Dear anyone,
Your duolingo forum registration isn't automaticaly transferred to duome forum so in order to join duome forums you need to register with your existing or any other username and email; in any case it's advised that you choose a new password for the forum.
~ Duome Team

[ARCHIVE] Word Order Inversion when not a Question

User avatar
Fnirk1
Sweden

[ARCHIVE] Word Order Inversion when not a Question

Post by Fnirk1 »

Originally posted by runem https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/4435335

The following is a reply of mine to a question in a sentence discussion. If something is unclear, please don't hesitate to ask about in the comments, and I will clarify the post.
A Learner Asked: Why is it Før de drikker den taler han om vinen and not Før de drikker den han taler om vinen when the sentence is not question?
Questions are, unfortunately, not the only situation in which Danish uses inversion.
Inversion occurs in the following cases:

  • Questions. You know this one :)

  • If an adverb or adverbial phrase precedes the subject in the sentence.

  • If the object precedes the subject (so they stay on either side of the verb).

  • If a subordinate clause comes before the main clause. This could be relative time specifications or conditional statements.

Here are some examples:

  • Object preceding subject: Jeg kender ikke drengen (I do not know the boy) could also be said as Drengen kender jeg ikke (The boy I do not know). Notice the inversion of verb (kender) and subject (jeg).

  • Adverb: Jeg spiser nu (not inverted) meaning I am eating now. If you want to put emphasis on the fact that you're going to eat right now, inversion occurs: Nu spiser jeg (Now I (will) eat).

  • Adverbial phrase: Vi gør det i morgen (not inverted, we do it tomorrow) can also be said as I morgen gør vi det (inverted, lit. tomorrow do we it, but same meaning).

  • This can also be more complicated: Efter vi er færdige med skolen i morgen, gør vi det (inverted) meaning After we are done with school tomorrow, we will do it except the verb and subject are switched in the Danish for "we will do it". The non-inverted version is Vi gør det efter vi er færdige med skolen i morgen.

  • Subordinate clause: Hvis katten er sulten, spiser den meaning if the cat is hungry, it eats. Inversion again. Non-inverted: Katten spiser, hvis den er sulten (the cat eats, if it is hungry).

This is probably one of the hardest parts of Danish! So don't fret :) If you don't get it right, you will still be understood perfectly.
There's a very technical explanation on Wikipedia which deals with the positioning of words in inversion. There's also more here, here (scroll to "Word Order") and here.
So, to conclude, in this sentence a subordinate clause precedes the main clause and inversion occurs. In the following, I'll mark the subordinate clause by putting it in parentheses:

  • Han taler om vinen (før de drikker den) meaning He talks about the wine (before they drink it)

Because we want to emphasize that something occurs before they drink the wine, we want to put the subordinate clause at the head of the sentence. According to the rules above, inversion must occur then:

  • (Før de drikker den) taler han om vinen meaning (Before they drink it) he talks about the wine.

:sweden: N :gb: C1 :ru: B2 :fr: :es:B1 :de: :it: :netherlands: A1

Return to “Archive”