I was looking for something I read by Anna Wierzbicka about ‘let’ as the preeminent English causative. It could be this, English causative constructions in an ethnosyntactic perspective: Focusing on LET. In: Nick Enfield (ed.), Ethnosyntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 162-203
Anyway, she talked about the contradictions of a society based on liberalism in which people are free but which supports a very ordered way of life intricately set up that requires people getting other people to do things.
She says ‘let’ plays a role in getting people to do things (did she also talk about whimperatives? I think she uses the example of the prof getting staff in the department office to do things. She can’t just order them around)
She links it with the change of meaning of ‘let’ (that is cognate with German ‘lassen’, I remember reading), from ‘Let there be light, and there was light’ and ‘Let us pray’ (ie, I say it, and it is so), to a suggestion and request for comment, eg ‘Let’s read Luke chapter 1, verse 1.’
You can actually use “fiat” as a verb in English
‘Suffer the children to come unto me,’ not ‘Let the children approach.’
By fiat?
I was thinking more like “fiat 2d4 goblins”
There is apparently not this let/make distinction in causatives in some other languages. I think she says German doesn’t have it. And Japanese doesn’t.
doesn’t have a hortative case?
We have other imperatives
“take six eggs”
The same expression can be used to mean, The teacher sent the children home early, or, the teacher let the children go home early, depending on context.
“sit down”
“shut up”
“let’s” is hortative because it’s only a suggestion, not an order
hortative — Noun: 1. (grammar) A mood or class of imperative subjunctive moods of a verb for giving strong encouragement., — Adjective: 1. (comparable) Urging, exhorting, or encouraging., 2. (grammar, not comparable) Of a mood or class of imperative subjunctive moods of a verb for giving strong encouragement. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hortative
“Shall we eat this human feet-first or head-first?” “Let’s eat him feet-first, so he can watch.”
personally I find them rather stringy
Phrase of the day: lamps and lights
Hrm apparently I’m confused
the eyes and some other organ, is what I was thinking
“lights” = lungs
without let or hindrance: Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State Requests and requires in the Name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance,
That ‘let’ is not a hortative let.
Interesting: a serve in tennis which hits the net and then falls in is called a “let.”
The Candian passport message is in French and English, but the French version doesn’t translate the ‘let’, apparently. Le ministre des Affaires étrangères du Canada, au nom de Sa Majesté la Reine, prie les autorités intéressées de bien vouloir accorder libre passage au titulaire de ce passeport, de même que l’aide et la protection dont il aurait besoin.
But it’s in the English version, according to https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/let-or-hindrance.1039674/
The same root word survives in the verb “late”
The American passport replaces ‘let’ with ‘delay’: The Secretary of State of the United States of America hereby requests all whom it may concern to permit the citizen/national of the United States named herein to pass without delay or hindrance and in case of need to give all lawful aid and protection.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_passport#Passport_message
‘let’ in computer science/math is the ‘let’ of ‘let there be light’, no? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_expression
‘let’ in ‘Letting property’ is in between ‘let there be light’ and the hortative ‘let’? ‘They let me use their house. For a price.’ It’s a causative ‘let’, I think.
“let us” is hortative
“let there be” is not
The wiktionary entry on ‘let’, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/let, says ‘Let me go to the store’ could be addressed to someone preventing me going to the store, or it could be “a first-person singular imperative of “go” (not implying any such preventer)."
A self-directed imperative? Do they exist?
‘Down, dog. Down’
They might not get that reference
From wiktionary: Let me just give you the phone number.
It was suggested that is an ordinary imperative, not a first-person singular imperative.
Wiktionary also mentions ‘let’ as an obsolete causative in the phrase ‘let me know.’
Can you let me know what time you’ll be arriving?
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