in reply to Re: The Germanic language form
in thread The Germanic language form

Just a real quick note on word order freedom. I'm going to shy away from absolutes when it comes to languages, but typically even in languages considered "free", word order is fairly restricted. Consider, for instance, that a seven word sentence has 7! = 5,040 possible permutations, yet even in languages with the freest word order a small fraction of these will be semantically equivalent. Moreover, there will usually be pragmatic distinctions within these semantically equivalent sentences.

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Re^3: The Germanic language form
by aku (Monk) on Jun 02, 2007 at 09:47 UTC
    You are quite right. Just remember that the sentences tend to have less words in these languages like finnish. Flexation cut's down the prepositions and articles. Words just happen to get longer at the same time. (36 words, english version)

    Olet melko oikeassa. Muistathan, että lauseissa on tavanomaisesti vähemmän sanoja näissä kielissä kuten suomessa. Taivutus poistaa prepositioita ja artikkeleita, Sanoista vain sattuu tulemaan pidempiä samanaikaisesti. (25 words, the same in finnish) 

    # Sorry only 6 words to start with
I would like to learn Perl.

# Same in finnish 3-4 words
(Minä) haluasin oppia Perliä.

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    => All six combinations of the shorter form have the same semantics although this one is the most natural. With the "I" Minä included some of the 24 possible word combinations are quite awkward, but still understandable. If nothing else, they would likely reveal that you're not a native writer/speaker.
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