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

Maybe I'm a little late with my response and it has already been answered
what I'm writing... It's just about "Ich möchte".

From: "Andreas Johansson" <andjo@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 12:43 PM
Subject: Re: The phrase 'I'd like...'


Quoting Roger Mills <romilly@...>:

> > I seem to recall that the French equivalent is "Je voudrais . . ."
> literally
> > "I would want . . ."  That strikes me as a slightly less indirect way of
> > getting the point across.
> >
> And Spanish yo quisiera, Germ. ich möchte (?)(subjunctives) , probably
Ital.
> io vorebbe (?)...(conditional, like French)
>
>
> German indeed has _ich möchte_ and so on. It's pretty literally "I would
> like" - cf indicative _ich mag_ "I like".
>
>                                                 Andreas
Yes, "je voudrais" is conditionel I (future I + imparfait). As for German, I
don't know what mood "ich möchte" is, I must admit. I don't believe ?möchten
exists ... *looks up in the Duden* ... no, it doesn't exist (although
wouldn't be impossible I think!). I haven't got an etymologic dictionary at
hand, so then I *guess* "möchte" comes from "mögen" (to like). Would be
sensible, because indicative = mögen, past = mochte, Konjunktiv I = ich
möge, Konjunktiv II = ich möchte(/würde mögen*). The Konjunktiv II forms are
always derived from the past form, Konjunktiv II is derived from the
indicative form. Besides, you can also say "Ich hätte gerne ..." (I would
like to have... => I'd like (to have)...). So from my assumptions: "ich
möchte" is subjunctive and thus kind of an indirect expression.

*) "möchte" as Konjunktiv II is, only possible in the "I'd like..."
construction. Otherwise it would be misunderstood. Cf. "Er behauptet, sie
möchte keine Kinder." and "Er behauptet, sie würde keine Kinder mögen." ("He
claims she does not want (to have) any children." vs "He claims she would
not like children.")

[jO:s], ["ka:stn= "bEk6]
... never sure how to represent the <r> in "Carsten" in IPA.

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