Re: past tense imperative
From: | Roger Mills <rfmilly@...> |
Date: | Saturday, April 16, 2005, 5:26 |
Max #1 wrote:
> René Uittenbogaard wrote:
>
> >A couple of days ago, I was struck by an interesting grammatical
> >construction
> >in Dutch. Dutch has a construction in which an imperative can be used in
> >the past perfect:
> >
> >Had dat dan gezegd! - You should have told me so!
> >Was dan niet gegaan! - You shouldn't have gone!
> >
What form are "had" and "was"? Subjunctives? (or whatever it's called in
Dutch). As the Engl. translation suggests, these are more like
contrary-to-fact or optative sentences, IMO. (Just for comparison, the
nearest Spanish equiv. I can think of would use "ojalá" + past subjunctive.)
Max:
>
> There's a "past tense" in the imperative mood in French.. But it's only a
> name, when analysed it's obvious that it's in fact imperative, perfective,
> and future
>
> Anyway, what I know is that it's always hard to translate that form, is
> there a future imperative equivalence I'm not awared in English?
>
> present -> travaille! = work!
> past -> ai travaillé! = ~have worked!~ (would it really mean something in
> english?)
>
> In a full sentence, it could be:
>
> Toi! Ai travaillé quand je serai revenu! = You! I want you to have worked
> when I'll be back
>
Very interesting. It's a bit like a "future perfect imperative". English
equivalents would be--
"Have this [project, job] finished when I come back [at a later time]"
but not: *Have finished [this, etc] when I come back
OR:
"Be finished [with X] when I come back...."
"Be gone when I come back!"
How to say these in Kash? Hmm, one more thing to think about.
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