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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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René Uittenbogaard <ruittenb@...>