6.2. NOMINALISING 287
Another example of the use of can be seen in the following
example:
”Would (you) like to add anything to what (I)’ve said?”In this sentence, there are two abstractions going on: one is the ab-
straction of , ”said” to , ”the thing that was said”, and the
second from , ”to add” (a compound verb coming from ,
”to aĴach”, and , ”to add”) to , ”[a] thing to add”.
It should be noted that these are genuine abstractions;
does not only refer to the actually spoken words, but also the thoughts that
they stood for, and likewise stands not just for words, but for
thoughts that can be added to the already existent thoughts on whatever
was being discussed. This plain past tense + is also used to ask whether
or not someone has experience with something, in the paĴern [plain past
tense] + :
”Have (you) ever been to France?”This sentence literally reads ”Do you have ’going to France’?”. This
implies having the experience of going to France, as there is no real other
way one can ”have” a concept like this. Unlike , which deals with real
past experiences, asks something about the abstract concept of, in this
case, ’going to France’. This abstraction is quite necessary: asking more
directly, such as actually presumes that regardless
of the destination someone actually went somewhere to begin with, which
may not be the case at all. The abstraction is required to talk about the act
of going to France as a concept.
6.2.3 Real conceptualisation using
As mentioned in the outline, conceptualises real, but not necessar-
ily tangible, things. For instance, the following sentence is about a very
intangible, but very real thing:
”(You) can’t keep that secret hidden forever.”Here, , ”to be able to keep a secret a secret” is
conceptualised using to form which trans-