Tuesday, June 29, 2010

English Infinitive vs. Imperative Interrogative, or Interrogative Verb

Actually, this is for EFLers (speakers of English as a foreign language) rather than directly for this Youtube video. SuperJMN writes,
"Please, somebody to write down the lyrics! They're not published yet".
The use of "to" before a verb in the situation that SuperMJN does use it makes the verb "infinitive" rather than "imperative" (a command); his actual intent, however, or what he wanted to communicate, was
"please, somebody write down the lyrics. They're not published yet"
That is [to say], a request in the form of a command (which is possible in English and indicated by his use of "please"); alternatively he could have written
"please, would someone write down the lyrics, they're not published yet"
Which as a request is purely in the form of a request; while the use of the auxiliary verb "would" is usually subjunctive, here it indicates a petition, approximately signifying "would you be willing to write down the lyrics, please"[1] ("please" is added in that example only because SuperMJN's original Youtube comment contains it). I hope this is helpful to EFLers rather than offensive.
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[1] Which does include a "subjunctive" component. For spanish speakers, "subjunctivo".

in reference to:
"Please, somebody to write down the lyrics! They're not published yet :("
- YouTube - DC 2000 - Dreamin ´ (Don´t worry 2 much) (view on Google Sidewiki)

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