Re: "I didn't know that..."

On Sat, 11 Mar 2006 15:13:28 -0500, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:

>Given statement X which is a true statement that continues to be true
>in the present time, what tense/mood/verb form would your lang use in
>X in the equivalent of "I didn't know X"?
>
>AFAICT, Englishhas somewhat free variation between the past and
>present indicative here, although the present is only an option when
>the statement continues to be true.  Spanish (and, I suppose, other
>romlangs) uses the present subjunctive, which seems odd since it's not
>a counterfactual statement.  I'm interested in other natlang examples
>as well as conlang ones, since I'm trying to decide how to handle this
>case...
>
>--
>Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
>=========================================================================
I don't have any examples, since I don't have the vocabulary handy, but
{'Yemls} might use the _relative_ present (possibly with habitual marking),
which indicates past time in a past time context. However, an _absolute_
habitual present might be more appropriate, since it continues to be true.
Most of my other current projects use similar semantics, I think.

Jeff