V1 word order in Icelandic
While reading the coverage of the newest eruption in Morgunblaðið yesterday, I noticed something that you see in Icelandic on occasion: V1 word order, where the (finite) verb of an otherwise ordinary sentence precedes the subject. Consider the following paragraph:
Gosið kom upp á svipuðum slóðum og í síðustu jarðeldum í maí sl. eða austan Sýlingarfells. Mikill kraftur var í gosinu í upphafi og á rúmum klukkutíma var sprungan orðin um 4 kílómetra löng. Rann hraunið frá sprungunni til austurs og vesturs. Var mestur kraftur nyrst í sprungunni. Þegar Morgunblaðið fór í prentun á miðnætti voru ekki vísbendingar um að sprungan væri að opnast til suðurs, í áttina að Grindavík.
The first two sentences are perfectly ordinary, but the next have the verb at the front: Rann hraunið frá sprungunni til austurs og vesturs. Var mestur kraftur nyrst í sprungunni. ("Ran the lava from the fissure to the east and west. Was the greatest power northernmost in the fissure.")
It sounds fairly dramatic to me, and today I actually decided to look it up. Daisy Neijman discusses this in her super-useful Icelandic: An Essential Grammar (section 14.4.3, p. 434):
When the finite verb is purposely given the front position, rather than occupying this position because of clause type (as in a question or imperative clause), it is usually for stylistic effect, to create a more dramatic or vivid narrative (cf. English “says he”). This is most commonly done in written and literary language:
Fór konan nú að ógleðjast; spurði bóndinn hana hverju það sætti
(“The woman now started to get sick; the farmer asked her what the reason was”)
(Side note: I wonder if bóndi shouldn't be translated as husband here, but I'll defer to Daisy's expertise, doubly so since I don't know if it's even a quote from a published work to begin with or just an example sentence she made up.)
Re: creating more dramatic and vivid narratives, this word order inversion also features in Diana Wynne Jones's Tough Guide to Fantasyland (the Updated and Revised Edition), which contains the following entry:
MANAGEMENT DIRECTIVES occur when the Management requires heavenly choires to add to the usual OFFICIAL MANAGEMENT TERMS (OMTs). This is when the Tour gets particularly doom ladden (OMT), usually in the lead-up to the CONCLUSION. Then the OMTs go into overdrive and start saying things backwards. Typical MDs are Grim were they and of awesome countenance, or Wan was that dawn and spectral the Sun, or High and frowning were the walls but undaunted the assault thereon, or Sang they with eagerness and sang their swords with them. Anyway, you'll known one when you see one.
If you've ever read a classic sword-and-sorcery novel, you'll have encountered these! The last one features V1 verb order - the others put adjectives first, which is also possible in Icelandic; Neijman writes (p. 435):
Subject complement[s] […] are easily fronted, as a whole or in part:
Stór og sterkur var Jón Páll (“Big and strong was Jón Páll”)
Stór var Jón Páll og sterkur (“Big was Jón Páll, and strong)
A well-chosen example, BTW!
It's perhaps difficult to pull any of this off in English these days without it sounding intentionally or unintentionally silly, though it still seems to be quite possible in Icelandic. Morgunblaðið regularly uses this kind of language, for certain.
I also wonder if I should start talking like that myself. Went he to work, and worsened his mood while his woe went up …