Re: Marking and Imperatives

Ed Heil wrote:
>
> I don't have an answer for your question, but I do have a
> clarification of it....
>
> The most common usages of a verb tend to be the least marked.  For
> indicative verbs, this is usually third singular and/or plural.
> (English is weird in marking *only* this person/number combination.)
>
        Comparing all the languages I know, I think the 1st person singular is
also often the least marked in indicative verbs. But maybe it is an
Indo-European feature.

> For imperatives, the most common usage is second singular and/or
> plural, and this is highly unmarked -- note that in English, we can
> even drop the otherwise obligatory pronoun when we use a (second
> person) imperative!  "Look out!" = "(you) look out!"
>
        Just like in French. It is often the only mark that differentiate an
imperative from an indicative, the presence or absence of a subject
pronoun. But maybe it's due to the fact that the imperative is already
highly marked in context (tone, addressing to someone you're talking to,
often some gesture...), so maybe the imperative in not marked
morphologically speaking because it is very much marked by context.

> Note that Latin and some other languages have third person
> imperatives, but they are more morphologically marked than the second;
> and in English we have to use a periphrastic construction, "Let it
> be!"
>
> Note also that at least in English, there is one verb whose most
> common and morphologically unmarked usage is in the *first* person --
> it allows us to drop the pronoun in the first person just as for
> imperatives we drop the pronoun in the second person.  That verb is
> "to thank" -- "Thank you!" - "(I) thank you!"
>
        Strange, I didn't think of that but that's exactly the way we say
"thank you" in Chasma"o"cho: eipent /Ejp'Ent/, minepent /minp'Ent/ which
means exactly: "praise you" and lacks also the subject suffix. I swear
that I didn't think of the English way when I did it (but it might be an
inconscious borrowing :) ).

--
        Christophe Grandsire

        Philips Research Laboratories --  Building WB 145
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        Phone:  +31-40-27-45006
        E-mail: grandsir@natlab.research.philips.com