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• But typically Danes tend to make the spoken tags shorter rather than
longer. This is done by reducing the number of syllables in the ikke også
and vel tags. Since vel is already a one-syllable word, this is not subject to
further shortening. But consider some of the options for ikke også (spelling
conventions vary here):
o
Din bror har søgt arbejde hos telefonselskabet, ikke også?
(4 syllables)
o Din bror har søgt arbejde hos telefonselskabet, ig å? (2
syllables)
o Din bror har søgt arbejde hos telefonselskabet, ig os? (2
syllables)
o Din bror har søgt arbejde hos telefonselskabet, gos? (1 syllable)
• gøre-support: Recall that if the predicator does not contain an operator,
English calls on the “dummy” verb do wherever an operator is needed.
Danish grammar contains a similar operation, using the verb gøre as a
stand-in operator:
o
o
Hun elsker chokolade, gør hun ikke?
Hun elsker ikke chokolade, gør hun (vel)?
I hope that this little ramble through one small portion of the English and
Danish grammar landscapes has sufficiently illustrated both the complexity
and the beauty of rule systems for natural languages, while at the same time
illuminating the distinction between ”knowing grammar” and “knowing
about” grammar. I predict that whether your native language is English or
Danish, you “knew” most if not all of the rules for tag-questions listed in this
chapter for your own language – in that you use them in your daily production
of English or Danish sentences. At the same time, I predict that you did not
“know about” them – in the sense that you could have listed them for a foreign
friend who wished to learn how to form tag-questions in your language. In
fact, I suspect that you have never seen these rules in any English or Danish
grammar book. And yet, in one way or another, versions of these rules are in
the heads of all native speakers of English and Danish, respectively. You
worked them out for yourself as you were growing up.
Further reading:
Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct. Penguin Books: Harmondsworth,
Middlesex, England. 1994..
Steven Pinker is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard
University. Until 2003, he taught in the Department of Brain and Cognitive
Sciences at MIT. This particular book has had a very wide readership around
the world. The following short quotations from two delighted reviewers
page 25
John M. Dienhart