Re: THEORY: third-person imperatives
From: | Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> |
Date: | Tuesday, April 27, 1999, 19:48 |
"Raymond A. Brown" wrote:
> Exactly - and not just Lutheran theology.
Well, I didn't mean to imply that that was *solely* Lutheran, only that
I only know about in Lutheranism.
> I guess, indeed, this must be common to all 'mainstream'
> Christian theology.
Probly.
> 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 conlange=
rs
> have told us how their langs do that. We can't, I think, simply scrap =
them
> and rephrase with 2nd person imperatives.
Right. In Waty=E1=EDsa, I use the "imperative/jussive" prefix for all th=
ree
persons (at least in theory - I can't see much use in the first person
singular), there's no difference between a blessing and a command, nor
any gramaticalized "polite" imperative. The Suttyaisai (I've decided to
use the native word, rather than the translation for the people) are
usually pretty direct and egalitarian, "formal/informal" commands. To
soften the command, making it a request, I'm not sure exactly what would
be done, but I think that a verb meaning something like "I'd like for
you to" or "It would be good if you", or perhaps a pseudo-question,
"will you ...?"
--=20
"It's bad manners to talk about ropes in the house of a man whose father
was hanged." - Irish proverb
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