Re: Various Commands (was Uralic Negative Verbs)

On Thu, 30 Mar 2006 11:01:26 +0300, John Vertical
<johnvertical@...> wrote:

>> >Joe <joe@...> wrote:
>> >
>> >Hmm.  "Let me die now [because I'm so happy]"
>> >             die-1SG.IMP now
>>
>> >Of course, in English, that's gramatically a 2nd person
>> >imperative+infinitive construction, but semantically, I would say,
>> >is a first person imperative.
>
>I disagree... semantically, it seems more like a plea. I don't think it's
>even possible to actually order oneself. Alternately, it's trivial -
>everything a person does is "ordered" by hirself... but these are mental
>orders. I mean, a language can sure allow for a first person imperative
>construction, but it can be only used to announce an already existing urge;
>never to inform oneself of it. This is what makes true 1SG imperativs
>impossible.
I mentioned this "let me" construction as well (and in my conlang, I
also do the same thing with the imperative that Charlie does).
The reason I did was because, if one can use an imperative with the
3rd person, it is hardly much of a stretch to use it for the 1st person.
In fact the English construction using "let" provides a certain
continuity between the two.

True, imagining it as a command is not exactly accurate, but as
natural languages (like Finnish) have 3rd pers. imperative forms
(which also cannot really be interpreted as commands*), then the
extension to first person I think is really justified.

*There is an implicit command that the listener does not
interfere with the goals of the speaker (thus English "let"),
though the listener is not responsible for the achievement of
these goals (when not 2nd pers. or inclusive 1st pl. pers.**).

**If there is a language with two 1st. pl. pers. =inclusive and
exclusive (as in my conlang), this can then also be treated
uniformly:

Foliädya=let's leave.
Foliänya=let us (not you) leave.

Harold

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