Re: Verbal distinctions

Andreas Johansson scripsit:

> So the English construction necessarily implies that "he" was in fact dead?
Just so.  One can construct minimal pairs:

a) If Bolshoi Olyania is five kilometers from Krasny Sigorsk [an open
   question], we can get there today.
b) If Bolshoi Olyania were five kilometers from Krasny Sigorsk [which
   it is not], we could have gotten there by now.

> whether "I wish him to have lived" signifies that the speaker wishes that "he"
> was alive at some past point in time - not, f'rinstance, that a wish that "he"
> is currently alive (which a similar Swedish construction means).
This construction suggests to me that the referent never existed at all:
"I want Sherlock Holmes to have lived", for example.  The "alive at some
past point" sense would be "I want James to have been alive [then]",
and the "currently alive" sense is "I want Milton to be living."

The complex around "live" and "be alive/be living" is a wretched hive of
homonymy and polysemy (better than scum and villainy, at least).

--
"Well, I'm back."  --Sam        John Cowan <jcowan@...>