Re: time distinctions

Hi, all,

I don't know about natlangs, but there's no reason why a conlang couldn't
scrap imperatives.   Future tense declaratives could be interpreted as
predictions or commands according to context or sentence intonation.   Ditto
for questions about the listener's future actions.

In fact, I've heard "You will sit down and be quiet," in English used as a
command.

Jim




----- Original Message -----
From: "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2000 7:35 PM
Subject: Re: time distinctions


> On Wed, Aug 23, 2000 at 06:03:21PM -0400, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> [snip]
> > I've got indicative and imperative.  Optative will probably some other c
> > construction.  You'd use the "probable" (an aspect?  though my wretched
> > Japanese grammar calls it a "mood") for the subjunctive.
>
> Subjunctive is a mood, not an aspect. As least in classical Greek ...
> don't take my word for it though. I'm not a "real" linguist :-)
>
> But on this note... I wonder if it's actually possible to have a language
> *without* imperatives? I'm working on verbs in my conlang right now, and
> I'm thinking of possibly throwing out imperatives. Anybody here knows if
> any conlang or natlang that doesn't have an imperative, and how they form
> imperative statements without them?
>
>
> T
>