Re: How to do "But/However"

* Eldin Raigmore said on 2006-03-15 23:17:41 +0100
> On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 15:04:59 +0100, taliesin the storyteller <taliesin-
> conlang@NVG.ORG> wrote:
> > In all the Indo-European languages I've had a look at, "but/however"
> > are standalone words. In logic/semantics, "but" is considered yet
> > another "and". The difference in using "but" instead of "and" is
> > that the "but" says that something else was expected than what
> > actually happened.
> >
> > a) X and Y.
> > b) X, expected Y but got Z.
> >
> > I thought of using "and" as usual with the second clause (the Z)
> > marked with the counterfactual, but :) that seems wrong somehow.
>
> May I suggest this is a job for the Mirative?
>
> Much like your thought, mark the second clause (the Z), but, since it is
> factual rather than counterfactual, instead of marking it Irrealis, mark
> it "Mirative" -- meaning approximately "the speaker still wonders at it",
> more precisely "the speaker still has not incorporated it into his/her
> worldview".
>
> So, if you expect X and Y, but get X and Z, you'd say, in effect:
> "X and Z-MIR".
Yes this does seem the most Taruvenian solution. X and Z-unexpected.
This of course raises the question of what other affixes/clitics can
share the position of "-unexpected", is it a mood, aspect, tense,
evidential-source marker or evidential-certainty marker? (Which reminds
me, I think I've forgotten to tell that the page on verbs is (finally!
The first version of it was made in 1997!) up:
<http://taliesin.nvg.org/taruven/topic.html>)

I suspect it's in its own category together with other markers for how
the narrator sees the situation (together with unfortunately, hopefully,
luckily etc.). I've seen a term for such a category somewhere but as
usual I can't remember where, or what it was...


t.