Re: Auxiliary verbs

Hi all,

This is longish.

On Tue, 9 May 2006 Roger Mills wrote:
>
> 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)'
Yes, these are idiomatic ways of getting the positive
and both the negative forms.


> Similary with 'can' poder I think:
> puedes ir you can go (ability) no puedes ir (inability)
Fine.


> ?*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!!
Note that we don't say "you can not-go" in English
for this meaning, since it's too easily taken for
"you cannot go".  Rather, we'd paraphrase as, eg
"you can stay away", or use another auxiliary, eg
"you need not go".  And I'm racking my brain for
a verb "V" we can negate that doesn't have an
antonym separate from "not V" ...

I think that similar considerations apply also to
Spanish and almost any other natlang I know of.

"puede ser que no vayas" - "it could be that you
don't go" - this is quite idiomatic, but does not
mean "you can not-go".

Machine translation (*) gave, for various forms:
 - Puedes no ir. - You cannot go.
 - No puedes ir. - You cannot go.
 - Puede ser que no vayas. - It can be that you do not go.
 - Puede que no vayas.  - It is possible that you do not go.

The last two mean much the same.  And back
translation confirms these results. (*)

(*) Using http://translation.paralink.com/default.asp


>  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.
With the customary colloquial abbreviations:
"kau" < "engkau" = "you" and
"tak" < "tidak" = "not",
I'd use -

"mungkin" for "to be possible that"
 - "mungkin kau masuk" = "it is possible that you enter"
 - "tak mungkin kau masuk" = "it is impossible that you enter"
 - "mungkin kau jangan (*) masuk" =
   "mungkin kau tak masuk" = "it is possible that you don't enter"
 - "tak mungkin kau jangan (*) masuk" = "it is impossible that you don't enter"
 (implying "how could you not enter?")

(*) "jangan", commonly used in prohibitions,
eg "jangan merokok" = "don't smoke", can here
replace "tak".

"harus" for "to be proper that"
 - "[kau] harus masuk" = "it is proper that [you] enter"
 - "[kau] tak harus masuk" = "it is improper that [you] enter"
 - "harus kau jangan masuk" = "it is proper that you don't enter"
 - "tak harus kau jangan masuk" = "it is improper that you don't enter"
 (implying "your failure to enter would offend")

"boleh" for "can" or " to be able to" or (colloquially) "may"
 - "[kau] boleh masuk" = "you can enter"
 - "[kau] tak boleh masuk" = "you cannot enter"

"diizinkan" or "dibenarkan" for "to be permitted to" or "to be allowed to"
 - "[kau] diizinkan masuk" = "you are permitted to enter"
 - "[kau] tak diizinkan masuk" = "you aren't permitted to enter"

"dilarangkan" for "to be forbidden to"
 - "[kau] dilarangkan masuk" = "you are forbidden to enter"
 - "[kau] tak dilarangkan masuk" = "you aren't forbidden to enter"

"sempat" for "to have an opportunity to"
 - "[kau] sempat masuk" = "you have an opportunity to enter"
 - "[kau] tak sempat masuk" = "you don't have an opportunity to enter"

"patut" for "should" or "ought to"
 - "[kau] patut masuk" = "[you] should enter" or "[you] ought to enter"
 - "[kau] tak patut masuk" = "[you] shouldn't enter" or "[you] oughtn't enter"

Also "sepatutnya, kau jangan masuk" = "by rights, you shouldn't enter".
And "sebenarnya, kau jangan masuk" = "really, you shouldn't enter".
And "seharusnya, kau jangan masuk" = "properly speaking, you shouldn't enter".


> But: ? boleh tidak pergi ??? you may [not go] (option) I simply
> don't know.
No, it doesn't work.  The two examples where
I gave a negative ("tak" or "jangan") before
"masuk" both involve expressing an attitude
about your non-entry, your "not enter"ing.
So do the final three sentences.  They're "meta"
sentences in which the topic being discussed is
your not entering .  In fact, the sentence:
 - "harus kau jangan masuk" = "it is proper that you don't enter"
would more likely be expressed definitely as:
 - "seharusnya, kau jangan masuk" = "properly speaking, you wouldn't enter"
or
 - "seharusnya, kau tak kan masuk" = "properly speaking, you won't enter"

Similarly:
 - "tak harus kau jangan masuk" = "it is improper that you don't enter"
would more likely be expressed definitely as:
 - "seharusnya, kau akan masuk" = "properly speaking, you will enter"
- double negatives being beloved of no-one!


> Would this be a job for -lah?? bolehlah, tidak pergi????
> Or may a different word in that case, mungkin(lah?) 'possible' ??
No, the extra emphasis of -lah is not enough to force
the "not" to form a semantic unit with the verb.

But "mungkin[lah] kau tak gi hari ni"
is a perfectly acceptable colloquial translation of:
"[quite] possibly, you won't go today".

This is the usual way of expressing an attitude about
any possible event - or non-event.

"Ayahanda baru sahaja maut-nya.  Sepatutnya kau
tak balik rumah hari ini juga".
("Father new only death-his.  Properly you not return
house day this also.")
"Your father's only just died.  You shouldn't go home
on this very day."


> 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...
"Possibly you won't go" or "it is possible you won't
go" seem like reasonable approaches to me.  If you
have the word "possible" or "possibly", you can
express an attitude about the possiblility of any
[non-]event.  (But you probably won't use the
modal "will/won't", will you?)  Still, if you want to
avoid a reflex of either an English or a Malay/Indo-
nesian structure - why not simply choose a new
structure for this purpose?  I rather like the
(logical) idea of simply putting the "not" before
the relevant verb, as you do with your "ta" above.
Your "/ni" also asserts that the "may" governs
some other clause (your going).  How about:
 - rumbo/ni, hacosa 'you may go'
 - ta rumbo/ni, hacosa 'you may not go'
 - rumbo/ni, ta hacosa 'you may [stay = not go]'
 - ta rumbo/ni, ta hacosa 'you may not [stay = not go]'


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


> 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???
Not in my AusE, it's not!  One might say:
 - you may nót go (you are not permitted to go)
 - you máy: not go (you are permitted not to go)

I think the pause, or lengthened diphthong, is
probably essential to being understood here.

But of course, since it's clearer, we'd say instead:
 - you don't have to go if you don't want to.

Regards,
Yahya

PS Some people have replied directly to me rather than
to the list.  That's fine if you intend to!  Since the Reply-
to is blank in Outlook, I'd expect it to be set by the
CONLANG list server software to point to the list; I
think it works that way on every other list I'm on.  But
I'd be happy to hear of any steps I could take to prevent
my email address appearing in the Reply-to on list.  YA

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