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05/20/2005 Archived Entry: "Yoda's Syntax Language Log Analyses"

Geoffrey K. Pullum (I keep writing Pullman) at Language Log expands on some points he was quoted about in a Chicago Trib article about Yoda's syntax. I had to read carefully to follow the grammatical examples, but I enjoyed it! "[Yoda's] English is an odd mix, as if he were sometimes thinking in terms of XSV [Complement Subject Verb] constituent order, and sometimes just over-using English stylistic variant orders, and sometimes getting the idiomatic English word order just right. But heck, he's an alien. I bet we wouldn't do so well learning whatever his first language was, the one that he learned nine hundred years ago at (one assumes) his mother's knee. (Hmm. Do the females of Yoda's species even have knees?)"

Eric Bakovic (also at LL) follows up with thoughts about language issues in Star Wars generally, then segues to the Babelfish.

Mark Liberman (again at LL) considers some complaints about Yoda's speech (and wisdom) from Anthony Lane in the New Yorker.

Until today I didn't realize that Language Log is a group blog! I think that's because when I've read it it's been through links from Language Hat. All this via Celine at Naked Translations.