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Re: My Grammatical Sketch (again!)

From:Grandsire, C.A. <grandsir@...>
Date:Thursday, October 21, 1999, 8:39
Daniel Andreasson wrote:
> > Christophe skrev: > > > Well, I'm not sure about an interrogative mood, but what I can say is > > that the Romance grammatical tradition considers infinitives and > > participles to be impersonal moods, whereas indicative, subjunctive and > > imperative are personal moods (and if you have an imperative mood, why > > not an interrogative one?). > > Yes. That is most likely the most important question in conlanging: > 'Why not?' I like moods, the more the merrier I think. >
In fact, I saw last week a webpage about a natlang with an interrogative mood. But I don't remember which one. I hope I put it in my bookmarks... [snip of interesting stuff (or shit? :) )]
> > That is, I mark the arguments both on the verb (with an accusative system) > and on the NPs themselves (with an ergative/'active' system). Somewhat > unusual I guess, but why not? I like it. Redundancy rules! > What do you think?
I love redundancy rules! Chasma"o"cho is full of them. I don't understand why I spent so many time creating languages not redundant... :)
> And just to make it clear. I'm not criticizing Austin in any way. > I was just curious about some moods I hadn't heard of before. >
I didn't take it as a criticism. What strikes me is that the English tradition doesn't consider the infinitive as a mood. Strange that grammatical traditions can differ for such basic things in two different but related Indo-European languages.
> ---------------------------------------------------------- > Daniel Andreasson | daniel@conlang.nu | http://conlang.nu > "Mmm... free goo..." - Homer Simpson > ----------------------------------------------------------
-- Christophe Grandsire Philips Research Laboratories -- Building WB 145 Prof. Holstlaan 4 5656 AA Eindhoven The Netherlands Phone: +31-40-27-45006 E-mail: grandsir@natlab.research.philips.com