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

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> "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.  :-)
>
        Future and simple past have five different forms out of 6 persons. Do
you call that "barely"? :) Just kidding. It is true that in most tenses,
French doesn't have much conjugation (except in writing, where you
usually can differentiate all the persons, even if they are pronounced
the same). Example:

        j'aime /ZEm/: I love
        tu aimes /tuEm/: you love
        il aime /ilEm/: he loves
        nous aimons /nuzEmO~/: we love
        vous aimez /vuzEme/: you (plural or polite) love
        ils aiment /ilzEm/: they (masculine) love

        If you take only the verb, there are only three forms /Em/, /EmO~/ and
/Eme/, but in writing you have five different forms. And with the
subject clitic pronouns, all forms are different.

> >         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 French, _aller_ (to go) has a regular imperfect based on the
infinitive.

> > 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.
>
        Maybe that's a manifestation of the fact that this tense is still seen
as compounded. Is 'a' the 3rd person present of "to have" in Portuguese?
It seems very likely to me.

> > (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_.
>
        Yes, but "estar" must take the gerund of the verb, and not all verbs
have a passive form. I was talking only about the perfect tenses.

> >         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.
>
        I remember it now. I heard it only once in a song (_Hijo de la luna_
from the group Mecano, if you know them). I don't remember its
conjugation though.

> --
> "Old linguists never die - they just come to voiceless stops." -
> anonymous
> http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Conlang/W.html
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--
        Christophe Grandsire

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