XPost: alt.usage.english, soc.culture.german, sci.math   
   From: naddy@mips.inka.de   
      
   On 2024-06-18, Helmut Richter  wrote:   
      
   > 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.   
      
   Verb-initial sentences are actually common in colloquial German by   
   ellipsis: initial "das" (object or subject) is dropped.   
      
   Das weiß ich nicht. > Weiß ich nicht.   
   Das geht nicht.     > Geht nicht.   
   Das mach ich.       > Mach ich.   
   etc.   
      
   I'll leave it to the syntacticians to figure out whether that is   
   just a surface form and we need to pretend that the "das" is still   
   present in some way, or whether it is really omitted...  Really,   
   how do syntacticians deals with ellipsis?   
      
   --   
   Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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