A recent Scott Hilburn cartoon, from George Takei on Facebook (via Betsy Herrington):
For Yoda, with his penchant for fronting material in sentences, that was in the form of a question — just not a question in standard English.
Archive for the ‘Word order’ Category
The perils of fronting
July 4, 2012The young Yoda
June 25, 2012Today’s Rhymes With Orange:
An earlier Rhymes on Yoda’s syntax, complete with links to Language Log postings on the subject, is here. Here we see the early days.
Fronting
December 27, 2009Louis W. Thompson had an op-ed piece in the NYT on Christmas Eve (“The Finest Gifts It Brings”) on “The Little Drummer Boy” (“Yes, torture can be set to music”, Thompson wrote). It’s a little masterpiece of annoying Christmas music.
There’s the relentless drumbeat of “rum pum pum pum”, 21 repetitions per play. There’s the overall tone — in Thompson’s words, “exalted …, pompous, candied, reverential.” And then there’s the syntax. Thompson quoted:
Come they told me, pa rum pum pum pum
A newborn king to see, pa rum pum pum pum
Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum
and added:
Backwards run sentences until reels the mind.
More on this sentence later. First, some comments on the syntax of the sentences from the song.