Appendix E: Unusual Grammatical Features

Some grammatical features exist in only one or two of our six languages. This appendix catalogues these curiosities.

Features Unique to One Language

English

Do-Support

English alone uses “do” as a grammatical auxiliary for questions and negatives:

No other Indo-European language developed this system.

Progressive Aspect (Fully Grammaticalised)

While other languages can express ongoing action, only English has a fully systematic progressive:

Other languages use simple forms where English uses progressive, or use periphrases (estar + gerund in Spanish, but less systematically).

Tag Questions

The tag reverses polarity and matches the auxiliary. This complex system is unique to English.

Spanish

Personal a

Spanish marks human/animate direct objects with the preposition a:

No other Romance language has this rule so systematically.

Two Verbs “To Be”: Ser and Estar

Portuguese shares this distinction; Italian and French do not.

Inverted Punctuation

Spanish alone uses inverted question and exclamation marks at the beginning of sentences:

• ¿Cómo estás?
• ¡Qué sorpresa!

This allows readers to know the sentence type from the start.

French

Partitive Article

French has a special article for uncountable nouns:

Other languages express this with or without articles inconsistently.

Ne… Pas (Discontinuous Negation)

French negation wraps around the verb:

In spoken French, ne is often dropped, leaving only pas.

Liaison

Final consonants, normally silent, are pronounced before vowels:

This creates challenges for learners and affects syllable counting in verse.

Latin

Ablative Absolute

A participial phrase in the ablative that stands grammatically independent:

The construction has no grammatical connection to the main clause — it is “absolute” (loosened).

Accusative + Infinitive

Latin expresses indirect statements with this construction:

The subject of the indirect statement goes into the accusative; the verb becomes an infinitive.

Deponent Verbs

Verbs with passive forms but active meanings:

These verbs lost their active forms in pre-Classical Latin.

No Articles

Latin has no definite or indefinite articles:

• Rēx = “the king” / “a king” / “king”

Context determines which meaning applies. All other languages in this guide have at least one type of article.

German

V2 Word Order

In main clauses, the finite verb must be the second element (not necessarily the second word):

The verb position is fixed at second; other elements can move freely.

Verb-Final in Subordinate Clauses

This creates “verb clusters” at clause end with compound tenses.

Adjective Endings: Strong/Weak/Mixed

German adjective endings depend on what precedes:

This three-way system is unique to German (and related languages like Dutch).

Compound Nouns

German freely creates compounds of unlimited length:

While English allows some compounds (blackbird), German’s system is far more productive.

Ancient Greek

The Middle Voice

A third voice (besides active and passive) where the subject acts on or for itself:

Middle and passive share forms in most tenses but differ in meaning.

The Optative Mood

A fourth mood (besides indicative, subjunctive, imperative):

The optative is “further from reality” than the subjunctive.

Aspect Independent of Tense

Greek has a three-way aspect distinction:

In non-indicative moods (subjunctive, optative, imperative), these aspects exist without time reference.

The Dual Number

A third number (besides singular and plural) for pairs:

The dual was archaic even in Classical Attic and had largely disappeared by Hellenistic times.

Particles

Greek uses many small words (particles) to add nuance:

These particles are notoriously difficult to translate but essential to Greek style.

The Article as Substantiviser

The Greek article can turn anything into a noun:

Features Shared by Two Languages

The Aorist (Greek, Spanish, French)

A past tense viewing action as a simple, complete event:

In Spanish and French, the aorist-type form (pretérito indefinido, passé simple) contrasts with the imperfect. In spoken French, passé composé has largely replaced passé simple.

Pro-Drop (Latin, Greek, Spanish)

Subject pronouns can be omitted because verb endings indicate person:

English, French, and German require overt subjects.

Free Word Order (Latin, Greek)

Case endings allow flexible word order without ambiguity:

All three mean the same because canis (nominative) is always subject and virum (accusative) is always object.

Subjunctive in Subordinate Clauses (Latin, Greek, Spanish, French)

These languages use subjunctive mood extensively in certain subordinate clauses:

English subjunctive is vestigial (If I were rich…); German has limited subjunctive use.

Summary Table

Previous: Appendix D: Scansion and Metre

Next: Back to Introduction