Re: conlang t-shirt

Nice to meet you, Liss!  I'm pretty new here too, and have done only a
little conlang work (lots of little projects; nothing really has
started to crystallize in a big way yet)...  But I started the same
way you did: by finding conlang projects online and saying, "hey, that
would be fun!"

In Latin, the language besides English I know best, you generally use
an infinitive or "accusative and infinitive" construction for modal
verbs.  The English parallels would be, for example, "to write" as in
"He is able to write..." or "him to write" as "It is necessary for him
to write..."

These would be "scribere potest" or "necesse est eum scribere" in
Latin.

The accusative-and-infinitive has much wider use in Latin than in
English.  You also use it for all indirect quotations (which are very
common in Latin writing) -- You don't say "He announced that he is
marrying a warthog," You say "He announced himself to be marrying a
warthog."

(Of course, historically speaking, the verb-form that follows the
English auxiliary, "write" in "he should write," is *also* an
infinitive -- a non-conjugated verb form.  Not all English infinitives
have a "to" prefix, contrary to what they teach you in high school.
So I guess the Latin way of doing things here isn't so very different
from English.)

---------------------------------------------------------------
Ed doesn't know everything, but he hasn't figured that out yet.
Please break it to him gently.              edheil@postmark.net
---------------------------------------------------------------

Melissa Phong wrote:
>
> Anyway, I want to be a part of this, which means I finally have to deal
with
> something I've been putting off, modal auxiliary verbs. Can I get some tips
> on how languages other than English deal with the idea of "may, might, can,
> could, should, would, must and ought"?
>
> Finally, since this is my second post, I should explain myself.
> I started making my language about 7 months ago when I stumbled onto
> someone's conlang web page while I was looking for grammar info for my real
> world job. I thought, "Wow! A hobby I'd actually enjoy." Since then I've
been
> regularly hitting y'alls sites for help. I joined this mailing list about a
> week and a half ago.
>
> Liss
>