Agreed. However, I do not see "I don't know" as clearer than "I know not".
In my understanding, grammaticalisation of do support originated in negative questions, radiated from there to positive questions and finally to negative declaratives and negative imperatives.
And 'effort' may be seen in keeping two patterns. I wohllde not awyse yow (Wallage 2005: 297b, 'I would not advise you'), he schuld not begynne (247a), it may nat be (236c), was not founden (102b), dyd not I send (78), etc. But: —Did you see? —I saw not ~ I did not (see).
Yes, that is a popular and not implausible theory. But in the end, there is no substantial evidence. Do as an auxiliary verb for constructing periphrastic verb forms is very likely pre-Proto-Germanic, as Proto-Germanic most likely already a fully developed past tense system of endings, the one we call "regular" in modern English, derived from a periphrastic construction (he loved = he love did). With such a long history the beyond reconstructible Proto-Germanic, it is difficult say with any degree of confidence where when and how it originated.
In Europe, I'd say Finnish, which fully conjugates a negative verb as well as changing the form of the verb carrying the meaning according to tense.
In Russian tag questions are indeed more simple and, as one could put it, less grammaticalized (literary ~~"whether not so?"; colloquial "so" + intensifier, "so?", "yes?"/"no?", etc.); it doesn't make you parse the surrounding syntax at all.
A number of languages do that to the confusion of native (standard) English speakers who consider that two negatives cancel each other out. When it comes to the negation of affirmative sentences many languages keep it simple.
I don't quite know what you mean. I can't detected anything out of the ordinary about Englisch negations or questions you can't also find in other related languages. The only specularity is do-support which is but a minor feature as do-support is a general feature or English and exists also in other Germanic languages and dialects and the only uniqueness is the grammaticalisation of do-support.
This is not ok in English. The only English speakers in the U.S. that would feel inclined to do that is a Latin speaker. We never, ever begin a question with a question mark. Though we may just shoot you a ??? in general puzzlement or confusion at something said in a message.
Agreed. My list applies generally and not just to English.
I am not saying that English does things other languages do not do, but that the rules are not simple. Modal and auxiliary verbs are not treated the same as other verbs. The word order has to change in some contracted forms: "Are we not?" changes to "Aren't we?" To add to it all, "do" does a lot of work in English.
Once you understand that these quirks originate from reconciling the old V2 word order (as in yesterday came he home early) with the new SVO word order (yesterday, he came home early), all of this gets very intuitive. At least for me this was immediately intuitive when I learned English in school. But I have of course the advantage of coming from a language where V2 word order is still alive and my intuition was already tuned to it.
I think most U.S. English speakers would just say "He came home early yesterday". Time is usually given later in the statement, like "I'm going to the park tomorrow around noon, if you want to come." or "Im going to the park around noon tomorrow, if you want to come." I think the second one rolls off the tongue more fluidly though. Noon's final n seems so resolute to the fluid W in Tomorrow. Plus the syllable count rolls off the tongue more fluid. Like the Cellar Door debate with Tolkien.
Berndf was merely illustrating the order. In Modern English there are only some traces of the V2 order indeed, mostly if not exclusively involving certain adverbs (here, there, then, now) - including, of course, "there is/are" existential construction. In many cases such vestiges are stylistically colored too.
My point is that English moved from one way of negating all verbs and asking yes/no questions to two ways according to what sort of verb it is, thereby introducing a complication which did not previously exist. Is there any other language which has done that?
Did you mean I haven't got any eggs? Both forms exist but only the latter is taught in school. I haven't any ... is probably considered a minor variant of I don't have any ... that isn't worth topicalising.
No.
OK. As I said, this form isn't handled in school English. At least not when was at school for the reason I said. Since the mid 20th century, I don't have any XXX dwarfs I haven't any XXX in frequency.
I see that Hulalessar wrote "question marker", not "question mark", meaning a "word that signals that the sentence is a question". Some languages, like French and Polish begin with the question marker (est ce que, czy), other like Finnish and Japanese put the marker at the end (-ko, ka).
Russian puts "li" immediately after the verb, which is fronted (though simultaneous emphatic fronting theoretically may place other parts before the verb). But then again, it's a bookish model in Russian, which otherwise goes without interrogative particles at all. Overall, VO languages tend to place the marker near the beginning of the sentence, while OV languages usually place it at the end. (Finnish is basically SVO, but historically FU languages are SOV.)
Not at all. The internal logics of a grammar systems have nothing to do with common sense. They can be arbitrary choices or accidental developments or whatever. We don't know what caused our ancestors 2000 or 3000 years ago to come up with V2 grammar and there is absolutely nothing "common sense" from which you could deduce any specific logic. It is just a set of rules that gives structure to sentences. The only thing that matters is that the combination of V2 syntax with SVO semantics (main verb comes after the subject) is the guiding principle from which these forms can be explained with relative ease and in a consistent way.
I wouldn't really describe V2 as some independent logic; essentially it's just SVO with additional rules. When we define the basic word order, we merely state what order is the default one. Both for German and for Russian it's SVO (though it seems colloquial Russian is drifting towards SOV). V2 here is not some other particular order but the strict rule describing possible dislocations for SVO. In Russian, on the other hand, the word order is dominated by pragmatics (a combination of theme vs. rheme and emphases of various kinds), so there are no strict rules which could define it basing solely on the formal sentence structure at all (even despite it being a major factor). Still, for both languages the default, unmarked order is SVO.
How so? The adverb here is fronted for a specific pragmatic reason - and then fronting it naturally demands putting everything else after the verb.
And Russian word order easily produces SVO, OVS and SOV, and in certain contexts can also produce VSO, VOS and (in contrastive sentences) OSV. Does it mean there is no default word order? Nope, it really doesn't, even though the default word order involves certain default pragmatic conditions to be satisfied (in particular, a topicalized, non-rhematic subject - which can be considered the pragmatic value of the subject cross-linguistically). Ultimately, the key differences with German can be summed up as German having the pivotal V2 rule (which in the end makes the word order much more dependent on the sentence's formal structure) and Russian missing it.
I was talking about the relative position of subject and object (Adv-V-S-O vs. Adv-V-O-S), not about the position of the adverb.
In the end it doesn't matter if you call V2 a "word order" or a "rule". The significance of V2 in the context of this thread is that V2 and SVO are in contradiction in questions and that explains the grammaticisation of do-support with simple tenses and by extension of negatives.
In school, we were explicitly taught that you can only shorten have and have not if they are an auxiliary verb. So, I haven't any eggs. would have gotten me points deducted in an English test.
BBC programme: I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue
But grammar is a system of rules. So, if you say that grammar has internal logic you are just saying that rules have rules.
I would say all contracted forms are colloquialisms.
I think that is accurate in AE. But maybe not in BE.
Two BE examples and a song title. Titles and song lyrics don't have grammar rules. In all three cases, AE sentences (sentences have grammar) would say "I haven't got".
That's a... strong statement.
But that's the problem: it's basically about have vs. have got, not really about haven't any vs. don't have any. "Have no" is another possible alternative.
Up to a point in that the examples in post 41 can be "corrected" to satisfy OBrasilo's English teachers by inserting "got". It is though worth pointing out as an aside that when it comes to style rather than grammar, the use of "got" is discouraged by some English teachers in both the UK and the US. This article says it all: A Word, Please: Lessons on the use of 'got'. And as an aside to the aside, "gotten" is not considered grammatical in Standard British English.
Agreed. Often in movies, songs or literature, the prose can be simple, poetic, or other. Often breaking typical rules set as guidelines till one is more efficient with the language. Some times one can wax on poetically just to peacock and sound smart. Had a kid in school once that spoke to everyone all fanciful and everyone just thought he was talking down to them and snobby. Context and situation can matter a lot. If one were to read A Song of Ice and Fire, one would find completely different prose from chapter to chapter due to the narrative device of each chapter being a different characters Point of View. With some characters being children or adults, male or female, educated or not. Sometimes purposefully using bad grammar to illustrate these differences. Is Italian proper? Im sure a Roman wouldn't think so since Italian came from the uneducated lower class known as Vulgar-Latin. The term "Vulgar" denoting the Roman's feelings on it. These were simply two different social classes. Should a poet for the people write in such fanciful prose as if for a King or Emperor? Who is he trying to connect to and communicate to?
| Tense/Aspect/Mood | Rough English Example | Affirmative declines based on... | Negative Declines based on... |
| Simple Present | I go to school | Person, Number | Gender, Number |
| Simple Past | I went to school | Gender, Number | Gender, Number |
| Simple Future | I will go to School | Person, Number | Person, Number |
| Present Perfect* | I have gone to school | Person, Gender, Number | Gender, Number |
| Past Perfect* | I had gone to school | Gender, Number | Gender, Number |
| Future Perfect | I will have gone to school | Person, Gender, Number | Person, Gender, Number |
| Present Imperfect | I regularly go to school | Person, Gender, Number | X (tense seldom used) |
| Past Imperfect | I regularly went to school | Gender, Number | X (tense seldom used) |
| Subjunctive | ...that I go to school | Person, Number | Person, Number |
| Conditional / Counterfactual | ...I were to go to school... | Gender, Number | Gender, Number |
I find anything different interesting.
