Re: The phrase 'I'd like...'

Roger Mills wrote:

>Doug Dee/Trebor Jung [shouldn't that be Gnuj?] wrote:
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>>>Could someone explain this weird construction to me?
>>>
>>>
>>I guess this is an example of indirectness serving to indicate politeness.
>>
>>Instead of saying bluntly "I want [you to give me] a cup of tea" we say
>>something that more literally means "Hypothetically speaking, if I had a
>>
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>cup of
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>>tea, I would like it."  Then the listener can infer he ought to give me
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>one,
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>>without my actually having to tell him so.
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>That, yes.  I think there's also a deleted "...to have ~to eat/drink ~to be
>served... etc."  Perhaps equally mysterious is "I'll have...[a Pink Lady,
>the squid, etc.]"
>
>ObConlang:  Kash uses "I will want"-- ma/melo/to (future tense).  To use
>lisam 'like'-- ?*malisando-- in that context would suggest you expect to
>enjoy whatever you've ordered-- not a safe assumption in many restaurants
>both here and there...........
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>>I seem to recall that the French equivalent is "Je voudrais . . ."
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>literally
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>>"I would want . . ."  That strikes me as a slightly less indirect way of
>>getting the point across.
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>>
>And Spanish yo quisiera, Germ. ich möchte (?)(subjunctives) , probably Ital.
>io vorebbe (?)...(conditional, like French)
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The Spanish equivalent of I'd like is 'me gustaría' (conditional)
Yo quisiera (imperfect subjunctive) = (if) I wanted

David Barrow

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