Re: Auxiliary verbs

Yahya Abdal-Aziz wrote:
> obConlang:  The auxiliary and modal verbs of
> English present a useful model for the meta
> discussion of action: expressing attitudes and
> the like.  My feeling is that French, German and
> Spanish have equally subtle distinctions, as
> probably do most natlangs.
I'm sure they do too, but just from umpteen years of
studying/speaking/reading/writing Spanish, the distinctions under discussion
have never occurred to me, nor AFAIK have I encountered them.

First off, Span. doesn't seem to have a direct translation of "may"; one
would have to use _permitir(se)_ I think.

Se permite que vayas 'it's permitted that you go = you may go'
No se permite que vayas 'you may not go (not permitted)'
Se permite que no vayas 'you may [not go] (you have the option)'

Similary with 'can' poder I think:
puedes ir you can go (ability) no puedes ir (inability)
?*Puedes no ir 'you can [not go]' you have the option; I feel
puede ser que no vayas would be better-- or is "puede que no vayas" OK?? I
need a native speaker!!

 Although I was
> never able to suss out good ways to express all
> of these attitudes in Malay, Kadazan or Cham,
And ditto for my Indonesian; nothing like this was ever brought up in class,
not AFAIK in real life. How about:
Boleh pergi '(you) may go'  ~ tidak boleh pergi '(you) may not go' signals
permission or lack thereof.

But: ? boleh tidak pergi ??? you may [not go] (option) I simply don't know.
Would this be a job for -lah?? bolehlah, tidak pergi????
Or may a different word in that case, mungkin(lah?) 'possible' ??

Needless to say, the problem hasn't cropped up in Kash either; I'm
suspecting it might work something like my proposed Indonesian---

harumbo (ha)cosa 'you may go' ~ ta harumbo (ha)cosa 'you may not go'
(permission)

rumbo/ni, ta hacosa 'you may [not go]' (option) Lit. "may-of.it, you don't
go" but that's probabaly colloq.  I can't think of a "proper" way to say it.
Maybe: yarumbo re ta hacosa ' it may (be) that you don't go' (sounds
unlikely or stilted at best)?? One could use the word for "permitted",
"possible" or "need/needn't" but that seems like cheating...

It would be interesting if speakers of other L1's would chime in.

Is it possible in German, as in Engl., to make the distinction with
intonation?

you may not gó (not permitted)= Du darfst nicht géhen.
you may nót gó you may [not go] (option) Du darst nícht géhen.

Is that clear???

(Drat, mysteriously my Intl.keyboard has stopped working)

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