Re: How to do "But/However"

[Replies to two messages.]
On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 12:03:12 +0100, taliesin the storyteller <taliesin-
conlang@...> wrote:
>* 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:
[snip]
>>>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?
>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...
I'd say you're right, IMHO.  Also, I do not remember having ever seen that
larger category called anything but "mood" or "mode" or "modality",
although not everyone defines these the same way, so for some "speaker's
attitude" is part of the three M's and for others it isn't.

Apparently writers who discuss both mirativity and evidentiality usually
treat them together or one after the other.  When they discuss them with
other things as well, they usually discuss them immediately after modality,
modes, and moods.

If you adopt the common definition of a mood as "the speaker's attitude
toward the truth of his/her remark", mirativity is clearly a mood.  If you
adopt Joan Bybee's definition of a mood as "a marker of how the speaker
intends the sentence to be incorporated into the discourse", I suppose
neither evidentiality nor mirativity are moods.

Some writers distinguish a category which tells "what the speaker expects
the addressee to do with the remark" (and I think this might be what Bybee
meant by her definition of "mood").  Should the addressee believe it, doubt
it, entertain it as a possibility or working-hypothesis, act on it, answer
it?  Whatever this category is called, it seems to include "illocutionary
force" (possible values of which include "imperative" and "interrogative");
but apparently also includes alethic and epistemic modes or modalities, as
they are often defined. (It also seems to include deontic modality.)

Mirativity apparently wouldn't fit into that category, whatever it's called.

I think evidentiality and data-source could be considered a piece of
epistemic modality, though apparently it usually isn't so considered.
Epistemology asks and tries to answer the question "How can you know for
sure?".  Epistemic modality is usually thought of as answering the question
"Just how sure are you, anyway?".  Evidentials, or data-source, answers
the "How did you find out?" question; evidentiality is really closer to an
encoding of epistemology, than "epistemic modality" is.


>(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>)
Looks good.

>t.
>=========================================================================
On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 08:09:53 +0000, R A Brown <ray@...>
wrote:
>Eldin Raigmore wrote:
>>On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 15:04:59 +0100, taliesin the storyteller <taliesin-
>>conlang@NVG.ORG> wrote:
>[snip]
>>>3. Searching for but/however is rather pointless, so is there a
>>>good linguistic term?
>>Well, the Latin for "but" is "sed"; [snip]
>They were known as _adversatives_ (or, more fully, 'adversative
>conjunctions') when I was at school. Even now, 50 years later, I find in
>the on-line Merriam-Webster:
>the _adversative_ conjunction _but_
I was just going to say so, but I see Ray beat me to it.
In
http://www.mpi.nl/world/E-Nusantara/CI_keo.doc
Louise Baird quotes
"John Payne [Payne, J, 1985 #155:6-8]",
(a reference I have yet to identify), as follows.
"bhodo – ‘but’

The word bhodo has three functions: 1) a word meaning “empty; nothing;
only,” 2) used as a discourse connector and 3) used as an adversative
clausal conjunction.

John Payne [Payne, J, 1985 #155:6-8] identifies three varieties of
adversatives: semantic opposition, denial of expectation, and preventative.
Denial of expectation adversatives imply “...given A, it might be expected
that not B, nevertheless B holds” [Payne, J, 1985 #155:7].  All of the
instances of bhodo in my data have a denial of expectation meaning.
Sometimes it is used between clauses within the one sentence, and at other
times bhodo is used to start a new sentence.  When bhodo is used to join
two clauses within one sentence there is a slight, unfinished, intonation
on the first clause and falling intonation at the end of the second
clause.

25) Kursus bordier mo’o wuda tedu wi’e, bhodo ke
course embroidery going to month three only but that

tungga dera rua wuda rua.
enough day two month two

The embroidery course was going to be just three months, but two days a
week for two months was enough.
Bk4:057-078

"


>
>Also "sed" is only one of _eight_ Latin words for 'but' (unless _uerum_
>& _uero_ are considered variants of the same word, then we have only
>seven adversatives):
>(a) Conjunctions that are placed first in clause
>SED
[snip]
>AT
[snip]
>ATQUI
[snip]
>CETERVM
[snip]
>(b) Usually placed second in clause, but sometimes placed first.
>TAMEN
[snip]
>(c) Conjunctions that are placed second in clause
>AVTEM
[snip]
>VERVM
[snip]
>VERO
>--
>Ray
Which of Latin's words most closely corresponds to Keo's "bhodo"?

Thanks, Ray.

>=========================================================================
eldin