Re: THEORY: Tenses (was: Re: THEORY: ... Auxiliaries...)

On Saturday, July 16, 2005, at 10:31 , JS Bangs wrote:

>> 2. [COLLOQUIAL]
>>   _a avea (to have) + să + subjunctive (which differs from present indic.
>> only in 3rd person forms):
>> am să merg, ai să mergi, are să mearga, avem să mergem, aveţi să mergeţi,
>> au să mearga
>
> Minor correction to what Ray said: in this construction you must use
> the short forms of _a avea_, which are different in the 3sg, 1pl and
> 2pl:
> am să merg, ai să mergi, *a* să meargă, *am* să mergem, *aţi* să
> mergeţi, au să meargă.
Is that so? I know you use the short forms of _a avea_ _ past participle
to form the perfect tense.

I have just checked in "TY Romanian" (Lesson 22, Section 3/2) and it
definitely gives the long forms of _a avea_ for the future. As the
construction is colloquial in any case, can it be that usage varies in
different dialects or indeed in different registers of colloquialness? Or
is the TY info wrong in this instance?

> The 3sg construction here is the source of the 3rd construction Ray
> mentioned w/ "o să": the particle _a_ is pronounced _o_ in many
> dialects, so "o să meargă" ( < "a să meargă") was borrowed across
> dialect boundaries and generalized.
That makes sense. I had assumed that the "o să" construction had somehow
been derived from the _a avea_ + să construction.
>>
>> 3.[CASUAL]
>> An invariable particle _o_ followed by a să-clause:
>> o să merg, o să mergi, o să mearga, o să mergem, o să mergeţi, o să
>> mearga
Ray
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