<off_topic>
On 6 Jun 2009, at 23:15, Francis Davey wrote:
> Of course a participle is also a verb too, just not a finite one and
> damn useful things they are sometimes.
Well, kind of a verb -- certainly related, but it depends how you
analyse the sentence. Take "bored" in the sentence "I'm bored by all
of this" -- it can be parsed equally validly as a participle or as an
adjective.
> The confusion may be that "were" is also used in non-indicative
> sentences ("if I were a rich man") showing its descent from the OE
> subjunctive waere ("ae" being an ash rendered in ASCII).
And yet most French text books for English people say that there's no
subjunctive in English. How wrong they are.
> Apologies for the historical linguistics. I find it hard to remember
> anything unsystematic, so I have to construct some *reason* for things
> being the way they are. Historical linguistics made learning some
> languages a teeny bit less awful, though not nearly enough.
I feel a long, perhaps drunken, buy deeply fascinating conversation
coming on the next time mySociety meet up for a few beers. Looking
forward to it. :o)
But yeah, as I mentioned, what started as a tangentially relevant
thread has veered waaaaay off-topic, so perhaps we should end it
here. Feel free to continue in private though!
Cheers.
Tim
</off_topic>
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