Re: Sentences without any subject

"Peter" == Peter T Daniels <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

>> Let's have a look:
>>
>> English:
>> cardinal: one two three four five six
>> ordinal: first second third fourth fifth sixth
>> ^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^
>> 4 irregularities already found among the first six!

Peter> How are "third" and "fifth" "irregular"?

Are you blind?

Is your IQ below that of a 6-year-old?


This very question from you indicates that you're not eligible to
comment on how difficult English is to a L2 learner.



>> German:
>> cardinal: eins zwei drei vier fünf sechs
>> ordinal: erst zweit dritt viert fünft sechst
>> ^^^^ ^^^^^
>> Only 2 irregularities out of six.

Peter> How is "dritte" irregular?

Is your IQ below that of a 3-year-old?


Peter> (Why did you omit the variable suffixes?)

1) They aren't always necessary, as in: "Das ist das zweit höchste
Gebäude der Welt".

2) The examples are already clear without adjectival case suffixes.


>> So, which is more complicated for learners?

Peter> How is either one "complicated for learners"?

Peter> Is there a reason you stopped at '6'?

Those are just examples. You know the difference between
"examples"/"samples" and "exhaustive list"?

Maybe, that distinction is too difficult for a person with an IQ
equivalent to a 3-year-old?



Peter> Name some "exceptions" that English has, that German has no
Peter> analogues to.

>> Optional omission of "that" in relative clauses:

Peter> It's optional. No one, probably, would even notice if you
Peter> didn't omit it in optional positions.

I can't control its presences when it comes to READING and LISTENING. I
cannot make the author/speaker use or omit that "that".

Is that too difficult for you to understand?



>> The optional omission of "that" makes English more difficult to
>> parse.

Peter> Really? What's the Chinese equivalent of the two ways of
Peter> saying it?

There is no Chinese equivalent. Chinese doesn't even have relative
clauses! You're so ignorant.


Peter> AIUI, the English "omitted" version is closer to the Chinese.

Example?



>> To avoid arguing about the tense, let's use present tense:
>>
>> Statement: Er fährt jeden tag nach Frankreich zur Arbeit.
>> Question: Fährt er jeden tag nach Frankreich zur Arbeit?
>>
>> Again, constructing the question is simple: just swap the verb
>> and the subject. English:
>>
>> Statement: He goes to France to work everyday. Question:
>> DOES he GO to France to work everyday?
>>
>> See? It's so complicated. You need to introduce the
>> aux. verb "do", inflect it for the test, AND un-inflect "goes"
>> to infinitive form AND after that, move "does" to the
>> beginning of the sentence. That's so convoluted.

Peter> And that's the only thing you can think of that makes English
Peter> "harder to learn" for a Chinaman?

Again, you cannot tell "example" from "exhaustive list".



>> Chinese (and Japanese, too) forms questions WITHOUT changing
>> word order from the corresponding statement. Rather, we add a
>> question particle <ma> ("ka" for ja) to the end of the
>> statement to turn it into a question. Much simpler. Like a
>> "spoken question mark".

Peter> Really? All those stories about how you append the negation
Peter> of a statement, so that a yes-no question is twice as long as
Peter> it needs to be, are a lie?

Twice as long? Please back your claim with examples!

Anyway, that's irrelevant to the discussion. That doesn't change the
fact that English questions (and negative sentences) are more difficult
to form than German.



--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
.

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