verb placement

[wordchick.livejournal.com]

During college, I was told that as a basic rule, when making a negative sentence, it's best for the verb to go at the end (e.g. я никого нигде не видела). However, I have noticed that there are certain set phrases where the verb generally goes at the end as well (я так думаю). Is this something that I ought to try to do more often, or is it really not very important?

Comments

[ozozo.livejournal.com]

it's not very important, really.
the matter is the most

accented

place in a sentence is at the end position.

[kegarawashii.livejournal.com]

it's mainly the matter of theme/rheme arrangement.
it's natural to place the new/important information (i.e. rheme) towards the end of the sentence in russian. you can say "не видела я никого" undoubtedly, change in the word order being significant to the sense - or to the emphasis like in this case.

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

There might be very subtle difference due to the way the thing sounds. In "я думаю так" you may very well end with the voice going up on "так" with respect to the preceding stuff. In which case this may sound as though it wasn't a definite statement, but rather something like uncertainty (e.g. the other party may not share your views) or a question.