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While reading an old shortstory by ETA Hoffman, I found the following text:

Seine Brust wollte zerspringen vor Freude und Seligkeit, kaum konnte er sich aufrecht erhalten als er von der Leiter herabgestiegen.

In the first part of the sentence,

Seine Brust wollte zerspringen vor Freude und Seligkeit

I would expect the verb "zerspringen" to appear at the end, after the word "Seligkeit". Why is this not the case?

tohava
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    Are you sure "als er von der Leiter herabgestiegen." isn't actually "als er von der Leiter herabstieg", or "herabgestiegen war"? As quoted the ending is wrong, even allowing for artistic freedom (one might find that highly unusual form in a poem though). In any case, as a German, that sequence is okay. Not unusual. When you have more complex grammar rules you can be more flexible with word order, English has to be strict to compensate :-) – Mörre May 06 '18 at 14:16
  • Can you explain why the first part is ok? I think zerspringen should be last. – tohava May 06 '18 at 14:46
  • And regarding your question, this is a direct copy paste. – tohava May 06 '18 at 14:47
  • Okay, so it's a deliberate style choice (the ending). You can do that for artistic purposes. As for the word order, as I said, the more grammar you have in a language to determine what something means the less need you have for word order. Compare Russian (lots of cases and lots of different endings for each word showing its function regardless of where it is located) and English (word order tells you the meaning because words don't change to show the meaning in the word itself). While you have some order it is not nearly as strict as in English, and you can deviate from it for emphasis. – Mörre May 06 '18 at 16:28
  • For example, see http://www.dartmouth.edu/~deutsch/Grammatik/WordOrder/WordOrder.html – Mörre May 06 '18 at 16:30
  • Since you said it's "copy and paste", while the style is indeed unusual, under writer-freedom it's perfectly okay. He wanted it to be unusual, deliberately. Unusual, but not wrong. Just like poems sound strange if you tried to talk that way regularly. – Mörre May 06 '18 at 16:32
  • What do you feel that the author achieves by this choice in this specific case? What is emphasized? – tohava May 06 '18 at 19:05
  • I think you are overanalysing. It's just some artistic text, so it sounds a bit unusual and different. He just felt like writing that way. Maybe he indeed spend hours trying to come up with just this particular sentence (I've seen a guy spending that much time on a few words), but honestly, as a casual reader, I'd just say "okay" to myself and move on. Even if - just because an artist spent a lot of effort does not mean I have to do the same when I look at the result. – Mörre May 07 '18 at 09:27
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    Possible duplicate of Warum gibt es hier kein Hilfsverb: »wo er noch nie geatmet« – Hubert Schölnast May 07 '18 at 16:23
  • @HubertSchölnast, this May answer Mörre‘s question, not tohava‘s. – Carsten S May 07 '18 at 20:16
  • Please edit your answer instead of adding comments, so that everything is in one place. Not all comments may be shown initially. Make it easy for others to understand what you're asking and to help you. – Robert May 08 '18 at 04:31
  • German is actually more flexible as it seems. Sometimes it can happen, but rarely. Probably it sounds weird for native speakers. You, as not native speaker, never use such constructions, even your ordinary mistakes are enough for them :-) Probably a "," should be after the "zerspringen". Google for "ausklammerung". But it is not sure. – peterh May 08 '18 at 21:51

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It's a question of emphasis and topicalization. In German you can say

vor (lauter) Freude und Seligkeit wollte seine Brust (schier) zerspringen

schier zerspringen wollte seine Brust vor Freude und Seligkeit

schier zerspringen vor Freude und Seligkeit wollte seine Brust

That doesn't mean 'everything goes':

*seine Brust vor lauter Freude und Seligkeit wollte (schier) zerspringen

The content(s?) of the sentence is very emotional, so Hoffman's deviant word order is reflecting the person's excitement. This applies also to the second sentence, 'kaum' being placed in the 'Vorfeld' (see Wikipedia).

Ralf Joerres
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German does not have a fixed word order, it is very flexible regarding that. Your sentence is also valid today. Putting the words in the given order sets an accent on zerspringen. The downstream information vor Freude und Seligkeit is just like a secondary appendix here.

äüö
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  • That's not really true. Word order is normally restricted by the principles of "Verbklammer". Saying "Ich will gehen in den Zoo" would sound at the very least unusual and poetic. Such reordering is common only in elevated and antiquated style: "Ich will wandeln vor dem Herrn..." – Kilian Foth May 07 '18 at 10:24
  • @KilianFoth But that kind of deliberately style, deliberately violating a few rules, is what we seem to have here. Your point still is valid overall, of course. – Mörre May 07 '18 at 15:41
  • @Mörre, google „ich könnte schreien vor“, und Du wirst sehen, dass hier keine Regel verletzt wird. – Carsten S May 07 '18 at 20:19
  • @CarstenS This is silly, you know what I'm talking about. And if not -- well, that's tough. Do you think language "rules" are written like laws? RULES exist also when nobody writes them down. The fact that you can tell that his style is unusual means he BREAKS RULES for what is "normal". No, police won't come and arrest him (if he was alive), no laws were broken. Just expectations. People just don't speak like that, regardless of what is in your books. Rules in minds, not rules in books. – Mörre May 07 '18 at 21:17
  • @Mörre, if you think that nobody would say, for example, "ich hätte schreien können vor Schmerzen" then your exposure to the German language has been very limited. It is also quite foolish to expect writers form centuries past to use only those constructions that you would. But comments are not for answering questions, so if you feel that the current answers are wrong or incomplete then please add your own. – Carsten S May 08 '18 at 09:31
  • I admit you have more flexibility in spoken language, because some stuff is judged as bad expression style in written language. "Er wollte losgehen zum Bus." is quite normal in colloquial speech when you first wanted to say "Er wollte losgehen" and then you add "zum Bus" to make the information more precise. – äüö May 08 '18 at 10:05
  • I think, literally interpreting your answer, I could for you construct "german" sentences for which your ears would break apart :-) Ok, sometimes there are exceptions, but German is mainly very strict in the word order. Btw, typically Ausklammerung is not very widely teached in language schools, because doing this, all the students would use the word order of their first language, making all the sentences sounding weird or incomprehensible for you. This is why the OP doesn't understand, what is going on. I think it is better if also you "help" him to use the regular word ordering. – peterh May 08 '18 at 21:56
  • I think it is better to say, that German has a strict word ordering, but it is good on this way. I think it passes very well the generally very logical grammatic of the language. – peterh May 08 '18 at 21:57