phrase of the day

"daar zou ik niet vanuit gaan" (Nederlanders, is this correct?)

there would I not ofout go (and yes, this is regular Dutch grammar)

"I would not assume that"

---

alternative:
"ik zou daar niet vanuit gaan"
I would there not ofout go

but strangely, there is no alternative using "daarvan", such as

"daarvan zou ik niet uit gaan"
thereof would I not out go (maybe because "uit gaan" is too close to "uitgaan", which has a completely different meaning?)

Sometimes I can't solve these translation puzzles, since the word order in Dutch is so strict and complicated. I think optimality theory is the way (i.e. satisfy as many constraints as possible, in order of priority) to model this.

Complicating things (more messing around with this stuff)...
( Read more... )