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Discontinuous dependencies are a part of English syntatic rules and also are something which linguists are still trying to deal with. My question: which other languages have this problem and how does that language speakers deal with long spread discontinuous dependencies (as in big bulky noun phrases)?

Edit: An example of what I state as a problem (of rearrangement)

It is a feature that when tried to fiddle with, gets problematic. She will easily put the clock down -> she will put down the clock easily. Seems fine, but when the easily part gets bulkier it's tougher to rearrange for example

she stood up all those men who had offered her diamonds (Akmajian) . Will you not "struggle" a bit to arrive at she stood all those men up who had offered her diamonds .

WiccanKarnak
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    Is there a language that does not have it? And is it a bug, or a feature? – Adam Bittlingmayer May 19 '18 at 19:25
  • It is a feature that when tried to fiddle with, gets problematic. She will easily put the clock down -> she will put down the clock easily. Seems fine, but when the easily part gets bulkier it's tougher to rearrange – WiccanKarnak May 20 '18 at 05:14
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    Languages don't "struggle" with things. Native speakers of a language rarely "struggle" with aspects of their language - except where somebody has made up a rule and bamboozled everybody else into thinking their rule is "correct". The only people who "struggle" are people learning a second or subsequent language; and linguists who haven't yet got an adequate description of a language. This may sound like nitpicking, but I don't think it is. What do you mean by "struggle", and "problem"? – Colin Fine May 20 '18 at 10:50
  • @colinfine When i ask transform: she stood up all those men who had offered her diamonds (Akmajian) . Will you not "struggle" a bit to arrive at she stood all those men up who had offered her diamonds . (Just that it would take a bit more time) – WiccanKarnak May 20 '18 at 13:15
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    “Discontinuous” dependencies are not “problematic” by any definition of that word. What is of interest for linguists are non-projective dependencies. – Atamiri May 21 '18 at 14:26
  • @atamiri https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/3640/non-projective-example is the only thing that came up, can you tell me in easier words :) ? – WiccanKarnak May 22 '18 at 00:56
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    @WiccanKarnak Dependencies in VPs with phrasal verbs are not “discontinuos”, the particle simply depends on the main verb and the direct object is headed by the verb too (if there’s one). The real “problem” (it’s not really a problem but a construction which is harder to analyse using phrase structure grammars) are so-called unbounded dependencies, as in “who did you buy ... for”. Such dependencies are called non-projective because if you “project” the nodes of the dependency syntax tree on a line beneath it, the projecting lines cross them, resulting in discontinuous constituents. – Atamiri May 23 '18 at 15:09

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