Re: THEORY: third-person imperatives

On Wed, 28 Apr 1999, 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.
Whoa!  Teonaht does this.  But then, I was following the example that
Tom Weir gave of what sounded to me like a second person imperative:

        Son, have your daughter learn the history of her tribe,

(I paraphrase).  In Teonaht, this *is* a 2nd person imperative: Son,
do that knows your daughter the history of her people.

Lars replies to your remark:

> 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. English happens to express
> both of these senses (and some others) with the "let"-construction;
> Romance languages use the subjunctive for it (and for a different set
> of other purposes).
But what if Tom had made a distinction between "Son, have your daughter
etc." and "Let Tebnar's daughter know the history of her tribe"?  This
is different in kind from "Have your daughter know."

In Teonaht, however, it's a first person plural imperative:

        Dets ta pre le mesol ilid Tebnar il thyme ilid plevvysta
        Let us do that knows the daughter of Tebnar, etc.

> Call the "let"-construction a 3rd person imperative if you must, but I
> still think it's just an optative/hortative construction.
Hmmm.  In Teonaht, at least, this is true.  There is no real third person
imperative, and there also is no subjunctive.  A weird language, but
there it is.  However, the "let" construction in English is directed at
no single person or group.  Perhaps that is why it seems to fit the
category of third person imperative.

Sally (under a pile of work)
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Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/babel.html

Aro le tsolaaia neom, ma kellybma vera.
"The sun breathes on us but doesn't warm."
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