grammatical constraints and motivations for - University of the ...

) I have eaten an apple.
The past tense in Afrikaans is made up of the auxiliary ‘het’ and the verb, which
in most cases takes the past tense prefix {ge-}. In a typical past tense sentence the
past tense verb is placed right at the end of the sentence, resulting in a SOV
structure, as evident in the above example.
Another difference is evident in the construction of subordinate clauses. Consider
the following examples from van Dulm (2006: 58):
3. You know that I eat fish.
4. Jy weet dat ek vis eet.
*You know that I fish eat.
English and Afrikaans also differ in terms of verb placement in focalisation
structures. Van Dulm (2006: 60) gives the following example:
5. gister het ek die koek gebak
* yesterday did I the cake PAST PARTICIPLE – bake
Yesterday I baked the cake
In English the subject appears before the verb which is followed by the object,
while in Afrikaans the subject appears after the auxiliary, which is followed by the
object and concluded with the verb.
In ‘that’ subordinate clauses, Afrikaans verbs appear in final position, but in
English they appear between the subject and the object. The following is an
example of the structural difference between English and Afrikaans in ‘that’
subordinate clauses:
6. Ek weet dat hy die studente sien.
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