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Object pronoun after the verb | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| COF Senior Member United States Joined 5612 days ago 262 posts - 354 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 9 03 June 2012 at 11:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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As far as I'm aware, the only Indo-European languages which place the object pronoun after the verb are English, the North Germanic languages, and oddly, European Portuguese, although when the statement is negative or a question, the pronoun comes before the verb.
Are there any other Indo-European languages which place the object pronoun after the verb, or is this isolated to English and the North Germanic languages? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4625 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 2 of 9 04 June 2012 at 12:23am | IP Logged | ||
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German and Dutch place the object pronoun after a verb in main clauses: Ich sehe dich / Ik zie je.
In Russian, the word order is rather free, but the object pronoun can often be found after the verb: Я вижу тебя / Я тебя вижу. I cannot speak for the other Slavic languages though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4449 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 3 of 9 04 June 2012 at 5:10am | IP Logged | ||
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Slavic languages are mixed:
I love you Te sakam (Macedonian) before the verb Te imam rad (Croatian, Kajkavian) before the verb Te volin (Croatian, Chakavian) before the verb Volim te (Croatian, Shtokavian) after the verb (but with ''attractors'' like subject pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions: Ja te volim, before) Obicham te (Bulgarian) after the verb In Brazilian Portuguese, ''formas de tratamento''' like você, vocês, o senhor and... a gente... go after the verb Eu te amo (before) = Eu amo você (after) both mean ''I love you'' and are equally used Edited by Medulin on 04 June 2012 at 5:19am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| anamsc2 Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 4340 days ago 85 posts - 186 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan, German Studies: French | Message 4 of 9 04 June 2012 at 8:44am | IP Logged | ||
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In old Spanish (pre-15th century), the object pronouns could appear after the verb.
See here: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posici%C3%B3n_de_pronombres_cl% C3%ADticos
"The pronoun followed the verb, except when the verb was preceded (in the same clause) by another stressed word, like a noun, adverb, stressed pronoun, etc." Keeping that in mind, maybe it's not so odd that the pronoun can also come after the verb in some varieties of Portuguese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6440 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 5 of 9 04 June 2012 at 9:33am | IP Logged | ||
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Latin had a pretty free word order.
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| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4449 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 6 of 9 04 June 2012 at 9:17pm | IP Logged | ||
you are right, both positions were possible TE AMO and AMO TE TE DEUM LAUDAMUS If we apply the rule ''the verb always at the end'' (which was never obligatory though)...The clitic was put before the verb. ;) Edited by Medulin on 04 June 2012 at 9:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kartof Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4847 days ago 391 posts - 550 votes Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish Studies: Danish | Message 7 of 9 04 June 2012 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | ||
I would like to note that this is an exception for Bulgarian as the object pronouns are clitics which don't have stress themselves. As a result, they can't start an independent clause and so they must follow the verb. Like in Shtokavian, if the subject pronoun is present, the correct word ordering would be Аз те обичам (Az te obicham). I'm not sure if it works exactly the same way in Shtokavian, but in Bulgarian there is no special type of word that needs to precede the verb; there just needs to be a word with independent stress before the verb. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6937 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 8 of 9 05 June 2012 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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For the Western and other Southern Slavonic languages, the placement of the direct object pronoun often depends on another unit in the sentence that carries the stress or accent since the pronouns themselves are typically unstressed. As Kartof notes for Bulgarian, these direct object pronouns usually follow a stressed or accented unit and this is related to Wackernagel's Law which holds that clitics immediately follow a clause's first stressed word or phrase (FYI "clitics" are grammatically meaningful units whose characteristics or placement depend on the phonological nature of another phrase or word. Direct object pronouns are an example of "clitics").
As Medulin notes, the standard order in BCMS/SC is for the direct object's pronoun (the unstressed version, that is) to observe Wackernagel's Law and be in second position. Yet this only sometimes means that the direct object's pronoun immediately follows the conjugated verb since there's a hierarchy of clitics and it can end up further away from the conjugated verb in some instances. Volim te. "I love you" Ja te volim. "I love you." Volim li te? "Do I love you?" (note how te gets "pushed away" from the verb by the interrogative enclitic li) A rather extreme example would be: Molim te, mogao li bi mi ga pokazati? "Please, would you be able to show it to me?" (the direct object's pronoun ga "him/it" gets "pushed away" even more from the verb by the other enclitics). The order of the enclitics in BCMS/SC is: 1) interrogative li 2a) conditional auxillary (bih, bi etc.) 2b) future auxillary (ću, ćeš etc.) 2c) present auxillary excepting that of 3rd person sing. (sam, si, smo, ste, su) 3) indirect object's pronouns (mi, ti etc.) 4) direct object's pronouns (me, te etc.) 5) reflexive pronoun se 6) present auxillary of 3rd person sing. je (Source) Because of the strict hierarchy of enclitics, saying *Ja volim te would be perceived as "ungrammatical", "wrong" or at best unusual by native speakers There are stressed versions of the direct object pronouns and in addition to their distinct sound because they're two syllables rather than one, they also signify emphasis. These can precede the verb but they are not as frequently used. E.g. Volim te. "I love you" (most common sequence with emphasis on "love") Ja te volim. "I love you" (emphasis on "I") Volim tebe. / Tebe volim "I love you" (emphasis on "you" with the second sequence being even less common than the first one.) Slovenian clitics usually adhere to Wackernagel's Law and so typically occur immediately after the main clause's first stressed element. Ljubim te. "I love you" Jaz te ljubim. "I love you" This also means that the direct object's pronoun can be placed quite far from the conjugated verb if there are other enclitics. As in BCMS/SC, Slovenian's enclitics follow a strict hierarchy with the result that the direct object's pronouns can follow the conjugated verb but not necessarily be adjacent to this verb. This hierarchy differs from what's used in BCMS/SC per this description. A more elaborate example is: Jaz sem si ju kupil. "I bought it [her] for myself." (ju is the feminine direct object pronoun and follows the present auxiliary sem and the reflexive pronoun si) Finally there are stressed versions of the direct object's pronouns and these may precede or follow the conjugated verb or under certain conditions even begin the sentence as in BCMS/SC. Jaz tebe ljubim. Jaz ljubim tebe. Tebe ljubim. In Czech, Polish and Slovak, the principles are somewhat similar to what happens in Southern Slavonic with the tendency for the unstressed version of the direct object's pronoun to follow immediately the first stressed word or unit in the sentence. "I love you" (most common, certain emphasis on "love") Miluji tě. (Czech) Milujem ťa. (Slovak) Kocham cię. (Polish) "I love you" (emphasis on "I") Já tě miluji. (Czech) Ja ťa milujem. (Slovak) Ja cię kocham. (Polish) Stressed versions of the direct object's pronouns are needed for emphasis on the direct object and needn't follow the verb. As accented elements, they may precede the verb or even begin the clause. Jen tebe miluji. "I love only you." (Czech) Teba milujem. "I love you. / It's you whom I love." (Slovak) Kocham cię. - Ja ciebie też (kocham). "I love you. - I love you too." (Polish - the response using ciebie is strong enough that the verb is understood and so may be omitted.) In Russian and Ukrainian, they seem to rely on just what other Slavs think of as stressed versions of the direct object's pronouns. There are short versions of the direct object's pronouns in Russian at least but they are colloquial. Я тебя люблю / Я люблю тебя (Russian - cf. Я тя люблю using the colloquial version of тебя) Я тебе кохаю / Я кохаю тебе (Ukrainian) My understanding is that both variants for each language are correct with some native speakers preferring the first variant because it "sounds better" when the direct object pronoun is in the second position. From what I've learned so far in Latvian, direct object pronouns usually adhere to Wackernagel's Law and so are in "second position" Mīlu tevi. / Es tevi mīlu. "I love you"* Dzirdu viņu. / Es viņu dzirdu. "I hear him/her" *I have seen on Latvian websites also Es mīlu tevi. which does not violate Wackernagel's Law IF we interpret Es mīlu as the stressed unit comprising two words rather than a narrower interpretation that Es acts as the first stressed unit) 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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