> On Monday, May 9, 2005, at 05:23 , Muke Tever wrote:
>
>> Christopher Wright <dhasenan@...> wrote:
>>> Gregory Gadow palsalge
>>>> I should know this, but my brain keeps coming up empty (like that
>>>> hasn't
>>>> ever happened before.)
>>>>
>>>> In the sentences, "It is raining today" and "Yesterday, she went to
>>>> the
>>>> market", what part of speech is 'today' and 'yesterday'? I want to say
>>>> that they are acting as adverbs, but that doesn't seem right.
>
> But it is right :)
>
>>> They're nouns:
>>>
>>> 1) Today is a good day to die.
>>> 2) Tomorrow will come shortly.
>>
>> They're nouns in those sentences, certainly, but not in the
>> sentences in question.
>
> I agree 100% on both points.
>
> I fail to see how the sentences "It is raining today" and "Yesterday, she
> went to the market" can be satisfactorily parsed with 'today' and
> 'yesterday' treated as nouns.
>
>> I think some of these constructions
>> don't translate anyway: AFAIK you can't use 'hodie' in Latin
>> as a noun at all.
>
> Correct, nor can 'heri' (yesterday) or 'cras' (tomorrow) - exactly the
> same applies to Esperanto's 'hodiau', 'hierau' or 'morgau' [breve on final
> -u in all three words] - they are all adverbs in the two languages.
>
> The best that Latin offers to translate (1) and (2) above are the derived
> adjectives _hodiernus_ (of or pertaining to today), _hesternus_ (of or
> pertaining to yesterday [heri <-- *hesi]) and _crastinus_ (of or
> pertaining to tomorrow), thus:
>
> dies hodiernus est ad moriendum idoneus.
> day of_today is for dying proper/becoming [_moriendum_ is a
> gerund]
>
> dies crastinus mox veniet
> day of_tomorrow shortly will_come
>
> I leave it to someone more familiar with Esperanto to say how that would
> express the same concepts.
>
>>
>>> Adverbials act a bit differently:
>>> 3) *Recently was a good time to die.
>>> 4) *Soon will come shortly.
>>
>> But there's nothing wrong with "It was raining recently" or
>> "Soon, she will be going to the market", is there?
>
> Nope.
>
> hodie pluit - it is raining today [adverb, verb]
> nuper pluebat - it was raining recently [adverb, verb]
>
> heri ad mercatum adiit - yesterday to the market she_went [adverb, PP,
> verb]
> mox ad mercatum adibit - soon she will be going to the market [adverb, PP,
> verb]
>
>> According to AHD:
>>
http://www.bartleby.com/61/91/Y0019100.html
>> ..."yesterday" has both nominal and adverbial senses.
>
> Precisely! I quote from 'Chambers English Dictionary':
>
> today
> "_n._ this or the present day. - _adv._ on the present day: nowadays"
>
> yesterday
> "_n._ the day last past: (often in _pl._) the recent past - _adv._ on the
> day last past: formerly: in the recent past"
>
> The notion that each word in English is assigned to one, and only one,
> part of speech just does not hold water. As my English teacher way back in
> the 1950s used to drum into us regarding English words:
> "By their deeds shall ye know them"
>
> Ray