[lbo-talk] VERY off-topic: for the English teachers (probably not profs)

[123hop at comcast.net]

I was thinking more of the fact that Latin is inflected so the tense of verbs is marked by the word ending, whereas in English it requires several words to convey the same info

Latin: amo, amabo, amabam, amavi 

English: I love, I will love, I was loving, I have loved

Joanna

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Smith" <mjs at smithbowen.net>
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2011 3:32:34 PM
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] VERY off-topic: for the English teachers (probably not	profs)

On Mon, 17 Oct 2011 19:54:19 +0000 (UTC)
123hop at comcast.net wrote:


> I think the short answer is that english grammar is the result of 
> trying to fit english practice into Latin grammar

It's more a matter of having a somewhat impoverished toolkit of 
linguistic concepts. The English past participle (actually a past 
passive participle) is closely analogous to similar morphological 
verbal-substantive categories in other Indo-European languages, 
and calling it a past participle (passive being understood) 
doesn't stretch the Latin category too much. 

-- 
--

Michael J. Smith
mjs at smithbowen.net

http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org
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