Re: past tense imperative

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!

Max:
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.

Roger:
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!"

Charlie:
I didn't mean to imply that that was a good translation, but that it
was a literal, i.e., word-for-word translation.

I never before thought of the construction "have + direct object +
past participle" as a past imperative, but it looks that way to me
now.  The construction is used frequently in English:
Have the car repaired and I will pay for it.
Have your room cleaned by the time I return.

How do others parse this construction?  Present imperative + direct
object + complement?  It does have a future perfect feel about it.
The response would be something like, "Yes, I will have my room
cleaned by the time you return."  Or, "...I will have cleaned my
room...."

Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/user:caeruleancentaur

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