Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
>
> > Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 16:45:24 +0100
> > From: Fabian <rhialto@...>
>
> > I have been beaten - the unspoken agent is in a state of owning a
> > beating of 'I'.
>
> Hmmm.
>
> The usual story is that the perfect tense construction with 'have'
> originates in sentences like 'I have cooked meat' (original sense only
> 'I possess meat that is cooked'). Once reanalysed, grammaticalized and
> generalized, there is no longer any sense of possesion attached to the
> construction, or necessary for its explanation.
>
I wonder if it is true. This makes perfect sense for English, but it is
something impossible for French for example:
"J'ai cuit de la viande" vs. "J'ai de la viande cuite". But maybe at an
earlier stage French had the adjective before the noun (and before its
article).
> Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)
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