Re: Tense formations

At 13:22 2001-09-15 +0200, Rune Haugseng wrote:
> >
> > I don't believe that that distinction exists in Norwegian - «elsket» would
> > I think be used in both situations. But I'm just a beginner, so maybe Tal
> > or our new member Rune (velkommen!) could provide native-speaker
> > clarification.
> >
>
>Thanks! That sounds right to me, although you'd probably be better off
>asking someone who actually knows what a supine is...
The distinction exists only in Swedish, and what's more it was or4iginally
a purely orthographical device.

In some dialects the past participle neuter ending of certain strong verbs
was pronounced _-et_--e.g. _kommet_--, and in some it kept the older
pronunciation _-it_--e.g. _kommit_.  In the 16th century it was spelled in
either way in any position, but then somebody got the idea that the _-it_
spelling should be used in the perfect construction (_hava kommit_ "have
come"), while the _-et_ spelling should be used when the participle
functioned as a true, inflected adjective.  Nowadays many people actually
make this distinction in speech also; another of the prolific spelling
pronunciations in Swedish.

They snatched the term _supinum_ from Latin grammar, but AFAIK the latine
supine is actually a qute different usage.  Maybe Ray can describe that.



/BP 8^)>
--
B.Philip Jonsson mailto:bpX@netg.se (delete X)
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