A Note on the Analysis and Teaching of German Word Order

Abstract

In recent articles in this journal, Edward Fichtner and Helmut Esau have dealt with the teaching of German word order from the perspective of generative grammar.1 On the basis of well-reasoned syntactic analyses, both treat verb-final order as basic and derive the other two major types from verb-final order. Esau, in fact, goes so far as to propose that we introduce verb-final word order first and use solely dependent clauses initially, i.e. speak for several weeks with nothing but subordinate clauses, so that this pattern becomes thoroughly established (p. 139, note 5). I will point out some problems which arise from treating one type of word order as basic, whether it be verb-final order or the subject-verb order considered basic by the traditional approach, and suggest that communicative competence and an understanding of the principles of German word order can be better attained if we introduce and drill all three order types early in the elementary course and move away from treating any one of them as a transform of another.