Re: Conlanging and Natlangs

Muke Tever wrote:

> No! If that happens I'll explode!
>      "The committee requests that Smith **appears before them tomorrow."
AmE:  The committee requests that Smith appear before them tomorrow
        (frozen subjunctive)
BrE:  The committee requests that Smith should appear before them tomorrow
        (modal)

> Long live the subjunctive mood, even if only in mandative constructions!
"Mandative" doesn't seem the word:

Julia suggested that she (should) play Ophelia.

> Yanno I was thinking about "hopefully" today and it took me a good few
> minutes to see why someone would think it was bad usage in the first place.
In a word, because it fails to answer the question "Who is hopeful?"
In fact, "hopefully" does not express hope, but rather "affirms the
desirability of an action that may or may not come to pass" (Follett).
I have heard speculation that "hopefully" in this sense is a calque of
German "hoffentlich", which has precisely that sense.

But it also has the more regular sense, as in "It is better to travel
hopefully [i.e. with hope] than to arrive".

--

Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan <jcowan@...>
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Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau,           || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.            -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)