----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Bleackley" <Peter.Bleackley@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 9:50 AM
Subject: Re: Back to the Future (was: I'm back, sort of)
> Staving Ray Brown:
> >On Tuesday, September 23, 2003, at 06:47 , Joe wrote:
> >
> >[snip]
> >>'Future English' is everywhere. I know future English will be at least
a
> >>slightly synthetic language, with forms for at least negatives ( I
dunno,
> >> I
> >>ain't).
> >
> >Future?
> >
> >"ain't" had been the mark of upper class aristo English for a few
> >centuries;
> >it retreated among "the lower orders" because of the pretensions of the
> >19th century bourgeoisie, but never disappeared. Indeed, in rural
dialects
> >of england it remained and, in the south at least, was (and probably
still
> >is)
> >pronounced /Ent/ - a fact Tolkien used in tLotR in Treebeard's pun:
> >"..there are Ents and things that look like Ents but ain't, as you might
> >say."
> >
> >Sorry, "ain't" ain't future English - 'tis centuries old.
> >
> >Dunno how old "dunno" is, but it was certainly already in common currency
> >this side of the Pond 50 years ago or more.
> >
>
> Future English will have a nominative case of nouns and pronouns which is
> marked for tense.
Couldn't you just call English a pro-drop language, then?
> Pete
>