Re: Future English

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.

>   if retained, the plural would be s@~z@~@
One of the allophones would be [@]?  How do you figure?

>  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.

>  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.  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.

>  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:

Mi tekim. = I take [something].
Mi tek. = I am taken.

>But I mean to be radical and I'm looking far into the future, so we'll
>all be dead before my predictions can come true---so I can always live
>safe in the knowledge that I'm not wrong yet :)
And that's the beauty of it. :)

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".

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.

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").

- Rob

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