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

From:Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@...>
Date:Sunday, March 12, 2006, 10:32
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 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.2.1/279 - Release Date: 10/3/06

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R A Brown <ray@...>