From: Louis Newstrom (lnewstro@bellsouth.net)
Date: Fri Nov 30 2001 - 05:35:09 MST
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
> [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of G.P.
> In present day languages, having to use
> tenses forces the speaker to add some clues on whether (s)he refers to
> past, present or future circumstances. In the "posthuman languages"
> one would also be forced to add clues on the degree of reliability of
> statements.
I would disagree. In many constructed language (like Loglan/Lojban) tenses
are optional. FORCING a tense complicates a language unnecessarily. If
you don't want to specify time, you shouldn't have to. This is part of the
goal of making a language "unambiguous". You should be able to specify
exactly as much or as little as you really want to say.
I think the language would ALLOW, but not FORCE, a way to specify degrees of
reliability.
I also have heard that some Indian languages do this. (Unfortunately, the
reference was a while ago and I don't know whether they meant inhabitants of
India or North America. Another flaw in this human language I'm using.)
--- Louis Newstrom lnewstro@bellsouth.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:12:17 MST