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In syntax, verb-second (V2) word order [1] is a sentence structure in which the finite verb of a sentence or a clause is placed in the clause's second position, so that the verb is preceded by a single word or group of words (a single constituent). Examples of V2 in English include (brackets indicating a single constituent):
In linguistics and grammar, a sentence is a linguistic expression, such as the English example "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." In traditional grammar , it is typically defined as a string of words that expresses a complete thought, or as a unit consisting of a subject and predicate .
A Modern English Grammar: Second edition. London: Oxford University Press. p. 390. ISBN 0-19-431327-1. This book is a translation of Schibsbye's three volume Engelsk Grammatik published between 1957 and 1961. Schibsbye was a student of Jespersen's and co-author of the sixth volume –Morphology –of Jespersen's seven volume Modern English Grammar.
An example of syntactic change in English can be seen in the development from the verb second (V2) word order, which was used before the 15th century, to the modern word order. [3] Like other Germanic languages, Old and Middle English had V2 word order.
Although terminal marks (i.e. full stops, exclamation marks, and question marks) indicate the end of a sentence, the comma, semicolon, and colon are normally inside sentences, making them secondary boundary marks. In modern English orthography, the semicolon falls between terminal marks and the comma; its strength is equal to that of the colon ...
Inflected languages have a freer word order than modern English, an analytic language in which word order identifies the subject and object. [1] [2] As an example, even though both of the following sentences consist of the same words, the meaning is different: [1] "The dog chased a cat." "A cat chased the dog."
In these examples the syntactic subject position (to the left of the verb) is manned by the meaningless expletive ("it" or "there"), whose sole purpose is satisfying the extended projection principle, and is nevertheless necessary. In these sentences the topic is never the subject, but is determined pragmatically. In all these cases, the whole ...
For example, if the writer wanted to rewrite the above examples, he could write: Bells rang. Their resonance filled the air with clangor, startling pigeons into flight from every belfry. Upon hearing the sounds, the townspeople rushed into the streets. They all stood in silence and awaited the news. She drove to the movies.