Re: Help!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tristan McLeay" <kesuari@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2003 1:31 AM
Subject: Re: Help!


> Joe wrote:
>
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Garth Wallace" <gwalla@...>
> >To: <CONLANG@...>
> >Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2003 9:46 PM
> >Subject: Re: Help!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >>Markus Miekk-oja wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>* IIRC "would" is related to "will" - its subjunctive form.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>I think "would" is actually the past tense of "will", just as "could" is
> >>the past tense of "can" and "might" is the past of "may". F. R. Palmer
> >>calls it the "modal-past".
> >>
>
> Was, yes, is no. There is nothing past about 'I might be going'.
>
> >But in the phrase "would that it were not so!", it is a subjunctive.
> >
> >
> Yes, but I've never heard that phrase before, and I imagine it's a fixed
> phrase rather than anything productive, so arguments based on that can't
> really be accepted. Otherwise English is V2.
No, it's not a fixed phrase, "would that xxx" is quite flexible.  It's not
used any more, of course, but Boromir, in Lord of the Rings, uses it.

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