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Re: About Romance natlangs and conlangs (Re: ) (LONG)

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Thursday, November 18, 1999, 23:34
"Grandsire, C.A." wrote:
> Don't forget that in all Romance languages, the > verb agrees in person with the subject.
Even if it's just barely, as in French. :-)
> imperfect (used for the progressive and/or habitual past): widely used > in all the Romance languages I know (French, Spanish and Italian), it is > generally very regular.
Indeed, IIRC, the only irregular imperfects in Spanish are _ir_ and _ser_.
> In Portuguese, AFAIK, it is the analytic compound > form which is still used (or is there also a synthetic form?)
In Portuguese, one can put the object pronoun between the infinitive and the ending, e.g.: Ver-me-a = (s)he/you will see me, but it's also common to avoid that, but I don't remember how.
> (as in Spanish > where all verbs make their compounded tenses with to have).
They make the PERFECT tenses with _haber_, but they also have progressive with _estar_ and passive with _ser_.
> Those two tenses have of course the corresponding compounded forms. > Note that Portuguese has developped a subjunctive future by using the > subjunctive present of to have with the infinitive of the verb (like the > future is formed by the present of to have with the infinitive).
Spanish has a subjunctive future, but it's archaic. -- "Old linguists never die - they just come to voiceless stops." - anonymous http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Conlang/W.html http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor