#clauses

A few reasons why this happens might be:

SOV Structure: japanese is an SOV language, meaning the verb generally comes at the end of the sentence. Subordinate clauses, which often modify the main clause, naturally precede the main clause so that the verb of the main clause can remain at the end.

Modifier-Modified Order: in Japanese, modifiers generally come before the elements they modify. A subordinate clause, which provides additional information about the action or state described in the main clause, acts as a modifier. Therefore, it precedes the main clause to maintain this logical order of modification.

Clarity and Context Building: Placing the subordinate clause first helps to set the context for the main action. This can be crucial in understanding the full meaning of the sentence as Japanese often relies on context and nuances. By providing the subordinate clause first, the speaker ensures that the listener has all the necessary background information before the main action or statement is presented.

Flow and Emphasis: This structure allows for a natural flow of information. It builds up to the main point, which is expressed by the main clause, creating a sense of anticipation and emphasizing the final action or statement.

For example:

English (SVO): "I will go to the store if it stops raining."

Your kid has a vivid imagination and the mother and step father blame the divorced father, who doesn't spend a lot of time with joint kid Charlie to begin with. They essentially think the kid is having some sort of dangerous psychotic break that needs immediate intervention.

Your kid is 10.

Like man, Laura and Neil are pointlessly cruel in the movie. Your kids going through a phase, but because they were hurt during one Christmas when they were kids, they just lose their shit on anything vaguely Santa themed. Scott Calvin triggers their "irrational lashing out" as Charlie put it in the beginning.

And in all this, Scott is having this weird midlife crisis he doesn't understand WHAT THE HELL is going on. From Scott's perspective, he's in this bizarre metamorphosis transitioning to become thee Santa Claus, with omniscient powers and memetic influence over Christmas themed animals and other children - all of which he has no control over.

And Neil has some wild issues he needs to work through. It's ironic 'coz he's a psychiatrist, but he's kinda abusing his role - the sweaters are an obvious giveaway. I hope Neil got the help he needed.

Ah yes, the most weird and confusing of the joining words! If you too are confused about these annoying things, join me as I learn about them as well! 

Dependent Clauses are called dependent because they require additional information to be grammatically correct. They connect two sentence fragments and turn them into one, correct sentences. Unfortunately, they have their own subcategories. Let’s go through them together!

Dependent Clauses - Covering all the bases simply, dependent clauses are joining words. They include words like because, after, before, soon, and many more. Remember: if you place a dependent clause at the start of a sentence, it requires a comma at the end of the first simple sentence you are combining. If it’s in the middle, it does not. Here are two examples of it done in both ways (The dependent clause and attached sentence fragment are in bold):

Because it was raining so hard, they decided to stay inside.

She closed the door after everyone had come in.

Adjective Clauses - Like regular adjectives, adjective clauses are used after the noun to modify it’s meaning. There are three parts to this type of clause: A relative pronoun (whom, which, that) or a relative adverb (where, when, why), a subject and verb, and it must tell us something about the noun. Let’s look at an example to break down:

The cake, which he did not like, was decorated with blue frosting. 

The phrase in bold is the adjective clause. Which is the relative adverb, he is the subject, and did not like is the verb. This sentence covers all the bases, so it’s grammatically correct! Notice that I’ve put commas around the adjective clause. Some people may say that it doesn’t need one, but others may say it does. Personally, I like the way this sentences is read aloud with the commas. As far as I know, it’s a personal preference. 

Adverbial Clauses - Just like regular adverbs, adverbial clauses indicate time, place, manner, etc. Adverbs cover more than just this, but there are so many that I’m going to keep it down to the most commonly used types of adverbs. Anyway, an adverbial clause needs three things: an adverb (when, until, anywhere, like, as, etc.), a subject, and a verb. Here are some examples with the adverbial clause in bold:

When the clock strikes, everyone should be in bed. 

He treats it like it’s a joke. 

In the first example, when is the adverb, the clock is the subject, and strikes is the verb. You may be wonder why everyone isn’t the subject, and that is because it’s not part of the adverbial clause. 

In the second example, like is the adverb, it’s is the subject, and joke is the verb. That one’s a little more tricky, but it does meet the criteria for an adverbial clause. 

Noun Clauses - Noun clauses are a little different from the other ones. They add extra information about the noun not included in the clause. However, just like the others, it still requires a subject and verb. Because there are so many different kinds of nouns, you can really go far with this one! Here are some examples:

I know that the legend is not true. 

I know who owns that. 

These ones are a little trickier! In the first one, the legend is the subject and is is the verb. For the second one, who is the subject and owns is the verb. A little tricky, but if you’re a native English speaker, these should come easily! 

There we go! Hopefully you found this helpful, because I definitely did! Safe to say I won’t be excited about noun clauses, though. Thanks for reading, and happy writing!

I know it’s bad fashion to start a reply with an apology, but really. This got so much more complicated than I anticipated, and I apologise. There’s a TL;DR at the end, as well as a key to deciphering my ramblings. Also it’s literally been MONTHS because I wasn’t satisfied with my reply, but I thought it’s better to put what I’ve got than never give you an answer.

To start, I would like to declare that personally I believe that both of these sentences are correct. However, you should keep in mind that I am in fact a lingustics major, so I’m literally getting less prescriptivist with every day that passes.

For the sake of ease, I will be calling the sentences 1 and 2, as such: 1) Dommeren siger det ikke er lovligt 2) Dommeren siger det er ikke lovligt

Now, there are a few “issues” with these sentences.

For sentence 1, we have the omission of the conjunction “at”. In order for this sentence to technically be correct, the sentence should be “Dommeren siger at det ikke er lovligt” (furthermore, I normally put a comma before subordinate clauses in Danish, even though that is not the punctuation recommended by DSN, but it’s whatever). This is not to say that the sentence isn’t correct, it’s just that it’s leaning more towards spoken language, or colloquial language. In a normal conversation, I probably wouldn’t say “at”. It’s just one of those words that Danish so beautifully erases. 

For sentence 2, it’s more palpable. This is spoken language. In written Danish, this sentence is grammatically incorrect, some would argue. I would argue, that really what this sentence needs, is also an “at” – “Dommeren siger at det er ikke lovligt”. Allow me to explain.

While my grammar book doesn’t really agree with word order being the single defining element of principal clauses vs. subordinate clauses, traditionally, the (grossly simplified) word order X-Vf-S-SA is the word order for principal clauses, and C-S-SA-Vf is the word order for subordinate clauses. 

In English, you don’t have this rule. It’s pretty much always just S-V-O, and everyone’s happy. Now this is where my grammar book gets relevant.

It argues that rather than saying that X-Vf-S-SA is the word order for principal clauses (helsætningsledstilling), it should be called declarative word order (or non-declarative word order, if X is empty). Declarative word order is independent. This is because C/SP-S-SA-Vf is not only used for subordinate clauses (ledsætningsledstilling), but can also be used in a principal clause. Therefore they call this neutral word order. The meaning of the clause depends on what takes the spot of C/SP, and so neutral word order is dependent. It is the conjunction or subjective particle at the beginning of the clause that triggers neutral word order, rather than the fact that the clause is subordinate. 

This is also why I initially pointed out the fact, that in order for the first sentence to be “100% correct”, we needed to add “at” so the sentence reads “Dommeren siger at det ikke er lovligt”. In English it makes no difference whether you say “The judge says that it is not legal” or “The judge says it is not legal”, because the word order always stays the same. But in Danish the “at” literally triggers the neutral word order, at least from an analytical perspective.

TL;DR:

Both sentences can be considered correct in spoken language, but the first instance with an additional “at”, so “Dommeren siger(,) at det ikke er lovligt” is the best choice for something that is written.

Danish word order is a mess, and I applaud your attempt at learning it!

Abbreviations and terminology used in this post:

Terminology for word order* X - a free spot that can theoretically be filled by any part of a sentence (or even a subordinate clause), but is often taken by the subject C - conjunction S - subject SA - sentence adverb Vf - finite verb Vi - non-finite verb P - predicate O - object DO - direct object IO - indirect object SP - subjective particle *idk if this is entirely correct, as my studies of danish grammar have so far been conducted in danish