Re: THEORY: third-person imperatives

At 10:55 pm -0400 28/4/99, Nik Taylor wrote:
>Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
>> Call the "let"-construction a 3rd person imperative if you must, but I
>> still think it's just an optative/hortative construction.
>
>I thought of something.  Could third-person "imperatives" be rephrased
>as second-person imperatives, with the "commandee" in the vocative?  For
>instance, take the earlier example of "Let the word go forth ...",
>suppose it were stated as "word-VOC go.forth-IMP" in some language.  Can
>any one see any problems with that?  I suppose that that wouldn't
>properly be a vocative, since you're not actually *addressing* the
>"word",
'Tis a device which IIRC is found among ancient poets & orators.  The word
'apostrophizing'  sort of comes to mind, but I may be wrong.  You've
stirred up forgotten memories of long years ago  ;)

But it won't work.  Take the three examples of the 3rd imperative in Greek
that I quoted, i.e. the first three petitions of the Pater Noster.  They
are preceded by a 'true vocative' - "Our Father in heaven".  Can we then
address his name, his kingdom & his will in turn before returning to our
original vocative?

Our Father in heaven!
Your name, be hallowed!
Your kingdom, come!
Your will, be done on earth as you are done in heaven.
Give us today......

Ah - now that last 'give' will still be addressed to God's will!  We'll
need a change of subject, which the Greek does not need.  And to take up a
point the politeness point (which IIRC Padraig made) isn't it a little
impolite to greet a person and then go onto to address some of their
attributes?

And does it really wor, anyway.  Let's consider a situation where we have
something that could normally be vocative, say a parent & child.  Can we
imagine this:

"Hello, Peter!  I say, your dad, can you tell me the time?"

Nah - it doesn't work.

>but it seems reasonable that a case could be used.  Perhaps this
>could even be applied to first person pronouns (us-VOC go.forth-IMP)
Over here talking to ourselves is considered a sign of impending madness ;)

Though I've come across the first use as a literary device, I can't recall
this latter use.

Ray.