On Fri, 16 May 2008 08:42:24 +0000 (UTC), Andre Majorel
<cheney@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>On 2008-05-16, hept <nowhere@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
>>> "J'espère que vous gagnez" is grammatically correct but
>>> doesn't make much sense because _gagner_ normally describes
>>> an event, not a process.
>>
>> "j'espere que vous gagnez" does make a sense ; for instance
>> you can say this to someone who is playing poker.
>
>I wouldn't say, let alone write, "j'espère que vous gagnez".
>Doesn't sound right to me. For whatever my opinion may be worth.
>;-)
>
>I *would* say "alors, vous gagnez ?" in which gagner indeed
>describes a process. But I believe that this is an isolated
>case. In general, you would use "être en train de gagner", "être
>en voie de gagner", "prendre de l'avance", etc.
>
>Before anyone rises that, "tant que je gagne, je joue" is not a
>counter-example. Here, the present indicates the habit of
>winning, not a process but a recurring event.
thanks for raising all this, André, I'm fascinated by it - not least
because there seems be the possibility of a set of rules, albeit just
slightly out of reach...well for me anyway. As you suggest above, the
quality of something sounding 'wrong' or 'right' is often a reliable
arbiter, but of course only someone steeped in the language and in its
current use is qualified to judge. That unfortunately excludes me.
I'll revisit this at some point, I'm sure. The distinction you draw
between event and process still leaves me feeling uncertain, in much
the same way as I suffer a confusion about what appears sometimes - to
me anyway - to be a grey area midway between the obvious and correct
usages of passé composé and imparfait.
- thanks also to Neil, that looks like a useful grammar reference -
I'll check it out again.
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