[B-Greek] "Modal" verbs
Kenneth Litwak
javajedi2 at yahoo.com
Fri Dec 5 17:54:49 EST 2008
When I studied German, I learned about modal verbs, such as duerfen, muessen, wollen, etc. These have English "equivalents." For example, I can say "I am certain I would have gotten a tenure-track position if I could have gotten a Harvard Ph.D." Or, "I've never been to Israel but I want to and I hope that one day I will." Apart from DUNAMAI, however, I don't know of any Greek verg that does the job of German or English modal verbs.
Although Mounce says one can use "must" in translating a 2nd peson imperative, I wuold disagree, which leaves me wondering if there are any moods or other mechanisms for expressing things like "would," "could," "like to," "may," "am permitted to" and so forth. (Yes, I know the subjunctive can mean "may do something" but that is different that a simple "may" as in "I may go to the movies this weekend.") Now that I've taught the equivalent of the whole first year of Greek, I've started wondering about this. To some degree, I think the optative can capture the idea of wishing, e.g., "I wish I was teacing full-time" but not could/would/may/etc. Any comments? Thanks.
Ken
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