The Undiscovered Country was Re: NOMINALIZING SENTENCES AFTER LATIN

[Padraic Brown <pbrown@POLARIS.UMUC.EDU>]

On Thu, 18 Jun 1998, Ernesto Herrera wrote:

> No, the Spanish future tense does not come from either one of the Latin
> tenses you mention.
> Influenced by Greek (which not only influenced Classical Latin by providing
> an extensive vocabulary but also, less commonly known, influenced Vulgar
> Latin by providing syntactic modifications), the futures
>         cantabo,     dicam
> were replaced by the Greek-like periphrasis
>         cantare habeo,     dicere habeo
[snip]

Full agreement here.  Except that it _does_ survive as the first
conjugation future in Kernu (eo cantab = cantabo, I shall sing).  The
other conjugations dance their own jig and contradance as it were.  The
second conjugation regular verbs have evolved from some godforsaken
construction involving the future active participle; as it now stands it's
not so bad: carura = amabo, I shall love. The third conjugation regulars
have futures in -s-:  dormiso = dormiam, I shall sleep.

Padraic.

>
> Ernesto Herrera-Legorreta
> Miramar Research Center
> Mexico
>