Werner LEMBERG, Tue, 19 Feb 2013 10:48:52 +0100 (CET): > Otto Stoltz wrote: >> Here is a minimal pair to illustrate that point: >> Er hat in Moskau liebe Genossen. >> Er hat in Moskau Liebe genossen. >> which translates to: >> At Moskow, he’s got dear comrades. >> At Moskow, he has enjoyed love. > > A classical joke are those two newspaper header lines: > > Der Gefangene floh > Der gefangene Floh > > which translates to > > The Prisoner Escaped > The Caught Flea > > And in this case, the prosody in German is *exactly* the same.
So in this case, the imaginary newspapers made use of written forms that they perhaps would not have used orally, if instead of newspapers they had been Radio channels. The general subject here is the fact that “outer“ things, such as the (effect of the) “look“ of the language, affects on the “inner“ things, namely how we use the language. -- leif halvard silli
