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Re: "can" "able to" mood

From:J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_wust@...>
Date:Saturday, December 22, 2007, 18:53
On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:08:23 +0100, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:

>Quoting "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>: > >> I think the difference is syntactic rather than semantic. In English >> et sim, you construct it with helper verb + inf, so it's clearly not a >> mood. But logically, the function seems more moodlike than aspectual, >> so I see no reason why it couldn't be a mood in some other lang... > >I don't see why analytic construction would exclude moodhood?
I'd say it's similar to the distinction between aspect and aktionsart: All languages will have means of expressing aktionsart, but not all languages have a morpho-syntactic category of aspect. Likewise, all languages will have means of expressing "semantic moodhood", but not all languages will have a morpho-syntactic category of mood. --- grüess mach *zérš ìš z cšpägš-tu canz ferläce vorte-nùnt närföös*

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Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>