Re: Conlanging and Natlangs

John Cowan wrote:

> 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)
The modal-form in varieties of British English is not universal, though --
like I said, I've found the BBC itself using the indicative inflection there
many times.

> > Long live the subjunctive mood, even if only in mandative constructions!
>
> "Mandative" doesn't seem the word:
>
> Julia suggested that she (should) play Ophelia.
Optative? Certainly, "desire" encompasses a great many more circumstances

> > 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.
Did they mention how that would have arisen?  I wouls suspect that it
would be an Americanism, but I can't be sure.

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Tom Wier   |     "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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