Re: TRANS: a child's exercise

On Sat, 11 Sep 1999, FFlores wrote:

> What do you mean by 'past definite'? I'll try to guess...
Good guess!

> Spanish has two pasts, _pret=E9rito indefinido_ and _pret=E9rito imperfec=
to_.
> I guess your 'past definite' is the _indefinido_, in spite of the name:
>=20
>         pret. indefinido: _fuimos de viaje_ 'we went on a trip'
>         pret. imperfecto: _=EDbamos de viaje_ 'we were (going) on a trip'
>=20
> If that's the meaning of your past definite, then I would say no,
> in principle. Spanish-speaking children know the difference and use
> what fits best. What past did you use in Brithenig? I guess the=20
> imperfect one, right? In any case, how you use it depends on the=20
> idiosyncracies of Brithenig speakers. In Spanish at least, using
> _=EDbamos de viaje_ for the completed action instead of _fuimos de
> viaje_ would be very strange even for a child.
>=20
I deliberately wrote the entire translation in imperfect tense to reflect
that someone may not write something as grammatically correct.  The three
past tense cases in Brithenig are the compound perfect tense; the
imperfect tense; and the historic tense.  The historic tense is incomplete
in Modern Brithenig due to the swallowing of final vowels and the other
two tenses have been commandeered to fill out these gaps when they occur.
Probably I should reconsider the translation to see if a correct use of
tenses would have made any difference.

- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus =09=09=09hobbit@earthlight.co.nz

    Jesus is working out his salvation; he is about halfway there.