Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

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

From:Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Tuesday, July 23, 2002, 6:45
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.

Reply

julien eychenne <eychenne.j@...>