Re: Subjunctive?

[C.D.Wright@solipsys.compulink.co.uk]

cdw> So, how do you know that the information that
cdw> I don't have a million pounds is not important?
cdw> The ... question was how one should translate
cdw> it, not whether ... it's important.

r_t> The point I was trying to make is that we should be
r_t> wary of assuming that just because in language A it
r_t> is compulsory to mark feature X, we should mark it
r_t> in language Y.

Agreed, and perhaps the counter-point is that the subjunctive
is not only not compulsory, but in some quarters is actively
deprecated (e.g. Fowler the great's "Modern English Usage")


cdw> I generally rely on the precise expression of single
cdw> ideas, and for a translator to decide that information
cdw> is irrelevant is dangerous.

r_t> True, but it is also bad to assume that something is
r_t> important just because it's embedded in the grammar.

Agreed. And while the subjunctive isn't, I completely agree with
you that other things are, and shouldn't by default be translated.


cdw> ... the more I have studied language I have come to the
cdw> conclusion that it simply cannot work at all !!
r_t> Quine seemed to come to the same conclusion ;-)

<grin>

cdw> I accept that you know more about translation than
cdw> I do or ever will,
r_t> That I seriously doubt!

Don't. I have no languages other than English, University
mathematics, a smattering of lojban, and about 12 computer
languages. I don't translate at all, ever, except for my
poor and faltering efforts in lojban.


cdw> if ever I expect some of my work to be important enough
cdw> to translate, I had better not use language the way I
cdw> usually do, since I can't expect a translator to express
cdw> everything important *in_my_opinion* (as the author) in
cdw> the original.

r_t> ... that's one reason why we have Lojban - it's much
r_t> easier to specify what is and isn't important. Questions
r_t> of fluency aside, it should be much easier to translate
r_t> from Lojban into a natlang than vice versa.

Again, agreed.


r_t> Similarly, with the million dollars example, I do not think
r_t> that it is normally necessary to inform the listener that
r_t> I do not, and probably will never, have a million dollars.

cdw> But if I express it with the subjunctive, then I *do* think
cdw> it's important.

r_t> zo'o semantics of "if" again?

<grin>

r_t> If you think it's important' you use the subjunctive,
r_t> but that doesn't imply that if you use the subjunctive,
r_t> you think it's important. English also demands that I
r_t> choose gender when using a personal pronoun, whether or
r_t> not the gender of the person referred to is important or
r_t> even known.

Of course. Let me say it differently. The subjunctive is
actively deprecated, and if I use it, it will always and only be
because it is carrying information. I didn't use it in that last
sentence, from which you may deduce that I do expect to use it.


Re: the semantics of IF

cdw> So, how would you translate the following:
cdw> " If I were to have a million pounds
cdw> then I'd be rich. "
cdw> given that I, as the author, have used the subjunctive,
cdw> an otherwise obsolete form, to carry the additional
cdw> information that I believe the antecedent to be unlikely
cdw> ever to be true.

r_t> I think other people have answered this fairly completely.

I must have missed that, and will have to re-read the messages.
It seemed to me that most have gone off on a different tangent,
so I may have over-looked it.



-- 
\\// ze'uku ko jmive gi'e snada