From @uga.cc.uga.edu:lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Sun Jun 11 23:31:36 1995 Received: from punt3.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA3361 ; Sun, 11 Jun 95 23:31:30 BST Received: from punt3.demon.co.uk via puntmail for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk; Sat, 10 Jun 95 23:25:06 GMT Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by punt3.demon.co.uk id aa17224; 11 Jun 95 0:24 +0100 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 3465; Sat, 10 Jun 95 19:22:25 EDT Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 7320; Sat, 10 Jun 1995 19:22:25 -0400 Date: Sat, 10 Jun 1995 19:25:56 EDT Reply-To: jorge@phyast.pitt.edu Sender: Lojban list From: jorge@phyast.pitt.edu Subject: Re: imperative mood X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Iain Alexander Message-ID: <9506110024.aa17224@punt3.demon.co.uk> Status: R la kris cusku di'e > Correct me if I'm misunderstanding this, but it seems to me that these are > all 3rd person imperatives (.e'u ko'a gasnu) : > > let him do it > make him do it > tell him to do it > have him do it > may he do it! The first is the only one that I would call 3rd person imperative in some contexts. The last one is third person but usually not imperative and the others are clear second person imperatives. When the first means "allow him to do it" it is second person. It is third person imperative in a context like "I won't do it, you do it or let him do it", where "you" doesn't have any control over whether "him" does it or not. Could one say "you or him do it", I guess not. > To me these all have a range of distinct meanings. In the second person > imperative it's clear that you want the listener to do a certain thing. But > it seems to me that a 3rd p. imperative really is a disguised 2nd person > imperative. You're not *really* ordering 3 to do something, you're ordering > 2 to do something to or for 3; or maybe you're just wishing aloud to 2 about 3. Those are not 3rd person imperatives. In third person imperatives the listener is not involved. For example "let there be light" would be a 3rd person imperative in a language which has it. It is not telling anyone to allow there to be light, it is just an idiom that English uses instead of the 3rd person imperative. > The existence of a 3rd imperative seems to me to be a source of bad > ambiguity in some natlangs. Does ".e'u ko'a cu gugde cliva" mean "allow > them to emigrate" or "exile them"? I don't think it means either of them. The listener isn't required to do anything, the listener is just being informed that the speaker suggests that they leave the country. The listener neither has to allow them nor force them to leave. > It's an important distinction, > especially if ko'a cu so'imei gi'e djica so'i frica. In Japanese there's a > verb affix "sase" that has exactly this ambiguity; is that true of other > languages with 3rd imperatives? In Esperanto there is a 3rd person imperative. "Ili forlasu la landon" means that they should leave the country, but it can also be a suggestion or a request with the right context. > (BTW I think "let's" is a special case. It's only historically a > contraction of "let us"; I can't think of any situation where you could > contract "let us" or decontract "let's" without either considerably changing > the meaning or sounding archaic. But it's the same phenomenon with the third person, only that there's no contraction for it. Sometimes it really means "allow", and sometimes it is just the form that the third person imperative takes. > (A flea and a fly in a flue, were trapped, > so what could they do? "Let us flee", said the fly; "Let us fly", said the > flea; so they flew through a flaw in the flue.)) > i lo civla ku joi lo sfani lo tubnu cu rinju i gasnu ma i lu e'u mi'o rivbi li'u se cusku le sfani i lu e'u mi'o vofli li'u se cusku le civla i cysy vofli pa'o lo fenra be le tubnu It doesn't translate so good... co'o mi'e xorxes