this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
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Reminds me of learning German
German, as well as other germanic languages aside from English actually use verb second structure. True, that the main part sits at the end if there is an auxiliary verb. Example word for word translation would be: Tomorrow go I to school. Or Yesterday have I cake eaten. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V2_word_order
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.
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")