Re: time distinctions
| From: | Jonathan Chang <zhang2323@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, August 27, 2000, 21:12 |
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In a message dated 2000:08:27 1:49:26 PM, fortytwo@GDN.NET writes:
>The Gray Wizard wrote:
>> While I am aware that some Bantu languages do make these kinds of degree
>of
>> remoteness distinctions, I was not aware of any one language that made
>all
>> of these. Is such a language attested? Which one?
>
>After searching long and hard for the source (an linguistics textbook),
>I found it, the language is called ChiBemba:
>Remote Past (before yesterday)
>Removed Past (yesterday)
>Near Past (earlier today)
>Immediate Past (just happened)
>Immediate Future (very soon)
>Near Future (later today)
>Removed Future (tomorrow)
>Remote Future (after tomorrow)
>
>No present is listed. Perhaps that's because present is marked by no
>prefix?
probably.
Wish there were samples of this language ChiBemba.... be neat to see how
it works/looks...
BTW in ASL (American Sign Language) I think there is:
- past
- near past
- present
- near future
- future
obconlang: would a similar system of temporal particles/adverbs work in a
pidgin/creole? I wondering if it could... might use either a ChiBemba like
system or sign-language one in my "expanded pidgin" Lingua Fracta.
czHANg
"It would be ironic if the answer to Babel
were pidgin and not Pentecost."
- George Steiner, _After Babel:
Aspects of Language & Translation_