The present paper is concerned with certain general structural and textual differences between German and Norwegian. On the basis of examples from translations of German texts into Norwegian, it is shown that German has considerably more left-branching constructions, in particular complex adjective and participial constructions, and nominalizations than does Norwegian. It is argued, first, that the differences in question reflect the typological difference between SOV and SVO as the basic element order in German and Norwegian, respectively. Second, it is surmised that the widespread use of the non-tense marking constructions in question in German non-narrative texts is amenable to a functional interpretation in terms of textual strategies. Certain questions pertaining to the diachronic background of the modern differences and to normative stylistics are also discussed. Corresponding English examples are adduced to facilitate comprehension of the Norwegian data and to provide corroboratory evidence for the theoretical analysis.