Re: Grammar of "something to do."

At 9:17 pm +0100 22/3/02, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>En réponse à William Annis <annis@...>:
>
>> How in the world do you analyze phrases like "something to do," "a
>> place to live," "someone to love?"
>>
>> It looks like an English infinitive is following these nouns, but the
>> exact nature of the relationship is a little confusing to me.  Clearly
>> the "to X" phrase modifies the noun.  There's sometimes a hint of
>> obligation in these phrases, sometimes suitability.
>>
[snip]
>
>You will be happy that Latin gives us the clue on how to call this form.
>Indeed, Latin has a derived adjective called the verbal adjective that has
>exactly this meaning.
Actually, in English it's called the "gerundive".

In school it was drilled into us that the gerund was an active verbal noun,
but the gerundIVE was a passIVE adjectIVE.
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At 9:51 pm +0100 22/3/02, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>En réponse à William Annis <annis@...>:
>
>>
>>         In the examples I gave I don't perceive any obligation, which
>> is why my mind seized up.  I would take the "to X" construction to
>> mean something like "which SUB may X."  So, "something I may do."  The
>> sentence "I need someone to love" isn't really a statement of
>> obligation.
>>
>
>Yep, still the Romans would have used the verbal adjective in this case. It's
>meaning of obligation could sometimes be very thin :)) .
I have to disagree.

The gerundive does not, I grant, in all cercimstances carry the idea of
obligation, especially in the usage commonly called "gerundive of
attraction", e.g. libris legendis studet 'he is keen on reading books'.
According to the traditional grammarians, libros legendo ['books' object of
the gerund _legendo_] >> libris legendis ['books' goes into the case the
gerund should be, and the gerundive agrees with 'books'].  Personally, I
think the explanation is wrong, due to the, equally wrong IMO, artificial
division between gerund & gerundive, which I'm sure would've been news to
the Romans.  But that's another story - and I am digressing.

When used in the nominative or accusative cases, noun + gerundive
practically always carried some idea of necessity or obligation.

I have to agree with William.  The Latin for "I have nothing to do" is
surely _Nihil habeo quod faciam_; "they had nothing to eat" _nihil habebant
quod essent_; "I need some to love" _desidero quam amem_ / _desidero quem
amem_ (depending on the sex of the someone).

Ray.







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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                     [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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