Re: Bowtudgelean

R A Brown wrote:
> Carl Banks wrote:
>> Jeffrey Jones wrote:
>>> On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:06:11 -0400, Carl Banks
>>> <conlang@...> wrote:
> [snip]
>>
>>>> Indicated: a limiting adjective (or phrase) follows
>>>
>>> This seems to be purely a matter of morphosyntax, with no pragmatic
>>> component.
>>
>> Whatever--it's still a distinct state.  And it does imply definiteness.
>
> Dismissing Jeffrey's observation with 'whatever' does not IMO help.
I wasn't dismissing it, per se.  I just meant that whether it is a
"state" with any pragmatic component or not didn't matter since it still
had a grammatical distinction.

> He
> has not written that it's not a 'state' in your language & obviously
> adding a limiting adjective (or adjective phrase) does make the noun
> more definite.  But as far as I can understand it, Jeffrey's observation
> still holds true: "This seems to be purely a matter of morphosyntax,
> with no pragmatic component."
It does have the pragmatic component of making the noun definite.

Not every noun with a limiting adjective is in the indicated state.  The
indicated state is only used if the limiting adjective that follows is
the very thing to identifies what the thing being spoken of is.

Example:

"a man with a scar": Although "with a scar" is a limiting adjective
phrase, indefinite state would be used here.

"THAT man with a scar" (as opposed to "THIS man with a scar"): Use the
remote state, since the man's distance from the speaker is the thing
that identifies which man is being spoken of.

"the man with a scar" (when only one man in the room has a scar): Use
indicated state, because the scar is being used to identify the man
being spoken of.

So, using indicated state does two things: it make the noun definite,
and it labels the following adjective as the identifier.

Even if that doesn't satisfy some arcane interpretation of "pragmatic
component", it still gets its own state.


>>>> Past: the thing happened in the past
>>>> Future: the thing happened in the future
>>>
>>> These seem to be tenses and independent of the noun being definite.
>>
>> No, they're not tenses.  These can be compared to demonstratives in
>> time.  These states are used mostly for events.  If I were to ask you,
>> "How was the party?" I would use past state, because the thing that
>> identifies the party was that it occurred in the past.  These states
>> are often used when constrasting to the present.
>
> Sorry for appearing to be a bit simple, but if
> (a) they can be compared to demonstratives in _time_, and
> (b) the 'past state' identifies that something occurred in the past, and
No, the past state identifies a particular thing by the fact that it
occured in the past.

This is an important distinction.  Not all things that occur in the past
require past state.


> (c) these state are often used when contrasting with the present -
> how are the not tenses?
>
> Tense:
> "The grammatical category which correlates most directly with
> distinctions of time." [Trask]
Because it doesn't correlate directly with distinctions in time at all.
  Certainly it correlates much less than verb tenses, where all actions
that occur in the past require past tense.


> Another puzzling matter - Is it not possible that I may want to contrast
> something with the present _and_ also limit it by an adjective [phrase].
> If, for example, you use the 'past state' for "How was the party?", what
> stare is used for "How was the party over at Cindy's?",  as opposed to
> the party over at Fred's?
Indicated state.  In this example, the adjectival phrase is the thing
that's identifying the party being spoken of.

It's rarely a dilemma--normally one piece of information is enough to
identify the thing being spoken of.  If there are multiple ways to
identify something, pick the state that's most convenient and/or specific.

The only time I imagine a real issue is when there are multiple choices
in more than one dimension.  For example:

Cindy's party today
Cindy's party yesterday
Fred's party today
Fred's party yesterday

In that case, I imagine the speaker would switch to a more explicit
phrasing.  Indicated state would probably be used along with a time adverb.


> Just curious.
I hope I've made it clear what they do.


Carl Banks