Re: Future English

It seems my earlier reply didn't get through...

On 8 Feb 2005, at 10.05 am, Rob Haden wrote:

> On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 00:37:22 +1100, Tristan McLeay
> <conlang@...> wrote:
>
>> It looks very Germanised. I don't expect English to develop in that
>> manner, unless the Germans take over the world. It also has absolutely
>> no change to the grammar, but the changes in grammar will be the most
>> interesting aspect. How will the clitics develop? Will we see some
>> reanalysed into case markers? Will they become verbal prefixes? I
>> propose, distant enough in the future, that:
>>
>>  s~z~@z will be reanalysed as, ironically, a singular subject marker
>> (from 'is', 'has')
>
> I think it may be more likely that the |-s| marker will develop into a
> marker of plural subject, due to its phonological syncretism with the
> nominal plural |-s|.  However, there may also be a new plural marker
> for
> nouns.
Well, we get by often enough using s~z~@z after a singular element as
it is...

>
>>   if retained, the plural would be s@~z@~@
>
> One of the allophones would be [@]?  How do you figure?
z@z@, s@z@ > z@, s@
houses're h&Oz@z@ > h&Oz@
boxes're bOks@z@ > bOks@

(ignoring other changes in pronunciation)

>>  the distinction between him ('im) and them ('em) will finally
>> collapse, perhaps taking with it the entire pronominal gender system
>> (a
>> regular plural is easily created with the current s~z~@z, as in
>> 'youse').
>
> I think it likely that that pronoun will become a postclitic verbal
> marker
> for transitivity.
I think it sensible to avoid the word 'likely'.

>>  the derivative of 'us' or 'to us' will develop into a 1sg dative,
>> perhaps eventually objective---with 'me' replacing 'I' in the
>> subjective.
>
> I don't see how that could happen in the forseeable future.
Oh, for the derivative of 'us' or 'to us' to become singular dative,
all it needs is for informal speech to become standard. A feature of
informal British and Australian English is and has been for some time
to use 'us'/'to us' to mean 'me'/'to me'. (Reports on the web suggest
it's more common in some British variants than it is in my Australian
variant, but it's common enough here too.)

> Rather, it
> seems more likely that oblique forms will be constructed similar to
> Hebrew
> and Arabic: t'mi for "to me", n'yu for "and you", etc.  Compare Hebrew
> l'chaym "to life", etc.
Which differs from one current option only in orthography.

>
>>  perhaps a distinction between active and stative verbs deriving from
>> the simple present and the present progressive.
>
> It seems more likely that there will be a suffix -im or -em that
> denotes
> transitive or active verbs.  The lack thereof, then, would indicate
> intransitive or stative verbs.  For example:
Well transitive and active aren't exactly similar, nor are intransitive
and stative. I

>
> Mi tekim. = I take [something].
> Mi tek. = I am taken.
That second one (the English translation at least) is just

BTW---I see no reason why English of the 24th Century should be any
more likely to have had its orthography changed than English of the
21st. Some words might change spelling in minor ways, but I wouldn't
expect anything radical---maybe just more things like 'gonna' or
'wanna' will become more standard (and others unthought of as things
become grammaticalised and reduced), or as <miniture> from <minuture>,
unstressed syllables might change. I thus suggest:

Me take 'em.
Me take.

If you feel so inclined, you can suggest the IPA pronunciation: /mi
"tekIm/, you seem to imply.

> Other possibilities:
>
> 1. A contrast between alienable and inalienable possession.  The
> former is
> expressed by the verb _on_ "own", e.g. ket mion "my cat", while the
> latter
> is expressed by the preposition _o_ "of", e.g. hed omi "my head".
I was never trying to suggest things that don't already have some
indication of where it's coming from in current English... I can say
'my own head' just as easily as I can say 'my own cat'.

> 2. Complete obliteration of the fossilized ablaut verb forms (e.g.
> sing ~
> sang ~ sung) and also the currently productive past-tense formation in
> -
> ed.  The new verb system would have mostly prefixing TMA markers.
I doubt it'll be *completely* obliterated. Lexical words, yeah, but
grammaticalised words I think will retain it for a while.

> 3. Possibly a new animate/inanimate grammatical gender distinction
> expressed by different verbal markers.  For example, an animate direct
> object would be marked by the suffix -im on the verb, while an
> inanimate
> direct object would be marked by the suffix -it (or perhaps -o, from
> "her").
I'm sure all the women will enjoy being turned into inanimates. While
similar things have happened in other languages, normally there's
already no relationship between masculine and feminine and male and
female, whereas in English, the relationship is incredibly strong.

Leaving that aside, I don't see it happening anyway, at least, there's
no indication of it happening already... Perhaps a French-style 'Me, I
went to the park', or 'Jack and Fred, they went outside' (which happen
sometimes in English, but not religiously yet), but that's the closest
in the current system I can get to any sign of nominal indication via
inflexion on the verb.

--
Tristan.