The Grammar of Jedi Master Yoda.

[CartesianFart]

I am always fascinated and somewhat humored by the strange speech style of Jedi Master Yoda.In the film "The Empire Strikes Back" that I have watched last night,I come to the realization (eventhough I already knew it when i've heard it when i watched it as a kid growing up) that just because it appears to have a different surface forms,its still the same underlying structure.

One of ways to understand this (been studying linguistic in my spare time to study German) is to understand "word-order":the sequence in which grammatical elements such as Subject,Verb,Object occurs in sentences.I have to say that this (Typology) is probably better than the method of the old morphology.

Lets look at little green Yoda in the pattern of object,subject,verb (OSV) in conjunction to our English sequence (SVO).

Sick have I become. (VS) I have become sick.

Strong am I with the force. (VS) I am,with the force,strong.
or Classical Hero's correction-I am strong with the force.

Your father he is. (VS) He is your father.

When nine hundred years old you reach,look as good you will not.
(VS)When you reach nine hundred years old,you will not look as good.

So the purpose in this thread is that I want to see non-native English posters to construct sentences SVO and then state it in your own native "word-order."And this can also be for the other posters who are already (as I am) indoctrinated to come up with your own non-SVO "word-order" sentences and compare it with the SVO structure that contrast it.

[Note]Apart from Latin and others that are "free word-order,"there are six logical possibilities in general "word-order" structures:SVO,SOV,VSO,VOS,OSV,and OVS.

 

[nivi]

Could you type the examples for the six possiblities? Would make it easier.

 

[classical_hero]

The third one should say, in proper grammar. "I am strong with the force." That makes much more sense that what you wrote. Even Yoda's talk made more sense.

 

[Xanikk999]

I am always fascinated and somewhat humored by the strange speech style of Jedi Master Yoga.(SVO).

Yoga?

 

[CartesianFart]

Could you type the examples for the six possiblities? Would make it easier.

I can give you one example of VSO: Hate nivi Palestinians.

Yoga?

Thanks.I corrected it.Kinda funny on my part.

 

[1889]

SVO I don't understand this thread.
SOV I, this thread, don't understand.
VSO Don't understand, I, this thread.
VOS Don't understand, this thread, I.
OSV This thread, I don't understand.
OVS This thread don'y understand I.

Like that?

 

[CartesianFart]

The third one should say, in proper grammar. "I am strong with the force." That makes much more sense that what you wrote. Even Yoda's talk made more sense.

Yeah.You are right on that one.Eventhough it is still plausible to me.

 

[classical_hero]

I must say this. Go the Force.

 

[Swedishguy]

SVO,SOV,VSO,VOS,OSV,and OVS. "I hate pugs"

SVO - Jag hatar hundar
SOV - Jag hundar hatar
VSO - Hatar jag hundar?
VOS - Hatar hundar jag?
OSV - Hundar jag hatar
OVS - Hundar hatar jag

 

[Taliesin]

Does "hund" really specify "pug"? I thought it referred to dogs in general.

In Old English, btw:
SVO Ic laþie hundas.
SOV Ic hundas laþie.
VSO Laþie ic hundas.
VOS Laþie hundas ic.
OSV Hundas ic laþie.
OVS Hundas laþie ic.

All are possible, but SVO is preferred, and you wouldn't really ever use VOS or OSV. Some grammatical constructions require VSO: for instance, the word þa means either "when" or "then", and the only grammatical way of distinguishing them is that it takes VSO when it means "then". Same for þær, which means either "where" or "there".

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Confused am I. Headache giving me thread is.

 

[Gelion]

In Russian there's no predefined order. Whatever you choose to emphacise comes first:
I love you.
You I love
I you love
love I you....
and so on.

 

[CartesianFart]

That is what make me annoyed sometimes when growing up in public schools that teachers are always pedantic when i try some different arrangement of words to create different styles.No wonder we don't have poets or other artistic prose writing created out of our school systems.

 

[Masquerouge]

In French it's SVO too, so Yoda speaks French exactly as he speaks English...

 

[Mirc]

In Romanian, the subject in nominative is omitted, so we beat French, English, Swedish and Old English!

By this I mean that because of the different forms of the verb, you don't need to say the subject.

Example:

Spoiler :

Eu sunt un om (I am a human) and
Tu esti un om (you are a human) have different versions of the verb.

Thus, you can (and it's actually recommended to do so, otherwise people will understand that you want to stress the idea that you are something/do something, etc.) omit the subject:

Sunt un om - (I) am a human
Esti un om - (You) are a human

But the general order would be SVO here too.

 

[GenMarshall]

SOV - In Japanese:

ヨーダはチョコレートが非常に好きです。
Yōda ha chokorēto ga hijōni sukidesu .
(English SOV) Yoda chocolate loves.

 

[Junglecutter]

(Mandarin)

Yoda:Yoda Wo de ming zi shi.(Yoda my name is.)

Me:Wo de ming zi shi Yoda.(My name is Yoda.)

 

[Lambert Simnel]

I had rather thought that Yoda's speech was just inspired by Latin writings. While Latin is indeed (as per the OP) independent of word order, good style requires that you put the verb at the end of the sentence (e.g. "Carthago delenda est", or "nemo me impune lacessit"). I suspected that one of the Star Wars scriptwriters had translated Latin whilst at school, and thought that it would be fun to have a character talk in the form of a word order retaining translation from Latin.

Perhaps not.

 

[Brighteye]

I'm with Simnel.

 

[Lotus49]

That, and the original intention of trying to relate him to the 'old masters' of Oriental martial arts... which spoke English in an atypical way. Thus, moviegoers were accustomed to hearing 'words of wisdom' from 'the teacher' in nonstandard grammar.

Yoda = Japanese/Chinese Dojo Master. Or something like that. You can't tell me Lucas wasn't somewhat influenced by Kung Fu movies. Just think about it.