From Newsgroup: sci.lang

Do we know when and how* German and Dutch acquired their V2 inversion
and verb-last-in-subclauses features?
Medieval examples (often) show unaltered order.
Scandinavian word order seems a mix of English and inverting order.

* eg, standardising authority such as Bible translators?
Thanks,
--
guido wugi
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From Newsgroup: sci.lang

On Thu, 7 Aug 2025, guido wugi wrote:

Do we know when and how* German and Dutch acquired their V2 inversion and verb-last-in-subclauses features?
Medieval examples (often) show unaltered order.
Scandinavian word order seems a mix of English and inverting order.

* eg, standardising authority such as Bible translators?
Thanks,

Luther had V2 inversion but verb-last not as often as would be normal
today:

| 1Habt acht auf eure Almosen, da|f ihr die nicht gebet vor den
| Leuten, da|f ihr von ihnen gesehen werdet; ihr habt anders keinen
| Lohn bei eurem Vater im Himmel.
| 2Wenn du Almosen gibst, sollst du nicht lassen vor dir posaunen,
| wie die Heuchler tun in den Schulen und auf den Gassen, auf da|f
| sie von den Leuten gepriesen werden. Wahrlich ich sage euch: Sie
| haben ihren Lohn dahin.
| 3Wenn du aber Almosen gibst, so la|f deine linke Hand nicht wissen,
| was die rechte tut,
| 4auf da|f dein Almosen verborgen sei; und dein Vater, der in das
| Verborgene sieht, wird dir's vergelten ||ffentlich.
[Luther-Bibel 1912: Das Matth|nusevangelium. Digitale Bibliothek
Band 29: Die Luther-Bibel, S. 8464 (vgl. Mt 6, 1-4)]

Fact is, however, that the 1912 text is indeed very close to the 1545
text except the spelling. Now, the 1912 was severely archaic already
in 1912, both in the choice of expression, in its sometimes archaic
morphology ("gebet") and in the simplified (nearly English) word
order; normal word order of the same words would be:

Habt auf eure Almosen acht, da|f ihr die nicht vor den Leuten gebet,
da|f ihr von ihnen gesehen werdet; ihr habt anders keinen Lohn bei
eurem Vater im Himmel. Wenn du Almosen gibst, sollst du nicht vor
dir posaunen lassen, wie die Heuchler in den Schulen und auf den
Gassen tun, auf da|f sie von den Leuten gepriesen werden.

Contemporary German avoiding archaic words could for instance be:

Achtet auf eure Almosen, da|f ihr sie nicht vor den Leuten gebt, um
von ihnen gesehen zu werden, sonst bekommt ihr daf|+r keine
Anerkennung bei eurem Vater im Himmel. Wenn du Almosen gibst,
sollst du das nicht herumposaunen, wie es die Heuchler in den
Schulen und auf der Stra|fe tun, damit die Leute gut |+ber sie reden.
--
Helmut Richter

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From Newsgroup: sci.lang

On 2025-08-07, guido wugi <wugi@brol.invalid> wrote:

Do we know when and how* German and Dutch acquired their V2 inversion
and verb-last-in-subclauses features?
Medieval examples (often) show unaltered order.
Scandinavian word order seems a mix of English and inverting order.

* eg, standardising authority such as Bible translators?

I don't think German and Dutch share much Bible translation history.

Alas, I haven't yet read a history of German. The closest I've
come is

Damaris N|+bling et al.
Historische Sprachwissenschaft des Deutschen:
Eine Einf|+hrung in die Prinzipien des Sprachwandels

which explicitly does not cover the history of German, but merely
picks some examples from there to illustrate general principles of
language change.

What I can glimpse from the chapter on syntactic change:

PIE is thought to have had SOV order, so verb final position is
simply conservative.

Old High German word order was freer than today. In main clauses,
the verb could be initial, final, or in second position. This was
driven by pragmatics: when a new discourse referent is introduced,
the verb moves to initial position. (A relic of this is the
verb-initial order frequently used in the opening lines of jokes:
"Kommt ein Pferd in die Kneipe ...") If the referent is already
known, the verb moves into second position.

Already in the 11th century, V2 is dominant. In dependent clauses,
three quarters are already verb-final; by the 14th century this is
the norm; by the 18th verb-final position has become fixed.

So in a slow process, over centuries, an originally optional word
order became fixed. The _why_ is a lot harder to explain, and
adding more observations, e.g. a correlated increase in the number
of subordinating conjunctions, does little to separate cause from
effect.
--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de
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Sun, 10 Aug 2025 19:13:38 -0000 (UTC): Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> scribeva:

(A relic of this is the
verb-initial order frequently used in the opening lines of jokes:
"Kommt ein Pferd in die Kneipe ...")

I rather think that is a shortened V2, like rCLStellt euch mal vor, es
kommt ein Pferd in die Kneipe ...rCY. In Dutch rCL(Er) komt een man bij de dokter ...rCY.
--
Ruud Harmsen, https://rudhar.com
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From Newsgroup: sci.lang

Op 10/08/2025 om 21:13 schreef Christian Weisgerber:

On 2025-08-07, guido wugi <wugi@brol.invalid> wrote:

Do we know when and how* German and Dutch acquired their V2 inversion
and verb-last-in-subclauses features?
Medieval examples (often) show unaltered order.
Scandinavian word order seems a mix of English and inverting order.

* eg, standardising authority such as Bible translators?

I don't think German and Dutch share much Bible translation history.

Some mutual influence source must have been there, for a largely
parallel standardised result in both languages. Opinions? (Folk speech continuum, learned speech, church, ...?)

Alas, I haven't yet read a history of German. The closest I've
come is

Damaris N|+bling et al.
Historische Sprachwissenschaft des Deutschen:
Eine Einf|+hrung in die Prinzipien des Sprachwandels

which explicitly does not cover the history of German, but merely
picks some examples from there to illustrate general principles of
language change.

What I can glimpse from the chapter on syntactic change:

PIE is thought to have had SOV order, so verb final position is
simply conservative.

Old High German word order was freer than today. In main clauses,
the verb could be initial, final, or in second position. This was
driven by pragmatics: when a new discourse referent is introduced,
the verb moves to initial position. (A relic of this is the
verb-initial order frequently used in the opening lines of jokes:
"Kommt ein Pferd in die Kneipe ...") If the referent is already
known, the verb moves into second position.

Already in the 11th century, V2 is dominant. In dependent clauses,
three quarters are already verb-final; by the 14th century this is
the norm; by the 18th verb-final position has become fixed.

So in a slow process, over centuries, an originally optional word
order became fixed. The _why_ is a lot harder to explain, and
adding more observations, e.g. a correlated increase in the number
of subordinating conjunctions, does little to separate cause from
effect.

V2 seems logical enough after all.
More enigmatic is the verb final order in dependent clauses. Hardly
though by way of inherited verb final order of PIE, don't you think?
--
guido wugi
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