Talk:Scrambling (linguistics)

New article

I have just recently revised the article significantly. I invite feedback. How can/should the article be improved from here? --Tjo3ya (talk) 04:33, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

generative term?

it appears to me that scrambling is mainly (exclusively?) used in generative approaches. If this is true, this should probably be stated. I take it to be a theory-internal term for "free word order" and have not come across the term in functional/typological literature Jasy jatere (talk) 10:09, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

That could be, indeed. It is very widely used in generative approaches, certainly. Different authors may intend to pick out different phenomena with (though Ross was ecumenical in his use). It certainly no longer has the necessarily transformational interpretation of the early days (that is, there are plenty of generative linguists who use 'scrambling' to refer to a class of phenomena, without subscribing to the view that one or the other word order is 'basic' or derived from another--see the papers in the van Riemsdijk and Corver volume for examples). I'll add a note to this effect in the footnote on the term. Mundart (talk) 10:25, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Confusing German example

In the first German example, consider the difference between these two lines:

a. dass der Mann der Frau die Bohnen gab
c. dass der Frau der Mann die Bohnen gab

The text says they are all "acceptable" and implies they all have the same meaning. But if the above two are equivalent in meaning, how is it determined whether it is the man giving the beans to the woman or the woman giving the beans to the man? Are there subject/object markers that aren't immediately obvious? Or does this phrase mean "between the man and the woman the beans were given" and the subject/object assignments must be inferred from context? Or do these two lines actually mean two different things? -- Beland (talk) 17:20, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

They mean the same thing. The dative der marks der Frau as the recipient. Awareness of how the world works take care of the rest. --Tjo3ya (talk) 02:32, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I still don't understand. Both "Mann" and "Frau" are preceded by "der", so how to tell which is the recipient? -- Beland (talk) 08:29, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

The default forms, i.e. the nominative case, are der Mann (masc.) and die Frau (fem.). In the dative case, der becomes dem and die becomes der. These are basic facts taught in the first semester of German class. They are not a problem for anyone who has ever studied a language that has a robust case system (Latin, Russian, German, etc.).--Tjo3ya (talk) 08:58, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Sorry but you are wrong. I am not sure why they would teach you something like this. Conjunctions that move the verb to the end have to be followed by the subject of the clause. The examples are simply totally wrong. No one would accept sentences like that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doppelkammertoaster (talk • contribs) 17:00, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

The messages are different, depending on the emphasis of each sentence. Plus: „Sie hat das gesagt, dass wir machen sollten. “ is not acceptable at all. It simply doesn't exist. Then again, most of the examples, as in the german article, meet the spoken language but not so much the written language, which is highly formalized concerning the syntax (see for example the V2 word order). Much more than for the english language, I suppose. The 2nd example above above may happen in poetry. --༄U-ji (talk) 10:25, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

These examples are possible:

a. dass   Kinder gestern Nachbarn Stinkbomben in den Briefkasten   geworfen haben
b. dass   gestern Kinder Nachbarn Stinkbomben in den Briefkasten   geworfen haben
c. dass   dem Nachbarn gestern Kinder Stinkbomben in den Briefkasten   geworfen haben
d. dass   eine Stinkbombe nur Kinder dem Nachbarn in den Briefkasten   werfen würden.
left bracket                       middle field                                                               right bracket

see: Deutsche_Grammatik#Syntax_des_Mittelfelds --༄U-ji (talk) 12:06, 4 December 2021 (UTC)