Re: Noun tense was Re: bac . . . some info

On Monday, July 22, 2002, at 09:14 , julien eychenne wrote:

> le lun 22-07-2002 à 08:46, Ray Brown a écrit :
>
>>>> I'm sure there is a natlang with noun tense in Campbell, but I can't
>>>> find it, and I'm beginning to suspect that I dreamt it.  Does anyone
>>>> know any examples of natlangs that mark tense on a noun?
>
>
>> I'm fairly sure they do exist, but I haven't been able to track one down
>> yet.
>> At the back of my mind is some idea that Innuit does this.  Can anyone
>> either
>> confirm this or tell me that my mind is playing tricks?
>
>
> Well... french, english !?!? In french we have |ex-femme| ("ex-wife" ?),
> |ex-président| ("ex-president" ?),
{snip}

> But I'm pretty sure that what you meant was something more systematic.
You're right.  I meant something more like this.  Supposing Latin had this
feature
(which it did not), then we might get something like this:

domus - [present] the/a house
domibas - [imperfect] a building that used to be  house but is now used
for some other purpose
domiturus - [future] a structure that will be a house
domivius - [perfect/preterite] a structure that was once a house, but is
now rubble
domiveras - [pluperfect] something that had once been a house, but has
long disappeared (tho
   archaeology might discover something about it)

[I'm assuming -s as nom. sing. endings, *domibas, domibantis [gen]   :)
]

Alas, I'll be off-line before I see any reply.  I'll be back sometime
mid-August.

ray.

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