Saturday, December 15, 2012

Detail #16: Wackernagel Adpositions

This must exist in some language, for sure. The Wackernagel position is the second spot in a phrase (and according to Newmeyer's Possible and Probable Languages a position beyond which human grammar cannot count - you can have things go in the first position, in the second position, but never a rule that says that something has to go in the third position). If we changed the rules of English so that adpositions went in the Wackernagel position it would make this paragraph come out like this:
This must exist some in language, sure for. The Wackernagel position is the second spot an in phrase (and according Newmeyer's to Possible and Probably Languages a position which beyond human grammar cannot count - you can have things go the in first position, the in second position, but never a rule that says that something has to go the in third position. If we changed the rules English of so that adpositions went the in Wackernagel position would make this paragraph come out this like.

Such a system could easily be a special case in some language, i.e. only under some circumstances is this enforced. Maybe only a subset of all adpositions go in the Wackernagel position, or only when the adpositional phrases are arguments of the verb rather than adverbials, or maybe the adposition is made a preposition (or postposition) if it's especially salient, e.g. correcting which adposition was said or somesuch.

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