Re: Grammatical Summary of Kemata

> > Quoting Rune Haugseng <haugrune@...>:
> > > I thought subjunctive meant "wish" and optative "hope", or the other
> > > way around.
> On Thursday 13 December 2001 08:43, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> > Not really.  The problem is that "subjunctive", "optative",
> > "jussive", etc. are all labels that we use to make grammars
> > of languages readable.  They are useful for conveying information,
> > but they do not have any meaning in and of themselves.  [...]
Rune Haugseng wrote:
> Ah, so they're just used of various forms that have a vaguely similar
> meaning.
Within IE, I'd say the moods are labelled according to homology, not
analogy, to borrow a word from comparative anatomy.  That is, cognate
forms are given the same name, irrespective of their semantic function.


--
Anton Sherwood  --  http://www.ogre.nu/