Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: A positional language

Users of English succeed in communicate ONLY by ordering their words with
the utmost care. Changing the position of a single word may affect the sense
of a whole sentence.
Only I told the policeman what I had seen.
I only told the policeman what I had seen.
I told only the policeman what I had seen.
I told the only policeman what I had seen.
I told the policeman only what I had seen.
I told the policeman what only I had seen.
I told the policeman what I only had seen.
I told the policeman what I had only seen.
I told the policeman what I had seen only.
Are these all correct -though with different meanings?
And which are equivalent, if any?
An annoying Peltio

Non ho avuto molto tempo per leggere i messaggi. Il tuo perdonerai
l'ho sorvolato. Comunque mi è balzato agli occhi un errore nella prima
frase, quindi te lo dico.
Le proposizioni che iniziono con  Only, Not only, Never etc. vogliono
l'inversione del verbo col soggetto.
   Es. "Only on saturdays can I go to the cinema"
Se il verbo non è can, must etc. si usa l'ausiliare proprio come nelle
interrogative.
 A presto.
Picard.


An annoying Peltio
I believe that I can challenge you for rightful possession of that
adjective.
Ciao,
Ron
USA

 corretta??
Quante ne ho azzeccate?
Ciao.
Giovanni

An annoying Peltio
I'd say challenging Peltio!
Ciao
Isa

>>I told the policeman what only I had seen.
Dissi al poliziotto quello che solo io avevo visto
Francesco

For example, given the emphasis and pause as marked you can give each of
these pairs and triplets the same approximate meaning.
I told the policeman what *I only* had seen.
I told the policeman what *only I* had seen.
I told the policeman what *I* had seen *only.*
I *only* told the policeman what I had seen.
I told the policeman *only what I had seen.*
I told the policeman what *only*... I *had seen.*
I only told the policeman what *I* had seen.
I told the policeman what *I* had seen only.
I *only* told the policeman what I had seen.
I told the policeman what I had seen ...*only.*
I told *only the policeman* what I had seen.
I told *the policeman only* what I had seen.
Only *I* told the policeman what I had seen.
*I* told the policeman *only*... what I had seen.
*I only*... told the policeman what I had seen.
Ciao,
Ron
USA

 An annoying Peltio
  Proviamo in italiano?
1  Solo io raccontai al poliziotto cosa avevo visto
2  Io solo raccontai al poliziotto cosa avevo visto
3  Io raccontai solo al poliziotto cosa avevo visto
4  Io raccontai al poliziotto solo cosa avevo visto
5  Io raccontai al poliziotto cosa [io] solo avevo visto
6  Io raccontai al poliziotto cosa avevo solo visto
7  Io raccontai al poliziotto cosa avevo visto solo
  Quest'ultima non va bene... 
  Ma in italiano quell'io in 3-7 puo' essere omesso o lasciato e le
due scelte conducono a differenti significati.
  In queste frasi solo, puo' voler dire solo, soltanto (=only), ma anche
alone.
  Anche l'italiano e' un linguaggio posizionale, ma e' peggio, perche'
c'e' un ulteriore grado di liberta', essendo l'ordine delle parole meno
rigido.
8  Al poliziotto io solo raccontai cosa avevo visto
9  Raccontai cosa solo avevo visto al poliziotto
10 al poliziotto io cosa avevo visto solo raccontai
  Questa e' un po' esagerata, ma non e' scorretta...
  E vai di conserva ;-)
  Saluti
  Gigi
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Luigi Mancinelli
Lab. Didattici
Fac. Scienze
Universita` di Trento
38050 POVO(TN)
ITALY
ma...@science.unitn.it
  Cercare di semplificare i problemi e` l'obiettivo,
 pensare che siano semplici e` la strada sbagliata (Gigi Mancinelli)

7  Io raccontai al poliziotto cosa avevo visto solo
Scusa, ma il tuo mi sembra un semplice gioco meccanico ad incastro...
(più o meno come quello di Peltio, del resto...)
--
Er Roscio.

*I only*... told the policeman what I had seen.
Thanks Ron, you couldn't have been more exhaustive.
It really looks like English is your mother tongue.
What I wanted to point out was that all of the sentences are correct,
provided emphasis is given at the right place.
I took 'em from a book and, as you know, everything written in books
*have to* be correct.
But there's one more question I'd like to ask.
Is it correct to use Only in this way:
        "Only, I told the policeman what I saw."
As if to communicate some sort of casualness in performing the action of
telling?
Ciao,
Peltio.

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the action of telling?
I don't think so, Peltio, at  least I can't imagine how you could
communicate that meaning with "only" at the beginning of the sentence. You
might place "only" at the beginning of a sentence if you were referring to a
thought in a previous sentence. For example:
"I just wanted to go home and forget what happened. Only, I told the
policeman what I saw."
You might hear this type of sentence construction in dialog. (Br: dialogue)
Ciao,
Ron
USA
principiante in italiano