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Re: Evidentials for a future English

From:Sally Caves <scaves@...>
Date:Thursday, October 21, 2004, 4:36
I'm so glad you brought this up, Estel.  I logged on for this purpose in
particular: a colleague of mine is very interested in researching conlangs
that deal with "future English."  Are you the only one doing this, or are
there others?  In imagining a future English, what besides pronunciation
would change?  Does a future English conlang anticipate future technology?
Enhancements to the future body?  A "post-human/cyborgian" culture?  How
really future are you willing to go?  I imagine she has already checked out
_A Clockwork Orange_.

Sally


----- Original Message -----
From: "Estel Telcontar" <estel_telcontar@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 4:16 PM
Subject: Evidentials for a future English


> I'm trying to think how a future English could develop evidentials. > > So far, all I've thought of is that "apparently" could be grammaticised > into a sort of hearsay particle, marking information the speaker has > only heard or read. > > A few questions: > > . What do you think would be a plausible reduced form of "apparently"? > The best I've thought of so far is /'perli/, derived by a sequence > something like /@'per@ntli/ > /'per@ntli/ > /perntli/ > /pertli/ > > /perli/. Does this seem at all plausible? Any other suggestions? > > . Where would it be likely to appear in the sentence? > A few possibilities: > Sentence-initial: perly hy sed that... > Second position: hy perly sed that... > After the verb: hy sed perly that... > > . Anyone have any creative ideas for other evidentials and their > sources? > > -Estel >