4824 days ago 51 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 11 12 January 2012 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Wouldn't you just say: ich dachte, dass er das machen sollte... Problem solved...
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| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5767 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 5 of 11 14 January 2012 at 1:39am | IP Logged | ||
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I've got a question about this. Someone I know wrote the following clause...
"und jetzt weiß ich mehr über Hockey, Snooker und Baseball, als ich träumen hätte lassen." ... and I corrected it to "hätte träumen lassen". I was then told that this was wrong because they'd checked with a native (Austrian) German speaker who said that hätte träumen lassen" sounded awkward. I am quite stubborn and don't believe this - opinions? Thanks :] Jack 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gosiak Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5127 days ago 241 posts - 361 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Norwegian, Welsh | Message 6 of 11 14 January 2012 at 3:43am | IP Logged | ||
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I would say "als ich mir hätte träumen lassen" but I'm not German. I think that 'mir' is
an important part of that sentence. Edited by Gosiak on 14 January 2012 at 3:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5321 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 7 of 11 14 January 2012 at 6:24am | IP Logged | ||
Both are wrong, but your version is slightly better because it's only lacking "mir." I.e. Gosiak's version "als ich mir hätte träumen lassen" was spot on. This particular expression always requires a reflexive pronoun. For example: er hätte [es] sich nicht/nie träumen lassen, dass ... = he'd never thought it possible that / he'd never have dreamt that ... Of course, you can always rephrase it as: "und jetzt weiß ich mehr über Hockey, Snooker und Baseball, als ich je geträumt hätte." Here's another example that uses this construction: Ich habe mehr Geld verdient als ich je geträumt hätte. = I made more money than I ever thought possible. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| LebensForm Senior Member Austria Joined 5051 days ago 212 posts - 264 votes Studies: German | Message 8 of 11 15 January 2012 at 3:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Okay, perhaps silly question... but when you have daß involved as in "ich dachte, daß... the conjugated verb does not havw to move to the end? I always thought it did... maybe I am missing something, my brain is mush atm, so someone please inform me about that... danke!
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