Re: "I didn't know that..."

On Sat, 11 Mar 2006, Mark J. Reed wrote:
>
> Given statement X which is a true statement that continues to be true
> in the present time, what tense/mood/verb form would your lang use in
> X in the equivalent of "I didn't know X"?
>
> AFAICT, Englishhas somewhat free variation between the past and
> present indicative here, although the present is only an option when
> the statement continues to be true.  Spanish (and, I suppose, other
> romlangs) uses the present subjunctive, which seems odd since it's not
> a counterfactual statement.  I'm interested in other natlang examples
> as well as conlang ones, since I'm trying to decide how to handle this
> case...
The use of the present subjunctive in Spanish for
"I didn't know that he is a bullfighter" seems quite
reasonable to me.  It's not so much that his (now)
being a bullfighter is counterfactual, as that "he is
a bullfighter" is a subordinate or subjoined clause.

Isn't this also the pattern in other Romance
languages?  In Latin,these types of subordinate
clause require a verb in the subjunctive mood:
result, purpose and indirect question clauses.

Here is a simple example where Latin uses the
subjunctive to frame the answer of an indirect, ie
reported question:
"Scit quanta insula sit."
"He knows how great the island is [may be]."

(Rather than:
"Scit quanta insula est.")

Regards,
Yahya

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