Re: Vulcan language Saul Epstein Tue, 08 Apr 1997 15:26:53 -0500 At 02:26 PM 4/8/97 +0200, Sorahl wrote: >Please pardon my English. By a simple temporal system I mean that we >shouldn't have a lot of different tenses. That's what I was afraid you meant. You weren't "improper" in terms of English, just vague in general. By the way, please pardon me if I ever seem to be demonstrating Native-Speaker arrogance where English is concerned. >I think the following system should be enough. > >PAST PRESENT FUTURE >perfective/imperfective perf./imperf. > >PAST per. would be like: "I've read/been reading for 3 hours (and continue) >PAST imp. would be like: "I've read/ for 3 hours (and have stopped) You have perfect and imperfect reversed. Past perfect describes an action which began and ended in the past. ("I spoke.") Past imperfect describes an action which began in the past and ends in the present. ("I have spoken.") Perfect here means "complete within the tense." >FUTURE per. would be 'the immediate future', needs a time-indication. >Vulcans can't be vague of course. >i,e.: I will visit healer Stonn tomorrow, 3 o'clock in the afternoon. >FUTURE imp. would be 'the far future' No time-indication needed, as no >set time already exists or can be given.. This could be used for wishes and >plans, among others. >i,e.: I desire to solve the this mathematical problem. (The speaker >doesn't have a clue how to go about it yet is resolved to do it. >Saying 'I wil solve this problem', using a FUTURE imperfect would then >mean that teaker isn't entirely sure when he will succeed and maybe IF he >will succeed at all. These are good distinctions to make. However, I think rather than saying that one is near future and one far, perhaps we should say that one describes a future event about which the speaker is reasonably certain while the other describes a future event about which the speaker is mostly uncertain. >The PRESENT needs to remain very simple and direct, I think, because >Vulcan is very precise and crystal clear language. There is going to be a problem reconciling the desires for simplicity and precision, especially if simplicity is understood as "having few categories." We may have better luck if we require that the tenses and so on are simple in the sense that they are relatively unambiguous, while allowing the number of categories to to be high in order to be more precise. A ruler that is marked in millimeters is more precise than one marked only in centimeters. But if the marks are irregularly spaced or the areas they mark overlap, the ruler would be very imprecise even if it had fewer marks. Just to see what we're working with so far, here's a list of the tenses and such currently contained in the ZC, section 6,4 ----- 1. Eternal -0- (<- this is a zero) without beginning or end: "Entropy increases." or, "We could paint it red..." [?] 2. Continous -mu- (ine'pramula [?]) of undetermined beginning and end: "People speak." 3. Present Continuous -cu- (th'pracula) beginning now and of undetermined end: "I speak and may go on for some time." 4. Present Discontinuous -kse- (th'praksela) beginning now and ending soon: "I speak briefly." 5. Present Progressive -zo- (th'prazola) beginning before now and ending after now: "I am speaking." 6. Past -pe- (th'prapela) beginning and ending before now: "I spoke." 7. Future Intentional -dzha- (th'pradzhala) "I will speak." 8. Future Potential -dzhu- (th'pradzhula) "I might speak." 9. Negative -i- (th'praila) "I don't speak." ----- The names for these "tenses" are altered somewhat and the definitions are my own attempt at understading what the ZC says. If I get a chance I'll post some general definitions for the terms we may try to use to discuss this. I'll say now that "tense" is limited to past, present, and future, while things like perfect and progressive are "aspects." The distinctions made by 7,8, and 9, above, seem to deal with what's called "mood." This will be the last specifically language-oriented message I post to Vulcan-L, so the discussion can migrate to the new list. CU There! -- from Saul R. Epstein Terran, Late 20th-Early 21st Century liberty uit net www johnco cc ks us sepstein posse circumuertutus libertas satis est