• Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyzM
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    5 days ago

    V2 is basically SOV with a twist, “if the clause is declarative and non-dependent move the last verb to the second position”. That explains why, in a string with 3 or more verbs, Latin and German would agree on almost all of them - except one. While SVO languages invert the whole chain; e.g.

    • [Latin, SOV, default] Ego tangum ballare[1] discere[2] uolo[3].
    • [German, V2] Ich will[3] Tango tanzen[1] lernen[2].
    • [English, SOV] I want[3] to learn[2] to dance[1] tango.
    • [Italian, SOV] Io voglio[3] imparare[2] a ballare[1] il tango.

    Focus on the verbs I’ve numbered [1] and [2] - both Latin and German would use them in this order, while English and Italian go [2] then [1] instead.

    (inb4: I added the “ego” and “io” just for the sake of sentence formation, it sounds weirdly emphatic. I also had to backport “tango” as “tangus”)