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Re: TYPOLOGY: (conlangs and natlangs): "Tense-Prominent" vs "Aspect-Prominent"

From:taliesin the storyteller <taliesin-conlang@...>
Date:Wednesday, August 16, 2006, 9:12
* Eldin Raigmore said on 2006-08-16 02:05:29 +0200
> How about your conlangs? Would you say they are: > 4. Would you say they are neither very Tense-Prominent nor very Aspect- > Prominent? > 4a. Nevertheless, rather more Tense-Prominent than Aspect-Prominent?
Taruven is probably 4a. right now. Neither tense nor aspect is obligatory but since I'm used to tense-marking from my L1 I guess I mark tense more often by accident :)
> Does your conlang require that any speaker mention how he/she knows what > he/she is saying happened, but hardly ever require at that they mention > when it happened (or how often it happened, or how long it took to happen, > or whatever)?
Taruven generally only require cases on nouns, the verb-machinery is mostly pick and choose. There are both mood-markers and evidential- markers and they can be mixed and matched.
> Whatever your answers to the above questions, can you also answer this one? > Where did you get that idea to put it in your conlang?
I knew of mood and evidentials through general reading of (descriptive) linguistic works, but didn't find a space for it until I read Describing Morphosyntax by Payne.
> Is your conlang a lot like any natlang or any group of natlangs in that > way?
I don't know. I haven't consciously modelled the verb-machinery on any one system, I've just been trying to avoid certain uses of adverbs, coverbs etc. t.