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

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Mon Oct 17 18:46:26 PDT 2011


On 10/17/2011 8:04 PM, Andy wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 6:38 PM,<123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
>> 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
>
> Is there a Romance or Germanic language that is otherwise? (Romanian?)
>
> Don't get me started on Czech. They have a one-word tense/aspect for
> wistful remembrance: "We would go down to the stream..."

I don't remember much about Czech; I do remember that the neuter noun endings had completely flattened out, but that often Czech writers would write _as if_ the endings were still informational. It made some very odd sentences, or so they seemed to me.

Carrol



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