Re: "Abilitative" aspect?

 --- Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote: > On Thu,
24 Oct 2002 09:24:43 -0400, Ian Maxwell
> <umlaut@...>
> wrote:
>
> >'Allo,
> >
> >Apparently I've been thinking about conlanging in
> my sleep, because I
> >just invented a new verb aspect. Or re-invented it,
> more likely.
> >
well, i ought to chip in on bac, as it does both the
mood thing and a rather different sort of modality (
please excuse the logic-speak term )

anyway, bac verbs have three moods : indicative,
subjunctive and optative ( terms shamelessly nicked
from ie )

-the indicative is used for relating fact
-the subjunctive is used for describing situations
that may or may not be fact
-the optative is used for describing situations which
may or may not be fact but which the speaker would
like to be fact and hopes to make become fact by their
speech action

the subjunctive and optative are usually used in
subordinate clauses of various types

all three moods can be made into imperatives ( you add
the personal suffix ), differing in levels of
politeness and force ( in bac straightforwardness is
seen as politeness, so the most polite is the
indicative |Darer gedek Ged Rap| 'shut the door'; the
subjunctive is seen as rather sarcastic |Dharer gedek
Ged Rap| 'well, you might shut the door then' ; the
optative is forceful but rather abrupt |Dnarer gedek
Ged Rap| 'i wish you'ld just shut the door' )

but finally, the subjunctive and optative can be used
in main clauses ( and by analogy with this force in
subordinate clauses ) to indicate modality. the
subjunctive indicates possibility and the optative
necessity


HOWEVER, there is another way of indicating modality
in bac. this plays on the varieties of logical
modality, so i'd better explain a couple of terms
first

i think about bac modality using the possible worlds
interpretation of modality. i won't go into too much
detail ( partly cuz i'm very rusty. i'll have to go
back and reread my lewis ) anyway, this interpretation
distinguishes the 'actual' world ( abbreviated @ )
from many 'possible' worlds. 'actual' is an indexical
term ( its meaning shifts depending where and when
it's used ) and refers to the world in which the
utterance is made. in the rest of this message you'll
have to read the words 'actual' and 'actually' in this
specialised sense. a 'possible' world, in rough terms,
is a world the actual world could have been if it
hadn't been ended up as it actually is

the theory's highest proponent is david lewis, who is
a realist about possible worlds ( he believes the
really exist . . . of course they don't _actually_
exist, but they are real entities ). bac buys this
completely

this done, i can explain the auxiliary verbs in bac (
for reference, auxiliaries are always followed by a
subordinate clause in the subjuntive )

first up is |Per|. this is usually translated 'to be',
but its meaning is in fact 'to be actual'. usually it
isn't used, but there is an idiom where it can form
positive forms of verbs ( |sot Per Ghap Ghop| 'i _do_
understand' ). it's also used when you've been talking
about possibilities &c and you want to bring the topic
back to actuality

the other four form a quartet :

|Suc| to be in no possible world
|Rap| to be in at least one possible world but not the
actual
|Gil| to be in all possible worlds
|Ter| to be in the actual world and any number (
including 0 ) of possible worlds

usage and translation depend on context, but generally
|Suc| is used for the impossible, |Rap| for the
contingent negative ( it isn't actually the case, but
it could be ), |Gil| for the necessary and |Ter| for
the contingently possible. so |sot Rap Ghaj wer| 'i
can't see you', |sot Suc Ghaj wer| 'i couldn't see you
even if you were here', 'i'm blind to you'

idiomatically the use is almost that |Suc| and |Gil|
are emphatic negative and positive , whilst |Rap| and
|Ter| are more commonplace, but the core meanings
remain present to some extent


i have a feeling i need a word for 'is not actual'
without any possible world implications, but i don't
have one yet

anyway, there you are ( and there piglet is, if a tree
doesn't fall on him )

bn

=====
bnathyuw | landan | arR
stamp the sunshine out | angelfish
your tears came like anaesthesia | phèdre

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