Re: The last enemy

2007/7/25, James W. <emindahken@...>:
> On Wed, 25 Jul 2007 "Sanghyeon Seo" said:
> >
> > The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
> >
>
> "The last enemy is death; it shall be conquered."
>
I think these are generally not equal (though they may be in this particular
case). Consider:

"The last party I will attend is my brother's 50th anniversary."

This does not equal:

"The last party is my brother's 50th anniversary; I will attend it."

which rules out the possibility that my brother will celebrate his
51st anniversary, while the first sentence does not.

I think the first sentence is actually equivalent to:

"The party I will attend last is my brother's 50th anniversary."

which seems to indicate that there is some kind of raising going on:
"last" is raised to a position in the main clause, and changes from
adverb to adjective.

Many languages seem to support this kind of raising. Is there a name
for this phenomenon?


René

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