Re: Tense marked on nouns

Jim Grossmann said:
> Mark P. Line wrote:
>
> "That said, I think it's [marking tense on the noun is] an *awesome* idea
> for a conlang. It's different enough from the way natlangs work to be
> intriguing, while not so different that it would prevent usage (unlike,
> say,
> unrestricted center embedding).  Lots of natlangs have clause-level
> markers
> on nouns, after all -- but they tend to be involved with valence
> assignment
> and/or pragmatic functions that are more-or-less intimately tied up with
> the
> noun being marked."
>
> Jim G. wrote:
>
> When I read this, the first thing that came to my mind was a system in
> which
> vowel-alternation was used to mark proximate vs. remote AND past, present,
> and future.  In this nonce-language, assume that all the vowels are
> syllabic:
>
> v-dors	(dog)
>
> -a-	proximate
> -i-	remote
>
> -u-	past
> -o-	present
> -e-	future
>
> vaudors	this-dog-in-the-past
> vaodors	this-dog-in-the-present
> vaedors	this-dog-in-the-future
>
> viudors	that-dog-in-the-past
> viodors	that-dog-in-the-present
> viedors	that-dog-in-the-future
>
> Yes, I'm assuming that only nouns or pronouns would carry past, present,
> or
> future markers.
>
> I threw proximate vs. remote into the mix because, to me, it seemed
> pleasing
> and "natural" in a very broad esthetic sense to pair information about
> location in time relative to the moment of the utterance with information
> about the literal or figurative spatial relationships that the referents
> of
> the nouns have to the speaker.   I couldn't help picturing imaginary
> hillbillies saying things like "that then dog" instead of "that there
> dog."
>
> Would the foregoing illustrate tense marking on the nouns?

Glossed as you have them here, my answer would be 'no'. Tense is a way to
distinguish temporal relations at the clause level, thus distinguishing
the following:

(a) John gave yesterday's paper to the former president.
(b) John's giving yesterday's paper to the former president.
(c) John's gonna give yesterday's paper to the former president.

There are *other* temporal relations expressed in these examples (by
modifying the nouns), but they're not tense because they're not expressing
temporal relations of the event to which the clause is referring.

A language that truly marked *tense* on nouns instead of on the verb or
periphrastically in the clause would have to something like this:

(a) Djanden yestadepela pepa wantaimpela perezent gif.
(b) Djanbi yestadepela pepa wantaimpela perezent gif.
(c) Django yestadepela pepa wantaimpela perezent gif.

And even here, we only have morphological tense marking on the noun 'Djan'
if the attached morphemes '-den', '-bi' and '-go' really are *affixes* and
not clitics.


-- Mark

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