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Re: THEORY: third-person imperatives

From:Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
Date:Thursday, April 29, 1999, 17:04
Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:

> Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 20:35:32 +0100 > From: "Raymond A. Brown" <raybrown@...> > > So, to get back to the start of this thread: there is IMHO a need for a > language to be able to express such forms and, indeed, several conlangers > have told us how their langs do that. We can't, I think, simply scrap them > and rephrase with 2nd person imperatives. > > Of course not. But just because classical Greek has both optatives and > 3rd person imperatives, there's no urgent need for any other language, > nat- or con-, to have the same distinction.
> Call the "let"-construction a 3rd person imperative if you must, but I > still think it's just an optative/hortative construction.
I think what his underlying implication was that a language should be able to handle those *meanings*, whether it be through a subjunctive or 3rd person imperatives, or whatever. He wasn't, I think, saying that a language has to have a form of the imperative verb for the third person -- just the general meaning. ======================================================= Tom Wier <artabanos@...> ICQ#: 4315704 AIM: Deuterotom Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/> "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero." Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. - Thomas Jefferson ========================================================