XPost: alt.usage.english, soc.culture.german, sci.math   
   From: naddy@mips.inka.de   
      
   On 2024-06-18, Helmut Richter  wrote:   
      
   > In German, jokes are typically told with inversion in all sentences   
   > that belong to the narrative.   
   >   
   > The only other situation I know where a non-question main sentence starts   
   > with the verb is "sei" (let be) at the beginning of the statement of a   
   > precondition of a mathematical theorem. E.g.: "Sei G eine Gruppe."   
      
   I think that directly replicates Latin phrasing.   
      
   I quickly googled for mathematical proofs in Latin and peeked into   
   some of Euler's publications, where you can find sentence-initial   
   "sit ... / sint ...", used like this, i.e. the third person singular/   
   plural subjunctive of the "to be" verb.   
      
   > In addition to that, this inversion may denote a precondition in a   
   > *subordinate* phrase, not only in math jargon. Instead of   
   >   
   >   Wenn du morgen zum Mittagessen kommst, können wir das besprechen.   
   >   
   > you can as well say   
   >   
   >   Kommst du morgen zum Mittagessen, können wir das besprechen.   
      
   Inversion to mark conditional clauses also exists in limited form   
   in English, e.g.:   
   * Had I known ...  (If I had known ...)   
   * Were I to leave ...  (If I left ...)   
   * Should you choose ...  (If you choose ...)   
      
   --   
   Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)