----- Original Message -----
From: "R A Brown" <ray@...>
>
> No, the correct term is 'jussive' or 'third-person imperative'. The
> 'first-person imperative' (Let's go! - vamos!) is also known as the
> 'hortative'.
THANK YOU! Jussive. I couldn't think of the term. I know what the
hortative is.
> Neither Trask nor Crystal give 'cohortative' in their linguistic
> dictionaries.
So I noticed. I have the first book.
But I believe the term is used of a lengthened form of the
> imperfect in Hebrew, but I do not its use. The word sort of reminds me of
> Roman cohorts ;)
;) Influenced by a message on Zompist. My bad.
> >A command expressed in the third person. Let him be imprisoned!
>
> Precisely.
>
> [snip]
> > "fiat lingua" as a performative: "be language!" A distortion of the
> > original Latin.
>
> I do not understand why it should be considered a _distortion_ of the
> original Latin. In any case, which original Latin? Fiat lux..... fiat
> firmamentum....fiat volunta tua... or what?
Ray, I don't know what I meant by that tag. Certainly I did not mean to
imply that fiat lingua was a distortion of good Latin. How could anyone who
praises my general intelligence (when I'm not lapsing into senility) think
that? :p I may have meant that it was a variant ("distortion"?) of fiat lux
because "fiat lux" has such religious significance, but more probably I
meant that *my Teonaht* was a "distortion," whatever I meant, of fiat
lingua.
> No, 'fiat lingua' is perfectly good Latin in its own right. But this was
> discussed way back in the 3rd week of March this year when the slogan was
> adopted.
I know, Ray! I was there. I even spoke at that conference! "Let there be
language" was highly ambiguous as a phrase, but I ended up voting for it
because of it. Are we gods making one language? making all language?
bringing language in general into being? making many languages?
I'm weary and tired and it's late. And I think the cat hsat on the rug.
Teonaht spelling and pronunciation. To be more precise, on a bunch of school
papers in the corner.
Sally
> --
> Ray
> ==================================
> ray@carolandray.plus.com
>
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
> ==================================
> "Ein Kopf, der auf seine eigene Kosten denkt,
> wird immer Eingriffe in die Sprache thun."
> "A mind that thinks at its own expense
> will always interfere with language".
> J.G. Hamann, 1760