Funny quotes
"Quel que soit l'ordre des termes dans une langue ancienne ou moderne, l'esprit de l'ecrivain a suivi l'ordre didactique de la syntaxe francaise." (Diderot)
And:
"It is asserted that, aside from figurative speech, the sequence of words follows an "ordre naturel," which conforms "a l'expression naturelle de nos pensees." (Chomsky in Aspects, though I forget who he's quoting)
Sure, sure, French syntax conforms to the natural order of our thoughts -- if we're native speakers of French. :) (I'm not.)
Apologies for not doing the accents. I don't know the codes for them offhand, and LiveJournal seems not to convert them to HTML when I just type them in.
And:
"It is asserted that, aside from figurative speech, the sequence of words follows an "ordre naturel," which conforms "a l'expression naturelle de nos pensees." (Chomsky in Aspects, though I forget who he's quoting)
Sure, sure, French syntax conforms to the natural order of our thoughts -- if we're native speakers of French. :) (I'm not.)
Apologies for not doing the accents. I don't know the codes for them offhand, and LiveJournal seems not to convert them to HTML when I just type them in.