Re: Weekly Vocab 6: to know
| From: | Joe Fatula <fatula3@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, May 7, 2003, 21:05 |
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From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
Subject: Re: Weekly Vocab 6: to know
> On Wed, May 07, 2003 at 10:09:10PM +0200, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > * What in the ergativity is the infinitive of "can"? "To can" appears to
mean
> > something else ... The English modals appear not to deign to have any
> > infinitives.
> True enough. Whenever an infinitive for "modal can" is called for,
> "to be able to" is used. "To can" refers to the process of putting things
> in cans. :)
And it's pronounced differently, too, so it's certainly a different word.
Just like "have" /h&v/ and "have" /h&_rf/, analogous to Spanish "tener" and
"haber".
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