Re: Imperatives

[Gerald Koenig <jlk@NETCOM.COM>]

>
>> >        ei roda punji lei ri cukta le jubme
>> >        Everybody put their books on the table.

I get the uneasy feeling when I read this sentence that my mother, once
a teacher who taught English and of English descent, wouldn't approve
of it.  Consulting  a Higher Authority; Harper's English Grammar, I
find:

" [the imperative mood] is most frequently used to give orders or
commands.  It has but one tense, the present; usually but one person,
the second; and is both singular and plural, active and passive.  While
the imperative is customarily used in the second person, it sometimes
occurs (idiomatically) with first or third, as "Stand we all together"
and "Come one, come all".  The verb "let" is used, as a rule, with
imperative first and third person expressions, as "Let us assemble in
the chapel" and "Let every one sign his name".

The current example has a lot of ambiguity about it. It might not be an
imperative at all, but rather a past tense assertion; "Everybody [did]
put their books on the table." Or it could mean, in a situation where a
class had borrowed texts from another class, that the former was
ordered to return the latter's texts to the table.

I would say that it is not a good imperative.  "Every" has a singular
sense to it, it means taken one by one. So it is correct to say "
Everybody! Put _your_ books on the table."  The "your" is second person
singular as in: "Everybody, go to your mother."  "Their" is third
person and does not agree with the second person singular sense of: each
person.  The sentence is short for: you1 put your books on the table,
and you2 put your books on the table, and ...etc. until all bodies
(persons) have done so. " Every"  means each until all.

A case can be made though for "their" if "everybody"  is
equated to "all"  in analogy to the above ".....come all" which is third
person.  Then the "all" (members) matches the "their".  However it is
just this kind of uncertainty that makes us want to perfect lojban.
It's too late for English.

A(x)[person(x)=> put_on table(x,owned_books)].  But this lacks the imperative
sense and only shows the logical form. It can be seen though that the x
is singular on any given run-through.


>>
>> but no cigar for this one :-)
>> I think this is closer in meaning to "All of you, put your books on the
> table."
>> in that the "everybody" is referring to the second person plural.
>
>But that would be "Everybody, put your books on the table." Or can "their" be
>a second person pronoun in English? I agree that they are very close in meaning

[Jorge]

djer